this post was submitted on 15 May 2025
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ErgoMechKeyboards

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Ergonomic, split and other weird keyboards

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Keep it ergo

Posts must be of/about keyboards that have a clear delineation between the left and right halves of the keyboard, column stagger, or both. This includes one-handed (one half doesn't exist, what clearer delineation is that!?)

i.e. no regular non-split¹ row-stagger and no non-split¹ ortholinear²

¹ split meaning a separation of the halves, whether fixed in place or entirely separate, both are fine.
² ortholinear meaning keys layed out in a grid

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A while ago, I bought a pre-built Totem and just enough switches. I could never get used to the large stagger and the splay.

When I saw a relatively cheap wireless Corne on Aliexpress, I thought I'd have another try at a low profile keyboard. I didn't think of checking how many switches I had. Well, I'm two short! Damn.

Otherwise, the keeb uses ZMK and it took me a minute to flash it with my config.

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[–] StefanT@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (7 children)

My work keyboard is almost like yours but without the 6th column on each side. Still fine to use if you use a proper key mapping. Mine is https://github.com/manna-harbour/miryoku

[–] sxan@midwest.social 1 points 1 month ago (6 children)

I just wrote an opinionated blog entry about my experience with Miryoku. To each their own, and if you're happy with it that's fantastic. My experience was not that great.

[–] RedSideOfTheMoon@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Miryoku is worth looking at for layout ideas. But using it as-is of a non starter for me.

I'm still slowly making changes to my layout. It has some features that you say you don't like in your blog (numpad on the left) but it works for me.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I mean, lefties exist. It's fine if they want to have left-dominant. And if fast 10-key numeric entry isn't important and you're a rightie, then that's fine too. It's just, in both cases, the exception rather than the rule.

I really liked the layer switching on the thumbs; the problem, as I mentioned, is that if you're not ambi and you have a low key count board, a lot of common stuff is going to be in layers, and preferably under your dominant hand, and that really only comfortably lets you use three layers (under your non-dominant thumbs), and it's just not enough.

But TLDR on my blog, the real killer of Miryoku for me was having the modifier keys (M/A/C/S) under alphabet keys. There's simply no way to time that s.t. it's not either causing false mods or slowing your typing down. I really can only see Shift being under a letter key not doing either if you're not a fast typist. Nobody types perfectly consistently. Maybe MAC alone works, with a long enough activation delay; those aren't used in speed typing. But shift has to be its own key, or shared with something uncommon, like brace/bracket or some other uncommon punctuation.

[–] velociroger@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

If you're having trouble with homerow mods, I recommend trying Urob's timeless homerow mods. I had issues with the default implementation of ZMKs homerow mods until I started using urob's config

[–] sxan@midwest.social 2 points 1 month ago

Thanks! I'll check out out.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 2 points 1 month ago

Holy crap. I looked at that and it's brilliant. Now I just have to try it.

Normally, I flash with qmk-vial and then load my Vial config. I've had the kb for a year and a half, and I still tweak the layout, and Vial is peerless for that.

I'll figure it out.

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