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Programming on 34 Keys

peppe.rs

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Re: Programming on 34 Keys

#31

Post by flyingfences »

immigrantheart wrote: post #4

Do you retain standard qwerty staggered layout muscle memory? I heard using colemak and stagger column makes your muscle memory confused because it is similar with staggered row qwerty.

I can't speak to the particular 34-key board in the OP, but I've been using a Colemak 60% (HHKB) at home and a full-size QWERTY at work for a few years (after using Colemak almost exclusively for a few years before that) and I can jump back and forth with no trouble at all. It was a little awkward at first, but that was when I was just learning Colemak and had never properly learned to ten-finger-touch-type QWERTY.

Re: Programming on 34 Keys

#32

Post by aendruk »

falcolas wrote: post #13

I've tried to use smaller keyboards with layers, but unless I'm using them everywhere I will forget what buttons to hit. And ultimately, my desk space is not at such a premium that a full-sized keyboard is unwelcome in that space. I do also enjoy (full sized) split keyboards though.

Yeah the trick is to actually use the small layout everywhere, not just for consistency but to continue getting the benefits of reduced finger strain and hand motion.

I reproduced most of a small keyboard’s layout on my laptop using KMonad and now don’t even touch about 20 keys even though they’re available. It’s that realization that makes one dream of just omitting the unused hardware.

Re: Programming on 34 Keys

#33

Post by fowlie »

Miryoku user here. Nice post!

Symbols in a mirrored numpad shape to fix $ and ^ seems brilliant, I might have to try that! And the caps word feature, holy crap thats awesome.

Where are your \, ` and F keys, you don't use them? And why stock colemak not mod-dk?

Re: Programming on 34 Keys

#34

Post by xupybd »

memco wrote: post #20
js2 wrote: post #9

I worked with someone years ago who tried to teach himself to use a pair of corded bat keyboards: https://www.infogrip.com/bat-keyboard.html His plan was to mount them to the sides of his chair so he could type with his arms hanging at his sides. I don't recall if ever got past using just one of them, and actually, I'm not sure why he needed two in the first place. Now I'm doubting my memory. Anyway, more on this inn…

That looks quite a bit more spartan than these chara corder keyboards I saw in use recently: https://www.charachorder.com/ . They have a QWERTY keyboard with chording firmware (and a chip for custom keyboards) to try corded input for those who want to experiment without going all in.

You can also use something like plover on an N key rollover keyboard http://www.openstenoproject.org/

I think that has more to it as it's not just chorded but has a steno dictionary as well. There must be a way to turn a standard keyboard into a chorded one?

Re: Programming on 34 Keys

#35

Post by _oghd »

my primary keyboards are a planck for my personal desktop and ergodox infinity for work. i guess if i used the planck every day i'd get used to it but i think that the braces/brackets/parens are common enough they deserve their own keys instead of chords. but again, i've not given the time to learn to type with chords as a daily driver.

i would like one of these though and maybe move on from the planck for my desktop. the minimalism is sexy as hell

Re: Programming on 34 Keys

#37

Post by shadowofneptune »

The given reason for going from 58 keys, then to 34, is ergononics. There has to be a better way to provide ergonomics than such a heavily shifted system, no? I'm not sure I could switch to a keyboard if it meant giving up QWERTY touch typing.

Re: Programming on 34 Keys

#38

Post by aidenn0 »

nomel wrote: post #36

When I see this much effort, it just makes me think that, at some point, maybe it's worth ditching the whole concept of giant buttons: https://www.charachorder.com/products/charachorder-one

I'm blanking on the name, but there was an older 5-way switch keyboard, where the 4 non-thumb fingers went in a recess with 4 paddles and a push-button; I've known several people who used that because of severe RSI, but it was quite expensive.

[edit]

Searching split keyboards on google image search for long enough found it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DataHand#/media/File:DataHand_...

Re: Programming on 34 Keys

#39

Post by westoncb »

nomel wrote: post #36

When I see this much effort, it just makes me think that, at some point, maybe it's worth ditching the whole concept of giant buttons: https://www.charachorder.com/products/charachorder-one

This looks pretty interesting. Has anyone here tried it?

Re: Programming on 34 Keys

#40

Post by jrockway »

shadowofneptune wrote: post #37

The given reason for going from 58 keys, then to 34, is ergononics. There has to be a better way to provide ergonomics than such a heavily shifted system, no? I'm not sure I could switch to a keyboard if it meant giving up QWERTY touch typing.

I find shifting extremely comfortable, but not quite to the extent as the author of this post. Like the author, I use thumb keys on the opposite hand to make the other hand start typing symbols. For example, I press the key below V with my left hand, and then home row on the right hand "jkl;" becomes "({})". (Actually, the whole side becomes symbols. I use the characters below the numbers to type the shifted symbol there, so qwer is !@#$, though on the other side, I don't duplicate the parentheses and instead have `~ below 9 and 0.)

Overall, I find that this is ridiculously comfortable to use.

I suffered from mild wrist pain when typing on standard keyboards, mostly because my pinky had to do so much work for programming (and pressing backspace, kill the default position of that key with fire), and the Ergodox helped me a lot.

One thing I'll note, when I moved from Ergodox to Moonlander, I lost the 1.5U key next to the h/n keys (heh). I used to use that as backspace, but moved it to my left thumb. When you're backspacing an entire word (not something I do in Emacs, but something you have to do in the web browser), the up/down/up/down/up/down motion isn't as fast with your thumb as it is with your pointer finger. OS X users probably don't have this problem, as C-w isn't "close window" there like it is on Windows.

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