Super exciting to see an open-source ergonomic wireless keyboard company going public!
Ergo S-1 – An open-source ergonomic wireless keyboard
11–20 of 31 posts
Re: Ergo S-1 – An open-source ergonomic wireless keyboard
#12[deleted]
Re: Ergo S-1 – An open-source ergonomic wireless keyboard
#13Why do all these new keyboard designs lack Function keys? Layering is not a good solution when many applications already have double or even triple buckies on the F keys. What IDE doesn't?
There's a whole lot of folks that believe minimizing have movement is ergonomically better, if not faster, and therefore use keyboard layouts that require cords to type not just function keys but also numbers. A popular way to handle modifiers, for example, is putting them on the home row. A tap gives you a letter; a long press gives you a modifier instead. This allows me to (for example) type Ctrl+alt+shift+left arr…
I see, thanks. Do you double up on your modifiers? For instance if A is Ctrl, then how do you type Ctrl-A?
How do you handle triple buckies, e.g. Ctrl-Shift-A?
Re: Ergo S-1 – An open-source ergonomic wireless keyboard
#14Why do all these new keyboard designs lack Function keys? Layering is not a good solution when many applications already have double or even triple buckies on the F keys. What IDE doesn't?
There's a learning curve involved with these keyboards, as they move the modifier keys around. Because of this, the target audience is people who are willing to invest time and effort (not just money) into ergonomics. Those people typically already alter the default shortcuts of the software they use to fit their workflow. Changing IDE shortcuts is really an easy win for ergonomics. Shortcuts aren't really designed:…
I've used over a dozen split- and ergonomic- keyboard over the years, so I am familiar with the time investment. And I do agree, for the most part, that the time is well invested up until a point. But I don't see how requiring additional simultaneous keypresses is "more ergonomic" than pressing a dedicated Ctrl or Alt key. Airplanes, which pilots invest much time learning to fly, have dedicated buttons for all functionality. How is "ergonomic" defined in this context?
I'm not arguing, really I'm asking to hear the answer and become wiser.
Re: Ergo S-1 – An open-source ergonomic wireless keyboard
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a whole lot of folks that believe minimizing have movement is ergonomically better, if not faster, and therefore use keyboard layouts that require cords to type not just function keys but also numbers. A popular way to handle modifiers, for example, is putting them on the home row. A tap gives you a letter; a long press gives you a modifier instead. This allows me to (for example) type Ctrl+alt+shift+left arr…
I see, thanks. Do you double up on your modifiers? For instance if A is Ctrl, then how do you type Ctrl-A? How do you handle triple buckies, e.g. Ctrl-Shift-A?
Only been lurking in the split ergo keyboards so far, but I believe what people do is they have the home row modifiers on both sides, so if A is Ctrl to have Ctrl-A you'd do ;-A
Re: Ergo S-1 – An open-source ergonomic wireless keyboard
#16Why do all these new keyboard designs lack Function keys? Layering is not a good solution when many applications already have double or even triple buckies on the F keys. What IDE doesn't?
Fn keys are literally just layer keys:
They don’t send a keycode, they modify existing keys so they either send different keycodes or modify the keyboard’s state (e.g. toggle LEDs).
The main difference is, once you start rabbit-holing the custom layers, you don’t have to only put a layer on the F keys.
My favourite layer is holding down an extra thumb key to get arrow keys + home/end, pgup/pgdown near home row.
Since I have yet an extra thumb key, I made it so I get those navigation keys but holding down Ctrl, so I don’t need to stretch across both a Fn key and a modifier. And so on.
I have a combined Tab + Ctrl key: Ctrl on hold, Tab on click. All of these just work, no adaptation, no downside, just less movement.
I’ll never go back from this.
Re: Ergo S-1 – An open-source ergonomic wireless keyboard
#17Another open source concave keyboard design is the dactyl and dactyl-manuform.
Re: Ergo S-1 – An open-source ergonomic wireless keyboard
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a learning curve involved with these keyboards, as they move the modifier keys around. Because of this, the target audience is people who are willing to invest time and effort (not just money) into ergonomics. Those people typically already alter the default shortcuts of the software they use to fit their workflow. Changing IDE shortcuts is really an easy win for ergonomics. Shortcuts aren't really designed:…
I've used over a dozen split- and ergonomic- keyboard over the years, so I am familiar with the time investment. And I do agree, for the most part, that the time is well invested up until a point. But I don't see how requiring additional simultaneous keypresses is "more ergonomic" than pressing a dedicated Ctrl or Alt key. Airplanes, which pilots invest much time learning to fly, have dedicated buttons for all functi…
The original design for the concave ergonomic keyboard dates back to the 70s. Their original designs have many more keys.
https://www.maltron.com/maltron-history.html
Re: Ergo S-1 – An open-source ergonomic wireless keyboard
#19Why do all these new keyboard designs lack Function keys? Layering is not a good solution when many applications already have double or even triple buckies on the F keys. What IDE doesn't?
[deleted]
Re: Ergo S-1 – An open-source ergonomic wireless keyboard
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a whole lot of folks that believe minimizing have movement is ergonomically better, if not faster, and therefore use keyboard layouts that require cords to type not just function keys but also numbers. A popular way to handle modifiers, for example, is putting them on the home row. A tap gives you a letter; a long press gives you a modifier instead. This allows me to (for example) type Ctrl+alt+shift+left arr…
I see, thanks. Do you double up on your modifiers? For instance if A is Ctrl, then how do you type Ctrl-A? How do you handle triple buckies, e.g. Ctrl-Shift-A?
You can change the behavior of your layer activation key(s) so that you aren't n+1ing your buckies, and can also customize the keymap of all layers (including the baselayer) so that you don't have Ctrl and A sharing the same physical key between layers to avoid that exact issue. Though, if you do choose to do that, there is still a way to send Ctrl-A (using one shot keys [2] for example). I've listed a few options you have for your layer activiation key behavior from the qmk wiki [0] as it's more succinct than the zmk wiki [1], but QMK and ZMK (which the Ergo S-1 uses) both share similar functionality in this way. Non exhaustive list of layer-activation behavior from the QMK wiki:
> MO(layer) - momentarily activates layer. As soon as you let go of the key, the layer is deactivated.
> TG(layer) - toggles layer, activating it if it's inactive and vice versa
> TT(layer) - Layer Tap-Toggle. If you hold the key down, layer is activated, and then is de-activated when you let go (like MO). If you repeatedly tap it, the layer will be toggled on or off
You can also use Macros if you'd prefer (but not required) to handle triple (or more) buckies, which both ZMK and QMK firmwares support.
I will note that this Ergo S-1 seems to be missing at least 8 keys that most other Ergodox keyboards have (the 3 keys of the inner column on each side and the bottom right and left corner keys) so total physical keycount appears to be closer to a 60% kb. So in that way, you're going to be more dependent on using layers (or Macros) in general than even other ergodox (such as the Ergodox-ez [3] style keyboards of this type.
EDIT: Apologies, I wasn't paying attention to usernames when responding to comments and basically gave you this answer twice across two different comments. Deleted the other as this one is more complete/to the point.
0: https://docs.qmk.fm/feature_layers
1: https://zmk.dev/docs/keymaps/behaviors/layers