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Comment by colordrops | Hacker News Reader

What are these used for exactly? They seem like they'd slow you down as opposed to just using a regular keyboard with software macros or a fancy keyboard with macro support.

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Controlling scenes while live streaming (e.g. live / "AFK" / switch to "I'm dead" mode during multiplayer live stream / ...) is the most common use case for this type of keyboard I'm aware of. It's much less error prone than pressing a shortcut since it's a single button press. One of the most common commercial product for this particular use case is Elgato Stream Deck.

The biggest use I've seen is four-key and awkward three-key shortcuts in software where one hand is occupied with another device (generally a digitizer stylus, but it could be any controller or mouse). A macro keypad can be extremely handy when editing photos, for instance. Not everything one does with a computer can be done effectively with two hands on the keyboard.

I have one I built[1] out of a key switch tester and other spare parts. It saves me some awkward hand flexing and key stroke positions to reduce the chance of a repetitive stress injury.

[1] https://twitter.com/Azxiana/status/1285402557846781952/photo...

I'm considering building one of these.

I optimize my keyboard to programming. I already have a second layer for programming specific functions. I could add a third, but it's more mental load. It's not worth it.

Things that I'd put onto this:

* Mute/Unmute for Zoom * Screenshot key * Bind to a few key apps so I can switch between them quickly * Media and volume keys (so I can use a smaller keyboard, but have these within react) * A few emojis just for fun. * I'd likely have a toggle so it could serve as a num pad

what programming specific macros do you use?

I removed caps lock and changed it to a layer modifier. Then I mapped symbols and arrows to the home row on the second layer (in fact, numbers too).
caps + a => !, caps + s => @, etc. Brackets and underscores are extremely convenient to have on the home row. I also have these mapped to convenient positions "=>" and "() => {}"
Finally, I have arrows mapped to u, i, o, and p. Really, really nice for hopping one or two characters without having to shift my hands too far.

Having your ten most important keystrokes right next to each other with a cute icon, especially useful if the actual hotkey involves a couple of meta keys, or if you have multi-key sequences you regularly need to hit.
Working in situations where a full keyboard doesn’t work, I did this with a remapped numpad when I was playing with using a Surface to let me get art done in Illustrator on the bus.

Any time you want some specific even with very high accuracy. Shortcut combos don't always work/trigger at the right time/in the right focus context. Or if you have a QMK with altogether too many virtual keys - I have like 60 x 7 layers = 420 possible two-thumb-one-finger events, I don't use them all but I still lose track. I'm thinking of building one of these for things like "jump focus to chat window and mute".
Also it saddens me we have a speaker mute keycode but no system-wide mute mic.

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