My perfect keyboard would be something like a 150% with standard full layout but then adding in a bunch of programmable macro keys, I want more than F12! I want F1 through F36. Also a built in coffee grinder, water heater, and there should be a fan under the keys to keep my hands cool. Okay, ignore those last three.
Really though, to me the problem with full-size keyboards isn’t the number of keys but their positioning. The traditional full sized layout was designed prior to mice being common, which immediately becomes evident when you try to center the alpha cluster of such boards with how doing so pushes the mousing area uncomfortably far off to the right. So-called “southpaw” boards fix this by putting the home/end/arrows column and numpad on the left side of the board instead, but sadly this layout hasn’t broken into the mainstream and is only available in comparatively expensive small-batch enthusiast boards.
This is why for now I use 60%/65%/75% with a separate numpad on the left, which largely replicates the advantages of a southpaw board with added flexibility (the numpad can be put away when not needed).
(Yeah, the escape key was taken out as well at first, but then it was brought back, and people still were quite hateful toward the touch bar after that.)
- It couldn’t be used without being looked at, due to it having no physical keys
- It was always kind of hacky, being essentially a long thin Apple Watch (down to running a watchOS variant) that would occasionally freeze up
I think it would’ve been better received had it been composed of Stream Deck-like display keys powered by macOS itself which would’ve brought much of the dynamicism of the touch bar while also keeping tactile feedback and eschewing bolted-on watchOS-variant bugginess.
Mind you, a majority of the useful "things the touchbar can change into" involved non key-shaped interaction surfaces. The volume and brightness sliders; the iMovie/FCP video scrubber; the keyboard autocomplete suggestions; etc.
The only way this would have worked is if arbitrary regions could have been dynamically raised/tactile-ized to match the interaction elements being shown.
That said, a touchscreen with software-positioned raised areas would be very neat, if it existed.
From 10,000 feet up, all we really need are some mechanical actuators to allow it to be segmented in a way that can be felt.
(Or. Electromagnets, and ferrofluid. Under the display.)
Your full size keyboard is an ergonomic prison.
2. If I did, I would've either remap it or create a layer to make pressing it easy.
My Caps Lock key is a Control/Escape key (when tapped it behave like a Escape, when hold it's Control), and my left Control is a one shot layer switch key [1], which means I tap LCtrl once, and then press Caps Lock + 5 to get Ctrl+F5. Doable with single hand and more ergonomic as I have an unusually small hand.
[1] https://github.com/qmk/qmk_firmware/blob/master/docs/one_sho...
I developed tendonitis on my right elbow because of this. I fixed it by moving the mouse to the left. It took a few months to get used to it, but now my brain doesn't recognize the difference anymore.
I.e. https://www.logitechg.com/en-us/products/gaming-mice/pro-x-s...
You can also combine this one with the charging pad to get a wireless mouse that you never have to charge
It was a pretty normal 101-key layout, with mechanical clicky-switches[1]. Except, in place of the inverted T arrows was a small-ish Glidepoint. The three buttons for the touch pad were near the front edge of the keyboard, on the far left -- near Ctrl and Alt.
It lived clamped into an example of one of the old-school sliding, articulated, heavy steel keyboard-holder-widgets under my desk, and I almost never saw it.
Instead, I'd be typing and using GUIs with my desk completely free of input devices and ready for every other manner of thing that desks are useful for, with my hands under my desk just above my lap. My right hand barely had to move to reach for the pointer (I even got good at using it with my pinky finker), and it felt completely natural to use my left hand for the pointer-buttons (rather than the hateful contortions required by more-modern touchpad implementations).
It was very, very quick to use in those fairly early days of useful GUIs on desktop PCs, and the lack of inverted-T arrow keys was never problematic for me at all since I grew up with a near-clone of the IBM Model F's layout -- the Chicony KB-5160.
And man, that arrangement sure was comfortable.
[0]: I cannot find a photo of of the old Glidepoint Keyboard, and I strongly suspect that very few of these were ever made. I did find a review, though: https://www.chicagotribune.com/1995/09/08/cirque-glidepoint-...
[1]: I do not know who made the switches. Sorry, mech keyboard fans.
There are a bunch of keyboards with this functionality. I personally use a Dygma Raise.
My poor memory is my unique problem. Layering won't help. Having dedicated keys that I can see, though, helps me remember what those do. As someone else suggested, I can put custom labels on the extra keys.
Yeah it took me a while to get used to my layers, but now it's all muscle memory and I don't even remember which key does what.
Yes, for such shortcuts that I use frequently I can create special custom keys in layers, but when using new apps or particularly complicated apps with lots of hotkeys (IntelliJ) that doesn't scale.
(Hard, because usually the layers are implemented inside the keyboard's firmware, rather than being processed by the OS. Maybe the foot-pedal would need to plug into the keyboard.)
I got a dell media keyboard I bought at Goodwill. No lie it has a lot of pointless keys dating back to the dinosaurs and comes with extra skin cells. You can tap Scroll Lock until ya ded.
If you just want a keyboard without a numpad, it is called TenKeyLess (TKL) or 80%.
For me, it matters. I use the home cluster a lot, including the insert key (for copy and pasting), and because I use many different keyboards (for work, etc...), muscle memory is important, and full size is the most common. So when using a compact keyboard, I like having the keys in the same place more than saving 2 columns.
But to each his own, especially with keyboards.
I have a TKL on my PC and other than Insert (which I can't remember ever pressing on purpose in the last 15 years) the only other keys a 75% is missing are the cluster with print screen/scroll lock/break.
