Ars Technica guide to mechanical keyboards

Re:Ars Technica guide to mechanical keyboards by ashton314 on Saturday December 28, 2024 @03:01PM (#42534060)

The most important thing to look for (imo) is programmability. You want a board that supports QMK or ZMK firmware. This lets you set up stuff like mod-tap, macros, mouse keys, etc. Mod tap is my favorite thing ergonomics-wise: v and m act as shift when held, normal letters when tapped. Really takes the strain off my pinkies. I also like having a navigation layer: hjkl in this layer act like vim-layout arrow keys.

I use a ZSA Moonlander. Best investment ever.

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Re:Ars Technica guide to mechanical keyboards by mikae1 on Saturday December 28, 2024 @04:04PM (#42534721)

> The most important thing to look for (imo) is programmability.

This. In Plasma I swap some keys, but when I switch to TTY the keys are not swapped. Frustrating. This should clearly be done at hardware/firmware level.

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Re:Ars Technica guide to mechanical keyboards by wongogue on Saturday December 28, 2024 @05:08PM (#42535227)

Have you tried Kmonad?

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Re:Ars Technica guide to mechanical keyboards by KetoManx64 on Sunday December 29, 2024 @02:13AM (#42538276)

Check out keymapper, it let's you rebind keys and intercepts keystrokes before the application receives them: https://github.com/houmain/keymapper

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Re:Ars Technica guide to mechanical keyboards by Klathmon on Sunday December 29, 2024 @10:20AM (#42540437)

As someone who switches between macos and windows on a daily basis, custom keyboard firmware has been such a game changer!

QMK can auto detect the OS and can easily remap some keys based on it, and since it's baked in the firmware it'll work with any program on any machine I plug it into!

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Re:Ars Technica guide to mechanical keyboards by eviks on Saturday December 28, 2024 @11:42PM (#42537585)

I think physical ergonomics is still way more important (so staggered splits with thumb cluster or even gloves)

So even with bad firmware you could move shift to a thumb key, which is better than V

But even with all the programmability you wouldn't be able to overcome the rsi-inducing design of the regular block when typing regular letters

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Re:Ars Technica guide to mechanical keyboards by XorNot on Sunday December 29, 2024 @03:04AM (#42538439)

The Logitech K740 is hands down my favourite keyboard ever, but it's out of production.

The problem is the replacement is wireless and much thicker to accommodate that.

I tried the Logitech G915 but I like a full-size keyboard, they put the stupid "G" keys on it and it completely ruins the ergonomics for me.

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Re:Ars Technica guide to mechanical keyboards by throwup238 on Sunday December 29, 2024 @03:44PM (#42542902)

I hate the G915. I didn’t realize it before I bought one but my left hand indexes off of left CTRL and that extra column of G keys destroys my ability to use the keyboard because I’m always one column off.

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Re:Ars Technica guide to mechanical keyboards by XorNot on Monday December 30, 2024 @05:25AM (#42548094)

Same although for me it's just stress - I manage the keyboard position with my pink along that edge, but the G keys mean I have to hover it instead. The slight posture change got pretty painful pretty quickly.

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Re:Ars Technica guide to mechanical keyboards by notimpotent on Monday December 30, 2024 @11:10AM (#42550570)

I recently picked up the G915 and share the same frustrations. And it's too bad too because the keyboard itself is the best-feeling, lowest wrong-key-pressed keyboard I've ever used.

I'm desperately looking for the same keyboard without the G keys.

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Re:Ars Technica guide to mechanical keyboards by tuffff on Sunday December 29, 2024 @05:07AM (#42538987)

Oh hi, another Moonlander connoisseur!

I love mine. The layout, the adjustments, the thumb cluster, the firmware. I put the navigation onto asdf to have a numblock-layer under my right hand.

Only negative is my cat managed to break the rather flimsy plastic around the thumb cluster screw and I had to lay it flat until I put something more solid under it to stabilize.

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Re:Ars Technica guide to mechanical keyboards by jwr on Sunday December 29, 2024 @05:13AM (#42539003)

Another good option is one of the UHK (Ultimate Hacking Keyboard) keyboards — I've been using them for years now and I'm very happy with them. The huge customizability is a big plus for me, especially as I use multiple operating systems: the ability to quickly switch the keyboard to generate Linux-friendly sequences (for things such as moving windows or switching between workspaces) makes life much easier.

https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.com

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Re:Ars Technica guide to mechanical keyboards by Findecanor on Sunday December 29, 2024 @06:38AM (#42539334)

In addition, get QMK with Via[0] or Vial[1] support compiled in! Then you could edit the keyboard configuration in a web browser (that supports WebUSB and WebAssembly), and you don't have to compile and flash the firmware every time you want to make a change.

0: https://www.caniusevia.com/

1: https://get.vial.today/

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Re:Ars Technica guide to mechanical keyboards by yosef123 on Sunday December 29, 2024 @11:06AM (#42540759)

That is true, however, one thing to keep in mind, is that these tools like Via / Vial, will always be limited compared to a fully fledged programming language like C with and its QMK framework. Something that I only realized after the fact.

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Re:Ars Technica guide to mechanical keyboards by onemoresoop on Sunday December 29, 2024 @11:02AM (#42540715)

The moonlander looks a bit intimidating. How long did it take to transition from a standard kb?

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Re:Ars Technica guide to mechanical keyboards by sbrother on Sunday December 29, 2024 @01:16PM (#42541686)

I'm sure plenty of people had no trouble -- but personally I bought one after a shoulder surgery hoping I could use it to type without having to move my hands together, and I failed to ever get to the point where I could comfortably type with it. After trying for a couple weeks, I bought a Keychron Q11 QMK -- this is also split but with an otherwise standard layout -- and had no issues learning it. I actually still use it on my primary workstation even though I can physically use a normal keyboard.

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Re:Ars Technica guide to mechanical keyboards by onemoresoop on Sunday December 29, 2024 @02:19PM (#42542183)

Yeah, staggered rows of keys is what my muscle memory knows and whay I wouldn’t mess with it. Maybe for new generations who don’t want to wear our baggage but are these standardized yet?

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Re:Ars Technica guide to mechanical keyboards by FireSquid2006 on Sunday December 29, 2024 @08:05PM (#42545296)

Took me 2 days or so

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Re:Ars Technica guide to mechanical keyboards by paulis on Sunday December 29, 2024 @10:23PM (#42546134)

A week or so. I regularly use normal keyboards and moonlander and I struggled with it. Too difficult to go back and forth throughout the day. Use a laptop regularly as well. Love the programability of moonlander but not worth it for me since I still need to use regular keyboards on a frequent basis. Wish they paired their software with a normal keyboard layout. Went back to regular qmk mechanical keyboards.

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Re:Ars Technica guide to mechanical keyboards by LorenzoGood on Monday December 30, 2024 @03:13PM (#42552987)

Do you have qmk on the moonlander?

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Re:Ars Technica guide to mechanical keyboards by marcogarces on Monday December 30, 2024 @03:55PM (#42553400)

I recently received me Moonlander; not only it's an amazing keyboard, but the customisation is beyond good; i'm still getting used to it, so my typing is slow, but i'll get there. And the team behind it is just out of this world, helping you in every step or question you have. This is a hardware company done right

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