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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

#51

Post by UltraSane »

dotancohen wrote: post #20
kyeb wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find one modifier plus a home-row key to be much more comfortable than reaching several rows up for an F-key. The author's whole point here is that QMK (or ZMK, which I use) lets you customize it to exactly your own needs!

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.

you can make that a macro and assign it to a combo key set.

Re: Thoughts on Mechanical Keyboards and the ZSA Moonlander

#52

Post by roxolotl »

Had been looking at these for some time. A few days of pain where I couldn’t type much and the threat tariffs turning on at the end of the month, this was early August, caused me to pull the trigger on a Voyager, ZSA’s low profile keyboard.

Couldn’t be happier. I’ve used QMK, even writing some C for a board, and limited key keyboards before and their software really does make it a lot simpler to configure. It’s also really nice to have leds indexable per key so you can color code things when you’re learning.

They cost a lot more now for those in the US[0] but I’d still recommend them. My pain hasn’t come back and honestly even at +20% that’s worth it.

0: https://www.reddit.com/r/zsaVoyager/comments/1n9en4b/us_tari...

Re: Thoughts on Mechanical Keyboards and the ZSA Moonlander

#54

Post by bb88 »

dotancohen wrote: post #27
bb88 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the trick these days is find a layout you like with hot swappable cherry mx switches that have a qmx/via style configurator. Then you can configure the buttons however you want. Or you know... go build your own. It's fun. I built my own keypad and learned a bunch of stuff.

I get that you're trying to be helpful, but I meant that I am looking for a keyboard. Not for a keyboard hobby.

There's a certain trend to repairing existing electronics and keeping electronics waste out of landfills, right to repair and what not -- and that's the spirit I was talking about.

Even hot swap switches prevent more landfill waste as it makes it easy for people to replace bad switches. And if you want a reliable keyboard in the future, that's what you'll need, other wise it will just be more e-waste.

Owning 20 cars and maintaining them is a hobby. Owning 1 car and maintaining it is not -- it's life.

Re: Thoughts on Mechanical Keyboards and the ZSA Moonlander

#56

Post by sudahtigabulan »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #39
Jcampuzano2 wrote: post #8

I started having RSI issues 2 years ago, what a way to welcome me to my 30s. It was excruciatingly painful just getting through a workday even with plenty of breaks. I didn't care for building my own keyboard I literally just wanted something to help me not be in pain no matter how weird it looked. I've ended up on a Kinesis advantage 360 pro after spending thousands of dollars on keyboards because I needed something…

These look great and I don’t doubt it’s worth the investment, but holy hell $500 is a tough price tag to accept.

You can get pretty far with software-only tweaks to your existing keyboard instead.

I've settled on keyd[1], after using XKB and interception-tools for a while.

[1]: https://github.com/rvaiya/keyd

Re: Thoughts on Mechanical Keyboards and the ZSA Moonlander

#57

Post by woleium »

Lunamare wrote: post #45
Forgeties79 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These look great and I don’t doubt it’s worth the investment, but holy hell $500 is a tough price tag to accept.

The way I thought about it was that I would gladly pay $500 to have a reduction in RSI symptoms, let alone prevent them beforehand. Not to mention the potential loss of enjoyment & employment from pain during computer use. And as such, I'm an extremely satisfied Advantage 360 Pro user. The Adv 360 + a mouse side-grade massively reduced pains in my hands/wrists to the point where I don't notice any issues 99% of the t…

Yeah, as a medical expense it’s quite the bargain

Re: Thoughts on Mechanical Keyboards and the ZSA Moonlander

#58

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

andrewjf wrote: post #10

I have two moonlanders but wound up giving up because I just couldn't adapt to it. And when writing code, finding the symbols like {, =, }, and other common coding ones was just too difficult to retain muscle memory. I tried many layouts, I tried to make my own, and at the end of the day it was just too different. I wish I had a better experience. Any recommendations?

I've mapped paired symbols to the same finger on opposite hands, so ()[]{}/\'" are mirrored, and then also I've got numbers and symbols corresponding as well so the 123... pad on my right is a !@#... pad on my left. It gets me pretty far, but not everything has a mate so I occasionally have a brain fart moment and suddenly I'm hunting for | even though I have years worth of muscle memory on this layout.

So I guess I'd say: design to lean on familiar structures as much as you can and then just commit to using it a lot and don't give yourself too hard of a time when it gets wierd. Whatever you come up with will surely beat the pain associated with having your right on of pinky in charge of 50% of the symbols plus enter.

Re: Thoughts on Mechanical Keyboards and the ZSA Moonlander

#59

Post by tpmoney »

kayson wrote: post #5

I love my moonlander so much, I bought a second one for work. Both were secondhand, so the sticker shock wasn't quite so bad. Though, I did end up spending some of that savings on custom, coiled cables. A coworker, after seeing my setup, also ended buying two. I agree with the author. It's a tool, and if your job requires a lot of computer use, it is worth it to invest in a tool that can not only help prevent RSI, bu…

I don’t have a moonlander but I did get one of their ergodox keyboards after noticing an increase in pain myself. I tried using it in querty and my experience was unless you type with proper hand position and finger movements (and possibly not even then) querty on an orthinear was even more painful than on a regular keyboard. I tried colemak for a while but something about the layout didn’t feel comfortable still. I landed on using “middlemak” [1] which at least for me has been much more comfortable. It preserves a decent bit of qwerty placement to help with muscle memory, but I’ve also found that only using it on the ergodox keyboard and keeping qwerty on all of my “normal” keyboards has also helped the muscle memory a lot.

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/Middlemak/wiki/index/

Re: Thoughts on Mechanical Keyboards and the ZSA Moonlander

#60

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #39
Jcampuzano2 wrote: post #8

I started having RSI issues 2 years ago, what a way to welcome me to my 30s. It was excruciatingly painful just getting through a workday even with plenty of breaks. I didn't care for building my own keyboard I literally just wanted something to help me not be in pain no matter how weird it looked. I've ended up on a Kinesis advantage 360 pro after spending thousands of dollars on keyboards because I needed something…

These look great and I don’t doubt it’s worth the investment, but holy hell $500 is a tough price tag to accept.

Cheaper than medical bills regardless of what country you’re in.
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