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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

#71

Post by gundmc »

martythemaniak wrote: post #66
lotophage wrote: post #41

I struggled with the Moonlander although it is a wonderful keyboard. I mapped it to a Colemak layout varient when I first got it. I was constantly discovering key combos that didn't quite work for whatever reason and made tweaks to the layout or the shortcuts in various editors. Forever tying my brain in knots learning and relearning mappings and combos. Then I'd frequently jump on other peoples computers/laptops to…

I'd say it's definitely the colemak change. They keyboard by itself takes some getting used to, a new layout on top would be overwhelming. I kept mine pretty close to a standard qwerty - the only customizations are where I put the "\|", backspace, dash and a few other keys, along with what to do with all the thumb keys. Even with these relatively minor changes, it still took me about a week to recover my WPM, and I h…

This matches my experience exactly. I use a standard QWERTY setup on the moonlander, with only changes being the thumb clusters and changing caps lock to backspace. After a few days of practicing, it feels natural and seamless to switch back and forth.

Re: Thoughts on Mechanical Keyboards and the ZSA Moonlander

#72

Post by tpmoney »

lotophage wrote: post #41

I struggled with the Moonlander although it is a wonderful keyboard. I mapped it to a Colemak layout varient when I first got it. I was constantly discovering key combos that didn't quite work for whatever reason and made tweaks to the layout or the shortcuts in various editors. Forever tying my brain in knots learning and relearning mappings and combos. Then I'd frequently jump on other peoples computers/laptops to…

I found I couldn't get colemak to work for me. Like you said, too many key combos that just felt awkward. I wound up using a layout[1] called "middlemak" that feels much more comfortable to me, and preserves a lot of qwerty hand if not actual key positions, which helped in the initial switch. Took me a few months to get up to a relatively normal typing speed and a year in (of maybe 2-4 days of use a week depending on whether I'm working from the road or not) and I still have to look at my keys about 50% of the time, but it's improving and since I only customized this one keyboard, it doesn't seem to have broken my muscle memory for a standard qwerty keyboard.

[1]: https://configure.zsa.io/ergodox-ez-st/layouts/wzKWq/latest/...

Re: Thoughts on Mechanical Keyboards and the ZSA Moonlander

#73

Post by Twey »

> proponents of mechanical keyboards say you need fewer keys than a regular keyboard, for _reasons_

That's a bit of a generalization. Mechanical keyboards like the Hyper7 exist that have enough for even the most key-hungry typist. If you want an ergonomic mechanical keyboard with many keys there are also some of those out there, like the Kinesis line or the Glove80. That said, one thing people mean by ‘ergonomic’ is ‘less stretching’, and by geometry more keys = more stretching, which is why there's significant overlap between the ergonomic keyboard crowd and the few-keys crowd. When I first got an Ergodox I too thought I would struggle with few keys, but over time I found I prefer to have the keys in a comfortable position with a layer modifier than to have them off in Narnia where I have to shift my whole wrist to reach them.

(Because subcultures are subdivided recursively, the _gaming_ mechanical keyboard subcrowd also often like small keyboards, for reasons I don't really know but are presumably quite different from the reasons the ergonomic mechanical keyboard subcrowd have.)

Re: Thoughts on Mechanical Keyboards and the ZSA Moonlander

#74

Post by qwerpy »

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 like my moonlander. Feels great and now that I'm used to ortholinear, I can't go back. The ZSA layout editor is awesome. I just wish it had more keys so that I could have an F row and dedicated keys for modifiers. Yes I can use the various features to get them and yes I know it'll be allegedly faster once I train myself. But I'm a busy middle aged man now. I float back and forth between Windows (home), Mac (work), and Linux (Steam deck) and having to keep all the keyboard shortcuts straight on top of having blank keycaps for modifiers makes my head hurt.

I briefly looked for labeled keycaps that let the light shine through but couldn't find any.

Where did you get your coiled cables? I bought one from Aliexpress. It took a month to arrive and then didn't work.

Re: Thoughts on Mechanical Keyboards and the ZSA Moonlander

#75

Post by qwerpy »

FridgeSeal wrote: post #63
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 have a Moonlander and I genuinely don’t understand why so many split keyboards do this. “Here’s a really nice split keyboard. But we’ve removed everything except the alphanumerics” Whhhyyyy. “Oh but it’s programmable. And you can have layers. And you can have macros” Cool. I actually didn’t want any of that. I just wanted a single row of function keys. My Moonlander can somehow make space for a “meh” key, a “caps w…

I completely agree. Moonlander would be perfect with a F key row and dedicated modifier keys. The purists will sneer, but they could always take off the keycaps and switches if they want to show off how minimal they are.

