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Comment by taternuts | Hacker News Reader

I don't really seeing 'thick' keyboards as being a pain-point for anyone buying mechanical keyboards, but the size of the actual board is. A lot of people start with a full board like this, then transition to a tenkey-less board or an even more reduced layout. The Das boards don't offer TKL/Reduced layouts, and even dwarfs most other full-sized boards as well because of that stupid bezel around the board. Das makes good quality boards, but they are just too big and clunky for me; I don't think being thin is going to help that at all.

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Completely agree.

The only reason I'm using a full sized Das instead of a Filco tenkeyless is simply that the latter are harder to find in the US. In my case, my employer only orders office supplies through certain retailers which limits my selection.

I never use the number pad, and wish more manufacturers would offer tenkeyless models.

You could get a Cooler Master QuickFire Rapid, possibly. It's at a ton of retailers.

The shorter is a keyboard the closer is the mouse to it. Your respective shoulder will be healthier long-term.

This may sound trite, but: Use shortcuts instead of the mouse.

(This is one reason that Emacs and Vim are incredible editors and tiling window managers absolutely rock. There's basically never a need to touch the mouse unless your stupid window manager has decided to defocus the window.)

I use VS + R# so tend to use them already :). I still find the mouse useful.

Sort of an off-the-wall question: Is (VS + R#) usage correlated with increased use of shortcuts? ;)

Btw, I don't think the mouse is altogether useless, but I tend to regard it as a last resort. If only we could actually mandate UIs which required that all functionality could be accessed via the keyboard (and have it actually work). One can dream...

I'm not sure that folks looking for reduced layouts are a target market for mechanical keyboards.

Why not? I have a Tenkeyless (no numpad) keyboard with mechanical switches that I use every day. It takes up a lot less space, and I don't find that I need a numpad (thanks to using a laptop keyboard for many years).

The Happy Hacking Keyboard Pro (https://elitekeyboards.com/products.php?sub=pfu_keyboards,hh...) is probably the ultimate geek keyboard, and it's a reduced layout mechanical KB.

What makes it the ultimate geek keyboard, other than the name? I love my TKL, but I would never buy something without a Function row.

I believe that it has modifier keys to allow access to function keys and the like. I think the idea is that all of the keys can be pressed without removing your hands from home row, so it's more efficient/faster than a regular keyboard once you get the hang of it. Kind of like how VIM purists will insist that you don't need to use arrow keys to navigate.

They for sure are. Search for "tenkeyless mechanical keyboard". There's a wide selection.

I switched to a compact version (Poker II) after developing some wrist pain from keeping the mouse so far from the typing position. The mechanical switches tend to hurt my wrists a lot less and the compact layout is ideal (with a bit of customization via KeyRemap4Macbook).

I went for the Kinesis Advantage.. excellent but not a portable as I'd like.

I went for the Kinesis Advantage (LF).. excellent but not a portable as I'd like.

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