dactyl-manuform

work so this is annoying. I've set one of the 4 macro keys to be the key combination I need to make screenshots, but again this required some configuration. With that being said I still like the keyboard. My hands feel great even after 12 hours of mixed browsing, coding, and writing. My posture is better, and I don't get pain in my vertebrae next to my shoulder blade. But there are definitely things I would change if I was making it from scratch. Maybe in the future I'll Diy a dactyl-manuform^1 which has the perfect switches and layout for me. https://github.com/abstracthat/dactyl-manuform

ws with straight columns of keys, at the minimum. ZSA actually sells the Ergodox EZ and Moonlander, both of which I'd say are better keyboards. They are of course a lot bigger than the planck, which might be problematic if you're using it on the go a lot. If you're looking for something a bit more portable, perhaps something like the atreus would be more suitable. There's a prebuilt one you can purchase from keyboardio [1] though you can find kits online to build one yourself. Gboards [2] also has some nice low profile small form factor keyboards, though the owner of Gboards is currently not accepting any new orders as she's working through the backlog of orders. There's a ton more shops that sell kits for small form factor keyboards and there is no shortage of choice for keyboards with all sorts of form factors and numbers of keys. A good place to start researching it is the ergonomic mechanical keyboards subreddit [3] and the olkb (planck) subreddit [4]. Personally, I use the Kinesis Advantage 2 [5] with a custom microcontroller designed by Michael Stapelberg [6] that allows me to run QMK [7] on it. Kinesis has announced a new fully split keyboard that doesn't have a ship date that I'm also very interested in [8]. These have concave key wells which are a bit hard to describe but once you've put your hands on one, it becomes pretty obvious the difference in just pure comfort to the hands they bring. Any keyboard with these key wells however are very large and not exactly a great portable keyboard. Still, I think the tradeoffs are well worth it. Finally, If the Advantage isn't your jam, there are open source keyboards made with key wells and are fully split like the Dactyl [9], and Dactyl Manuform [10]. Prebuilt manuforms can be found at Oh Keycaps [11] and a few other vendors. These are very geeky keyboards that will require a lot of effort on top of the effort of learning how to type, so I'd only suggest them if you're really ambitious about using alternative keyboards and getting the most out of them. A lot of the more popular mechanical keyboard communities are great for what they are, but they have kind of zeroed in on focusing on mostly aesthetics. The Mechanical Keyboards subreddit [12] is primarily glamour photos of people's keyboards and offers very little discussion in terms of ergonomics, alternative keyboard layouts, or other aspects of the hobby. Still, it's a great place to look for key switches you might like (the sound being one of the big considerations) or keycap group buys that you might be interested in. I hope that I can help get more eyes on the ergonomic keyboard community since more eyes is more interest and more interest means more innovation and better keyboards. [1] https://shop.keyboard.io/products/keyboardio-atreus [2] https://www.gboards.ca/ [3] https://www.reddit.com/r/ergomechkeyboards [4] https://www.reddit.com/r/olkb/ [5] https://kinesis-ergo.com/shop/advantage2/ [6] https://michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2020-07-09-kint-kinesis-... [7] https://qmk.fm/ [8] https://twitter.com/kinesisergo/status/1397335511694381058 [9] https://github.com/adereth/dactyl-keyboard [10] https://github.com/abstracthat/dactyl-manuform [11] https://ohkeycaps.com/products/built-to-order-dactyl-manufor... [12] https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/

s. Another reason to use layers is for different use cases. I can have one layer programmed with a bunch of hotkeys for Photoshop, another layer for just normal typing/computer use, and another layer setup for gaming. Another thing to consider is ergonomics. I 3d printed a case for a Dactyl Manuform and hand-wired my own customized, split ergonomic keyboard. After switching to it, the tendonitis in my wrist cleared up. So, there is value to be found. However a lot of the people that want mechanical keyboards just want something that feels like it is a quality device. If that's what you're looking for, you can get something that will likely be the nicest keyboard you've ever used for $200 or less. Once you get to the $500+ mark for an entire build, you are venturing into the territory where its more of a fashion accessory. People want cases made by certain designers and while in some cases they have better features or are machined to a higher standard, you quickly run into diminishing returns. IMO if someone wants to get into mechanical keyboards, its hard to beat the standard model of GMMK keyboards for the price. You can get it for $60 without switches or keycaps. At that point pay $30-40 for Box Jade switches if you like clicky switches, $70-100 for zeal helios switches if you like smooth linear switches, or $50 for aliaz 70g tactile switches if you like MX browns. After that spend $30-50 on a cheap but decent PBT keycap set. Finally, do about 10 minutes worth of simple modifications to the keyboard and you'll end up with something that gets you 95% of the value you'd get out of a $2000 keyboard at 1/10th of the price. https://github.com/abstracthat/dactyl-manuform