One of the main reason I joined this forum was this project. I just finished reading all 56 pages (which seem to suddenly have changed to 34, not sure why) over the past few days, and have saved a lot of the images just for at least window shopping for now! ;-)
Now as someone else said, I'm wondering whether I should wait for this or go for ErgoDox EZ which is to come out in December. This one is much more feature-packed for probably a similar price tag (based on the estimates AcidFire posted a few pages ago). So if this one comes out, I would be really curious to know who would buy the EZ and why (while Erez of that project has been
very kind and helpful to my email queries) As for KeyboardIO, though I like the colour LED feature, I don't exactly dig the fancy butterfly shape -- not sure how many would either. Also, the outer keys especially of each side do not seem replaceable by other caps for whatever reason. Now if it were a regular rectangular shape, it might appeal to those who agree with me, but I digress...
Now that we know the reason for AcidFire's recent silence on this score, I'm eagerly looking forward to when he'll get some time [after the due wedding celebration period of course! ;-)] to post updates.
Now there is one actual design detail I want to chime in on: he
said he would be removing the three 1u keys on the thumb clusters, and
also the function keys which are then both
combined into a cluster in the center. However this is ignoring the Esc key on the far top left and the Ins (or at least in my head I labeled it that) key on the far top right both of which are shown in bright blue in
the CrowdSupply page (which is still showing the model before these changes).
Since AcidFire is very nice about getting even negative feedback if constructive, I'd like to say this: The keys from the thumb cluster did not have any fixed functions brought over from the regular keyboards, and it was going to be up to users (or AcidFire for the default firmware) to assign some function to it. So repositioning them is not that big a deal. (Frankly I myself was somewhat wondering about the overcrowded thumb cluster.)
However, the Esc, Ins and F keys have already known functions and people are used to their relative positions (whether or not they are placed in fours, or sixes or whatever). So especially considering that one of the intentions of providing dedicated F keys is to make it convenient for those who are used to it, I think they should still be retained along the top (as a modular option of course) and not reordered into clusters which would totally make it inconvenient IMO and defeat their very purpose. Re keeping them along the top, I don't think they are used so often that reaching for them is a big issue, especially since the design has them somewhat titled
towards the fingers so it's not all that much of a reach. Those who don't like to reach even that much can always use one of the extra keys as an Fn modifier with a model that doesn't have the dedicated keys (thanks to the modularity).
Finally, I'd like to hear more about
the hall effect sensor too. However, now that the thumb cluster has been reduced to 4x1.5u keys, I feel that any such pointing device should not replace any more of the remaining 4 keys but be placed instead of one of the removed keys. I'm not sure we'll
need 5 LEDs on either side (though usages can always be found by innovative people) so lesser LEDs should be fine.
BTW how would such a pointing device, even if clickable, be used to distinguish left-click and right-click (and middle-click for those that use it)?!!
Finally, thanks and congratulations to AcidFire and I hope he really is able to get the time to take this to completion reasonably soon!
