Signed up to this forum for this! First off, wow, +1, fantastic job. I'm certainly going to be going for these (assuming price isn't crazy, natch).
I've been on the hunt for a decent Ergodox layout that isn't gimmicky, profiled (+1 for KAT), and not full of blanks, ISO/UK keys. Having some profile on the thumb cluster too is fantastic. This seems to hit the nail on the head, almost. My reservations are the legends on the dox modifiers, noting that the ergodox is usually custom mapped:
- Row 2 outer keys are too prescriptive, there needs to be more choice of generic keys. I'm unsure why there is a ]} key on that outside edge with no corresponding {[ key (is this a common arrangement?).
- Too many arrows, especially R3 left side. Just so many, I know people use a lot of layer shifting and arrows can make sense, but no other options makes it quite restrictive. This issue combined with the above means on the inner keys you're really constrained with having keys that make sense.
In my, ever so humble opinion, a balance should be struck between common keys and generic legends to allow for user flexibility. On the flip side, it does seem odd that there is no choice traditional Enter return arrow for R3 right hand side.
I
really like the legends on the the 1u keys (diamonds, menus and lines), and the escape. This is exactly the sort of thing I'm referring to above, they don't really mean anything, but are unique and visually identifiable.
There are heaps of interesting glyphs in the unicode space that might make work really well (some of these may not display due to fonts):
⁂ ↀ ⎈𝜆⨝🖮 etc., maybe even just some other simple shapes.