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A beginner's guide to split keyboards

justinmklam.com

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Re: A beginner's guide to split keyboards

#71

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

piskov wrote: post #14

The issue with kinesis and all those nice small symmetrical keyboards is that not every alphabet is as short as English. Russian, for example, has 33 letters. So if you’re someone like that, you really want that ordinary macbook-like number of keys = larger non-symmetrical right half. — As for the ortholinear keyboards, I spent a few months with the latest kinesis but sold it eventually: not that comfortable. Just cl…

I think there's something to the ortholinear thing, I find it quite uncomfortable to hit z, x, and c on a standard row-staggered keyboard.

Also It's nice to have a 10-key at home row (5 goes with k).

Re: A beginner's guide to split keyboards

#72

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

rgoulter wrote: post #60

Underdiscussed: The biggest difference these keyboards make: adding additional keys for the thumbs (replacing the unnecessarily large spacebar of traditional keyboards). This allows the hands to do more with the keyboard while resting the hands on home row. -- For users comfortable adding a bit of complexity for the benefit of increased expressiveness (e.g. vim users), having extra thumb keys allows bringing the full…

There's a lot of fun to be had by replacing the spacebar with four keys.

Mine are tab, esc, space, backspace... plus layer shenanigans (https://configure.zsa.io/planck-ez/layouts/jDnba/latest/0)

Re: A beginner's guide to split keyboards

#74

Post by ehnto »

rgoulter wrote: post #60

Underdiscussed: The biggest difference these keyboards make: adding additional keys for the thumbs (replacing the unnecessarily large spacebar of traditional keyboards). This allows the hands to do more with the keyboard while resting the hands on home row. -- For users comfortable adding a bit of complexity for the benefit of increased expressiveness (e.g. vim users), having extra thumb keys allows bringing the full…

A split keyboard does a good job of enforcing stricter adherence to the home keys so you end up getting quite accurate at the special functions too since everything is within reach. I think extra thumb buttons on a non-split keyboard gets you all the same benefits, I'd love to see more boards explore that.

Re: A beginner's guide to split keyboards

#75

Post by cduzz »

I'm not sure why nobody mentions this, but for windows and linux, you can fiddle with a "split keyboard" by using two keyboards. You can put your right hand over the right part of the right keyboard, the left and over the left part of left keyboard, and ... type away. It just works, and usually it is free, almost everyone I know has a pile of keyboards somewhere.

Irritatingly, this doesn't work by default on the mac where the meta keys only affect the keys on the keyboard owning the depressed key (IE left shift and right keyboard l will not result in L).

It uses a bit more desk space, but is otherwise a pretty good way to test out "do I want a split keyboard?"

Re: A beginner's guide to split keyboards

#77

Post by eru »

cduzz wrote: post #75

I'm not sure why nobody mentions this, but for windows and linux, you can fiddle with a "split keyboard" by using two keyboards. You can put your right hand over the right part of the right keyboard, the left and over the left part of left keyboard, and ... type away. It just works, and usually it is free, almost everyone I know has a pile of keyboards somewhere. Irritatingly, this doesn't work by default on the mac…

I use a split keyboard, and I definitely don't want my two halves to be as far apart as the setup you describe would put them.

It's an interesting hack, though.

Re: A beginner's guide to split keyboards

#78

Post by eru »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #72
rgoulter wrote: post #60

Underdiscussed: The biggest difference these keyboards make: adding additional keys for the thumbs (replacing the unnecessarily large spacebar of traditional keyboards). This allows the hands to do more with the keyboard while resting the hands on home row. -- For users comfortable adding a bit of complexity for the benefit of increased expressiveness (e.g. vim users), having extra thumb keys allows bringing the full…

There's a lot of fun to be had by replacing the spacebar with four keys. Mine are tab, esc, space, backspace... plus layer shenanigans ( https://configure.zsa.io/planck-ez/layouts/jDnba/latest/0 )

On my Kinesis Advantage it's a lot more than four keys. And they definitely help.

Re: A beginner's guide to split keyboards

#80

Post by eru »

piskov wrote: post #14

The issue with kinesis and all those nice small symmetrical keyboards is that not every alphabet is as short as English. Russian, for example, has 33 letters. So if you’re someone like that, you really want that ordinary macbook-like number of keys = larger non-symmetrical right half. — As for the ortholinear keyboards, I spent a few months with the latest kinesis but sold it eventually: not that comfortable. Just cl…

Dvorak works really well for me. (Though you might want to pick Colemak or Neo2 these days.) I use Dvorak on both my Kinesis Advantage and on 'normal' keyboards like on a laptop.

It's not so much about speed, as about comfort.

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