Ergonomic, split and other weird keyboards
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
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I'm trying out the miryoku layout. Let's see if I last more than 30 seconds.
Give it a go, but have patience. Don’t start during a particularly busy time at work, and be prepared to switch out your keyboard for a full sized one for 30 minutes when you get frustrated.
If you’re going directly from 104 keys, it’s going to be a big change. It will take time to build the muscle memory. But good luck!
Agree. I made the big mistake to switch from a full sized, but split (Microsoft Sculpt) keyboard on the German standard QWERTZ layout to a fully split ortholinear with 36 keys in Mine-Layout, with Home-Row-Mods pretty much in one go and without taking enough time per day to really train (on AgileFingers or Keybr.com). It took me more than a year to get back to barely acceptable typing speeds but I always had the feeling to be worse off if I would go back and start over.
My advise would be to change only a few things at a time and get comfortable before changing the next thing, but since you are already trying out Miryoku, I can only wish for your success (others have done a switch as big as the one I did without any problems), and to have fun with it.
Yep. I went from 104 keys to the split MS ergo keyboard, to an ErgoDox, at which point I learned Dvorak. I then gradually dropped some keys before building my own 40 key split. I’ve since dropped 4 keys off that to get down to 36, which I’ve been using as a daily driver at work for about a year. I’m just about to build a new split with 24 keys. Really not sure how well it will work, but figured I’d give it a go. Trying to find that balance between too few keys vs too much hand movement.
Ay another dvorak user!
I've been thinking about switching from Dvorak to a better alt layout but I Think that after years of Dvorak and good speed (150wpm), it's just not worth that minor increase in efficiency lol. I think I'll be in the Dvorak club for a long time
What would be a better layout? Only thing I can think of is colemak if you're programming with the semi colon. When I do that I just switch back to qwerty, typing speed doesn't really hold back my programming speed.
Dvorak is kinda bad compared to other alt layouts. I think the original appeal was that it was built into windows. Or I just picked between colemak and Dvorak randomly lol. There's a lot of math that goes into developing alt layouts, and a lot of it is personal to your use case.
This is the first time hearing someone call it bad, do you have any links explaining why it's bad compared to others?
I don't have any links on hand. I could probably find some later. It's discussed on r/keyboard_layouts. Dvorak has a lot of SFB compared to newer alt layouts, and L on a pinky above S is kinda sus lol
I should add that Dvorak is still leagues better than qwerty
@lambchop I wouldn't call the Miryoku layout bad. I think has some elegance and consistency to it, but I strongly prefer one shot modifiers, which Miryoku doesn't have room for. I created an alternate layout that includes a sixth column on each hand for rarely-used or optional keys. My "markstos" layout is also in the QMK repo for Corne keyboards. There are several other differences as well! I have a page about it here:
https://mark.stosberg.com/markstos-corne-3x5-1-keyboard-layout/
The layout referred to above is Dvorak, not Miryoku. Thanks for sharing your OSM layout tho, I'll check it out. Always room to improve mine lol :p
You've got this! Like the other commenter said, be ready to take it slow. Also, if you haven't already, print out a cheat sheet if you think that would help. It goes a long way.
I might also move the right hand thumb keys over to the left one switch. That seems a bit un comfortable where it is now
This is similar to how I learned Miryoku, I slowly migrated my TKL board over to it incrementally. First I dropped the number row and did a Planck-style layout, then once I was comfortable with that I added homerow mods to it, then once that felt good I did what you've done here. After those baby steps, I built a Fifi keyboard. I've been on Miryoku for about two years and am stoked on it (although I've recently adapted it down to 34 keys and like that better)
Yep, inverse left-hand row stagger counts. Katana60 and µTron style.
You know what? If you put half a tennis ball in the middle and install a tiny space bar, it looks pretty convincing 😉