While I’m particularly looking for chords (ex: if jkl;
are all keydown at the same time then send the space
keypress) I’d be happy to hear about your keymapping approach in general. E.g. how do you organize your layers, have you needed to custom compile anything, mapping choices you regret but are too hard to change now, etc.
I got my first ergomech board recently. I’ve got the background to flash the board manually and code everything in C. But before I go down that very deep rabbit hole, I wanted to see if what others had done/learned.
Personally I’m not planning to go full asetniop with cords. I think I just want a handful of chords to go along with layers.
I’ve been using Miryoku for almost a year now, and I love it. The home row mods became natural surprisingly quickly. I do still need to tweak a setting somewhere; I tend to leave accidental "j"s around when I get found fast and an going for a capital on the left hand.
Here’s my keymap. This image is ever so slightly outdated but should give you a decent idea for my keymapping. If you have questions feel free to lemme know.
It took a lot of work to get it here, lots of trial and error and moving stuff. I have my combo timeout really low so that changed what I could use for combos.
I’ve got quite a few combos on my keymap while still typing in a standard way. More combos than keys haha https://keymapdb.com/keymaps/grassfedreeve/
this is really cool, I did not know about keymapDB!
The letters in between keys make sense to me (press both keys). I’d never thought of doing chords that way before.
I’m confused by the vertical in-between keys though. Like how are S and W pressed at the same time physically?
Vertical Combos are pressed with a single finger. Possibly easier depending on keycaps and key spacing (choc spaced and Chicago Steno is what I use). You basically press in the crack between the two keys pressing both at once.
The horizontal combos are done with multiple fingers. You can see the blue keys on the base layer as well as the combo diagrams on the bottom for the rest of the combos.
KeymapDB is great and I believe they have a combo/chording filter to look at keymaps that use them.
Oh! Yet another thing I didn’t think of. I’ll start trying that.
While I don’t have choc (I wanted choc switches) I did take the time to print choc-like keycaps for MX switches, because apparently 3d printing and Etsy are the only way to get those (for some reason).
I don’t know how people tolerate keycap profiles like DSA
I like DES for mx and it works well for combos as well. You can buy a set from Asymplex if you have the cash. Or order them from JLCPCB in MJF which is also pretty nice. You can find pre spued files for that on GitHub if you search around
I’ve considered getting Chicago steno but they’re so darn expensive lol. You think they’re worthwhile?
I got mine used and in the bag of shame raffle 😅 AUD to USD makes them pretty expensive. They are really nice though. If you’re on the fence I’d get some printed in MJF and use those for a bit. )Then you’ll fall in love with the profile and be forced to buy the real deal hahaha )
Thanks for the input!