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Thoughts on Mechanical Keyboards and the ZSA Moonlander

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Re: Thoughts on Mechanical Keyboards and the ZSA Moonlander

#211

Post by Twey »

kstrauser wrote: post #202
Twey wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pianists are very (like 60%) susceptible to RSI, especially if they have small hands [1] (= lots of stretching motions). I think it's a tradeoff — moving your forearm around spares your wrists, but puts more strain on your elbows. I wouldn't be surprised if it's better overall, though, just because it involves a wider variety of movements. [1]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12611474/ Anecdotally, I have large hands…

I have small hands. I found myself sitting next to a chaplain once, and he started conversation with "your hands are small. You'd never be able to play piano." I was playing Beethoven in recitals at 8, TYVM! I ended that chat pretty quickly.

You may just be lucky :)

Re: Thoughts on Mechanical Keyboards and the ZSA Moonlander

#212

Post by sagarm »

anotherevan wrote: post #210

Long time MS Natural Ergonomic 4000 user. My search continues for an 80% split keyboard, where the important programming keys haven't been repositioned or worse, moved to a secondary layer (like braces/parenthesis, pipe/backslash, question mark/slash). I do like the idea of thumb keys, but would probably need them as duplicates to the more traditional positions. I got a Keyboardio 100 which is absolutely beautiful, b…

I'm very confused about an 80% that allegedly moves ANY keys other than navigation, numpad, or f-keys. Any 65% will meet your requirements.

As for <60%: use that neuroplasticity. Stave off dementia. You can do it.

Re: Thoughts on Mechanical Keyboards and the ZSA Moonlander

#213

Post by anotherevan »

sagarm wrote: post #212
anotherevan wrote: post #210

Long time MS Natural Ergonomic 4000 user. My search continues for an 80% split keyboard, where the important programming keys haven't been repositioned or worse, moved to a secondary layer (like braces/parenthesis, pipe/backslash, question mark/slash). I do like the idea of thumb keys, but would probably need them as duplicates to the more traditional positions. I got a Keyboardio 100 which is absolutely beautiful, b…

I'm very confused about an 80% that allegedly moves ANY keys other than navigation, numpad, or f-keys. Any 65% will meet your requirements. As for <60%: use that neuroplasticity. Stave off dementia. You can do it.

You're right regarding 65%. The extra 15% is the arrow keys, Page up/down, home, end and delete keys. Found I often hit these one handed while the other hand is on the mouse, so a secondary layer that would require two hands to activate would be problematic.

There's neuroplasticity and there's picking your battles. :-)

Re: Thoughts on Mechanical Keyboards and the ZSA Moonlander

#214

Post by still »

dataangel wrote: post #62

If you have serious RSI I strongly suggest Svalboard. https://svalboard.com/

Having gone down the rabbit hole of concave keyboards from Kinesis advantage to iterations of self printed dactyl manifolds I ended up at Svalboard too.

Combined with adjustable carrier arms it has enabled me to continue working even post recent shoulder surgery.

Yes it’s an obscene amount of money but it works and enables me to continue earning a living in front of a screen.

Re: Thoughts on Mechanical Keyboards and the ZSA Moonlander

#215

Post by ckrailo »

rswail wrote: post #139
bostik wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keychron? I realise their prebuilt variants may have ISO layouts only for the various EU market segments, but they all run QMK so you could reflash with en-US keymap. They come with a set of replacement Mac/Win keycaps already, and have a physical switch to flip between the two variants. Then reshuffle the physical keycaps to match your layout. (Disclosure: I have two of their ISO keyboards: Q10 and Q11. Both require…

The keychron K10 max seems closest to what I want and has the keytops I want (with a bit of rearranging). The UK keytops are the closest to what I want, I already use Karabiner to swap a few things, so that's probably the closest. Just need to be able to get blue switches, I WFH and there's no one around to be bothered by the clicking. Considering I started "typing" on an ASR-33, and then an original IBM PC, I want t…

I got the smaller K7 gen2 with their now-discontinued clicky blues and love it; really like the very light activation force.

