ErgoMechKeyboards
Ergonomic, split and other weird keyboards
Rules
Keep it ergo
Posts must be of/about keyboards that have a clear delineation between the left and right halves of the keyboard, column stagger, or both. This includes one-handed (one half doesn't exist, what clearer delineation is that!?)
i.e. no regular non-split¹ row-stagger and no non-split¹ ortholinear²
¹ split meaning a separation of the halves, whether fixed in place or entirely separate, both are fine.
² ortholinear meaning keys layed out in a grid
No Spam
No excessive posting/"shilling" for commercial purposes. Vendors are permitted to promote their products/services but keep it to a minimum and use the [vendor] flair. Posts that appear to be marketing without being transparent about it will be removed.
No Buy/Sell/Trade
This subreddit is not a marketplace, please post on r/mechmarket or other relevant marketplace.
Some useful links
- EMK wiki
- Split keyboard compare tool
- Compare keycap profiles Looking for another set of keycaps - check this site to compare the different keycap profiles https://www.keycaps.info/
- Keymap database A database with all kinds of keymap layouts - some of them fits ergo keyboards - get inspired https://keymapdb.com/
view the rest of the comments
another consideration is how much actual writing do you normally do? do you live with both hands on the keyboard? or do you spend as much time with one hand on the keyboard, one hand on the mouse? do you spend more time in front of a graphics tablet only using the keyboard for shortcuts?
if you’re a writer or author, optimizing your layout makes perfect sense
but if you spend significant time with a mouse (or trackball or trackpad or trackpoint), then realize you’re going to have to spend a significant portion of time figuring out your shortcuts – you’re either going to have to learn the new positions or go through and remap the hotkeys in each of your applications – ex. with InDesign, keeping the modifiers close together and accessible by one hand is going to take priority so you can do stuff like Ctrl-Alt-Shift-C, Ctrl-Alt-Shift-E
[side note: one of the advantages of Colemak/Colemak-DH is they left A, Z, X, C, V untouched because of shortcuts and people’s muscle memory]