I don't spend all my time in vim, my job is mostly emails and docs now. Muscle memory decays for all the fancy chords/layers/macros/etc and I don't have infinite time to spend tweaking keyboard layouts.

Re: Thoughts on Mechanical Keyboards and the ZSA Moonlander

#76

Post by cosmic_cheese »

Twey wrote: post #73

> proponents of mechanical keyboards say you need fewer keys than a regular keyboard, for _reasons_ That's a bit of a generalization. Mechanical keyboards like the Hyper7 exist that have enough for even the most key-hungry typist. If you want an ergonomic mechanical keyboard with many keys there are also some of those out there, like the Kinesis line or the Glove80. That said, one thing people mean by ‘ergonomic’ is…

There are plenty of folks in the community who land somewhere in the middle, too. 60%/65% are all pretty popular and don't go off the deep end in cutting down keys. I'm personally partial to the HHKB layout, which is like 60% with inspiration from boards associated with the original Mac and with old UNIX boxes.

Re: Thoughts on Mechanical Keyboards and the ZSA Moonlander

#77

Post by userbinator »

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…

I am curious how/if you were formally taught how to type, and whether you hit the keys with sharp and abrupt movements. Of those whom I've seen develop RSI, a common trend I've noticed is they type very "discretely", with a very noticeable pause between each keypress, and use a lot more force than necessary. They were also taught that that was the "correct" way to type, adhere strictly to a sub-optimal fingering pattern, and type relatively slowly too. RSI seems to be caused by the sort of excessively rigid and intense finger movements that I've seen from these formally-taught typists.

Re: Thoughts on Mechanical Keyboards and the ZSA Moonlander

#78

Post by qwerpy »

squigz wrote: post #31
dotancohen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds a lot more like a keyboard hobby, than a keyboard.

It's very basic customization of a tool you use all day for your job. This is a strange attitude to me coming from a programmer.

Some of us don't program that much anymore but because we're older, the ergonomic aspects of something like Moonlander are important. Ortholinear and split keyboard for me. But I still want to be able to hop into a terminal or IDE once in a while, without having to spend a bunch of time customizing keyboard shortcuts/layouts. So it's painful to be missing all those keys.

Re: Thoughts on Mechanical Keyboards and the ZSA Moonlander

#79

Post by DanHulton »

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…

As an FYI, I had a similar issue and tried a whole lot of things, including different mechanical keyboards, with which I had a variety of successes and failures.

But ultimately what REALLY helped was going to physiotherapy and identifying muscle groups in my back that were weak, causing me to sit weird and support my arms with muscles in my shoulders that weren't designed for that. And because all of this is connected in weird ways, the pain I was feeling in my wrists originated way back in over-stressing those shoulder muscles.

After a few weeks of an exercise program designed to target those muscles, all my RSI pains aren't just reduced, which was the sum total of the results I got from different mechanical keyboards, they were GONE. Plus, I had the added benefit of naturally sitting and walking "better" and feeling better about it.

So if you've tried different mechanical keyboards with only limited degrees of success (or have a fave keyboard you don't want to have to switch from), consider an exercise program designed to improve your posture! It is literally the single biggest thing I've done in the past year to make me feel significantly better, and not just in the case of the RSI!

Re: Thoughts on Mechanical Keyboards and the ZSA Moonlander

#80

Post by danpalmer »

> here are my thoughts on ... you should literally buy any mechanical keyboard ... with programmable firmware

Funnily enough, the Moonlander was not this for me. It's programmable, but the round-trip time for programming meant that I didn't modify it often, and only modified it in significant ways, which meant I'd then forget key combinations immediately. This was particularly prevalent for anything where you have to tune responsiveness/movement/timing.

I switched from a Moonlander to a UHK, and the programming time is ~instant. You click flash and in 1-2 seconds it's done. For the Moonlander you have to download the firmware, find the file, drag and drop onto the flashing tool, and wait 10+ seconds. It's amazing how much of a difference that made for me.

So yes, get a keyboard with programmable keys, but not all are created equal, find one that lets you have a very tight feedback loop and you'll be so much happier.

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