I'd be annoyed by a 75% if I used Insert for copy/paste etc and switched keyboards all the time, but I'm mostly on Mac so I'm used to Cmd+arrows instead of Home/End and Cmd+C/X/V. But it does have the extra strip on the right for some of those keys I do use, like Del. And now I can now hit every key on the board without really moving my hands much, including those that are normally on the Home cluster.
I could even do with a 65% but I don't want to have to switch layers to hit Esc, and actually do use the function keys for an IDE.
I was finding I was getting elbow pain by having to cock my arm a bit to use my mouse.
Since you use CTRL and SHIFT without problem, basically just imagine having a few more modifier keys. That's all.
Really?! I spend so much time on my macbook for work using the trackpad as my primary mouse and it feels horrible for my arms. I could understand t improving APM but on my personal computer I really like having things spread out, it allows me to flex my arms a lot more.
Your ability to vary position is important to staying healthy. More workspace can help with that.
You can image search "csgo pro player" to get some idea, they're mostly positioned to be ready to flick their arm when they have to aim.
Though I'll admit that I often turn my keyboard slightly when gaming despite not playing FPS, just for comfort.
That and I prefer the modifier key approach, you move and contort your hands less. Faster and more ergonomic.
i have a full size keyboard but it takes up so much desk space I don't use it.
Why couldn't I use a larger keyboard then? I could, and that's how I started, but having unused keys is just a waste and occupies precious table space.
Of course, they're much easier to travel with too (although I haven't done that yet).
I only swap it out now if I want to do things in Blender, because that's very keyboard-heavy in a way that really assumes all the keys are laid out in front of you, including the keypad.
For example, on my keyboard I have no dedicated cursor-keys, but they are mapped to hjkl and wasd with a thumb-key. Function-keys are similar mapped to number-keys with the same thumb-key. This makes writing from homerow much faster, and I need to move my hands not so often. I basically just must my fingers, instead of the whole hand.
That sounds so bizarre to me, as so many keychords I use every minute of every day involve modifiers plus arrow keys.
So, I use a keyboard with split space bars, and map the right one to a layer switch key, when I want arrow keys I then hold the right side spacebar, and use ijkl (similar shape to arrow keys). Feels like exactly the same [1] as using arrow keys except I don't have to move my hand.
[1] Okay, 'I' is slightly off because row-staggered nonsense but honestly it just took me two days to get familiar to it.
If you really need a num pad - most people don't - then you can get a separate one and position it to the left of your keyboard.
If the "tenkey" cluster was on the left hand side of the keyboard in the same way the Sidewinder X8 allowed you to configure it (keypad was detachable), that would be perfect, but nobody makes that for some reason.
And before you ask, I can't use 60% boards specifically because I need F2, F5, PageUp/PageDn, and Delete, none of which are actual buttons on that kind of keyboard. The only place a right-handed computer user is in need of desk real estate is to the right of the text-entry part of the keyboard (and where your hands go at the bottom, obviously); keyboards are free to expand upwards with function keys and leftwards with the non-text-entry part.
You get a lot of extra buttons very cheaply, using an open, easily-readable protocol. Get a label maker to put some labels on top of the buttons, and you're good to go!
In my experience it's a much easier option when compared to trying to say to your computer "key A has two functions, depending on which keyboard I press it on".
Some project in this space https://github.com/michd/mmpd
My hobby is electronic music, so I tilt towards grids over tiny pianos (though I own both). The smallest one I own is AKAI LPD8, which gives me 8 buttons, 8 knobs, and a couple of modifier keys for less than half the price of a Stream Deck.
It's not that Stream Deck is particularly expensive ($150), but I just can't justify it to myself when I'm aware of all the MIDI controller marvels you could get for like $100.
I built it using Mido (https://github.com/mido/mido), though there's so many other options for whichever language you prefer.
If you're not aware, such a thing already exists!
Not 36 but I've got one of these IBM Model M clickety clik keyboard with 24 function keys:
https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/9i1aef/24_functio...
But that said: I switched to a 60% HHKB more than a decade ago and I don't regret it. I prefer to use modifiers and less keys than more keys and longer hands / fingers travel.
Maybe you'd like this Wey Tech MK06:
The whole point is that you can access all the "essential" keys with modifiers like Fn.
I find it so natural to Page Up/Dn using Fn+Up/Dn that when I'm on a keyboard with dedicated Page Up/Dn keys it just seems like this bizarre waste of space.
Plus the keyboard is so big I have to keep moving my hands all over the place! A 75% keyboard keeps everything within distance of the home row, as it should be. Faraway keys are just inefficient and not ergonomic.
There's no need for F36 when you can just use Shift+F12 or Ctrl+F12 or Fn+F12 or whatever you want.
Also, a compact keyboard keeps your mouse closer which is good for ergonomics as well.
Or a 122 key Model M https://www.pckeyboard.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Prod...
I would like extra keys, but at the same time I hate that my mouse is that far to the right, and all because of the num keys that I NEVER use.
That said, my Logitech MX Keys is the perfect keyboard, if they were ever to release TKL (80%) or some variation or even 75% layout - I would pay top buck for that!
Anyone here working at Logitech? :)
I do wish the keys were labeled for Mac or Windows only rather than "opt | start", "cmd | alt" but beggars can't be choosers
That volume key next to F12 is annoying AF too... It makes my OCD flare up had
Also runs QMK/Via, which means I can reprogram those buttons on device, rather than having to make the apps correspond to the keyboard.
However, if someone is in the market for a gaming keyboard right now, I would only recommend Wooting as at this point in time there is no HE keyboard with latency has low as Wooting.
I use a $30 mechanical keyboard I bought from a six-letter brand on Amazon four years ago and I've been much happier than when I tried one of those "optimized" compressed keyboards.
Unnecessary with layers, e.g. FN + 1 = F1, which covers the 0.1% use case well enough.