Re: Thoughts on Mechanical Keyboards and the ZSA Moonlander

#216

Post by physicles »

snailmailman wrote: post #40
dotancohen wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then many keyboard shortcuts require four keys to be depressed all at once. Just for an example off the top of my head, in JetBrains IDEs the shortcut for hiding all tools is Ctrl-Shift-F12.

As much as i like the idea of these split keyboards that are more ergonomic, I can’t get over the idea of missing keys and having to use chords or new combinations of hotkeys. I use nearly every key of my 104 key keyboard. Literally pause/break and scroll lock are the only ones I don’t use; and I’ve remapped those to be volume controls. If anything, i’d like even more keys for macros and dedicated shortcuts. But so m…

Don’t rule them out.

I was in the same boat, doing most text navigation on the keyboard and fully adapted to the quirky arrangement of home/end/pgup/pgdn of the Microsoft natural keyboard elite I’d been coding on for 23 years.

But I do a lot of nomading, so I really wanted a small keyboard. And I’m a tall guy, so I was looking for a full split (I tried the Kinesis Freestyle2 for a while but didn’t love it).

I bought a ZSA Voyager. The first day I went from ~120wpm to 20. I hated it and had buyer’s remorse. Second week, I was still switching to another keyboard in the afternoons because I was making so many typos and felt so tired. I swapped out most of the switches with higher force ones, and that helped a ton. It took about two months before the keyboard disappeared again and there was only me and the work.

The biggest single win is that backspace is under my right thumb next to space bar, which felt life-changing once I got used to it (if I were still using a normal keyboard, I’d probably re-map right alt to backspace). And while word selection with ctrl+shift+arrow took a bit longer to get used to, now I appreciate not having to move my fingers at all to hit the arrow keys.

Nine months later, you can pry the Voyager from my cold dead hands. It’s probably the last keyboard I’ll ever buy. I do wish it had two more keys (haven’t found good homes for Alt and ~) but overall I’m very happy with where I ended up.

Re: Thoughts on Mechanical Keyboards and the ZSA Moonlander

#217

Post by benhurmarcel »

daft_pink wrote: post #68

The thing I don’t like about keyboards this is that I still have to use a mouse and these keyboards don’t really address that. If I mounted on the arms of my desk, it’s even harder to get to the mouse. Maybe a few people can get away with just them all day, but I can’t.

There’s this as well: https://bastardkb.com/charybdis/

Re: Thoughts on Mechanical Keyboards and the ZSA Moonlander

#218

Post by westonmyers »

dotancohen wrote: post #4

All I want is a quality split mechanical keyboard with Function keys. I use an IDE all day, I don't want to pull quadruple buckies every time I debug. The Matias Ergo Pro is almost perfect, but I had two of them and they both failed within one year. I had one of each switch type (low force and regular) - both were missing some button presses and repeating other button presses.

I've been running an Ergo Pro since 2015. Ordered like 40 extra key switches and have had to resolder in about a dozen as replacements so far. Annoying, but I'm keeping it going!

Gel wrist pads?... Not a great implementation. I either need to work up a 3d printed DIY replacement via covering TPU (or something of the like) or order a first party replacement.

Re: Thoughts on Mechanical Keyboards and the ZSA Moonlander

#219

Post by peterdstallion »

It's my go-to keyboard. I can't recommend it enough. My only regret is I didn't buy it earlier.

It's definitely way more ergonomic - I believe that's incredibly important if you're going to be spending decades in front of a screen. At the very least don't make it easy to be hunched over.

Last but not least - coming from a non-mechanical keyboard before - the switch is super satisfying.

Re: Thoughts on Mechanical Keyboards and the ZSA Moonlander

#220

Post by wodenokoto »

I dipped my toes in mechanical keyboards by going from an Apple keyboard to the low profile keyChron. I really like the idea of custom keycaps and tinkering with different clickers but in the end I just type better on the Apple keyboard.

Got the flat Logitech for work where we use windows.

I’m not saying this is the right choice for everyone but low profile and low travel is nice on the wrists and nice to type on, and it just might also be the right choice for you.

It’s a lot more boring though.

As for ergonomics, just stay away from the home row. I don’t know why that’s a recommended position, but I can see why you’d get wrist pain if you are placing your fingers on the home row most of the time.

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