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Coming into the hobby

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Garrosh:
Hello you all nice people!

So I've been reading a lot, thinking a lot, debating a lot, searching a lot, and I'm not finding tons. I'd like to build myself a keyboard, hot-swappable, as heavy as possible, not wireless. I'd like to end up with something like the Monsgeek M1 or the Keychron Q1. I think my ideal layout is at 75%, but I'm actually open to suggestions. I don't use my F-keys all that often, I found out, but not having my F4 would sometimes definitively suck. How do you guys handle that?

It might have an impact on things later on, so I'll put that out there as well: I don't have Windows on my computer. I think it might restrict my options to flash my controller later on, but then again, I don't really know.

I was thinking of having some Cherry Blues to start with, but I'll be wanting to try different things as time goes on, and I'd like to use this keyboard to make the experiments I want. Eventually, I'll probably want to solder myself a board, with the switches I prefer, but that will be much later, I think.

I'm based in Canada, and haven't found that many places that sell keyboard parts, especially for just wired keyboards. I really don't see an advantage to dealing with batteries, just to save a bit of wire that doesn't affect me in any way. My actual keyboard has been resting on this desk all of it's life, except the couple of times I took out all of the keycaps to clean it. If you're interested, I got myself a Corsair Strafe mechanical keyboard a few years back, at 100$ CAD.

So the first step would be to help me figure out which keyboard layout would be best for me. I happen to use my ESC key a lot, as well as the "`" key besides the one, which is one argument to have that additional row, but I'll admit it doesn't feel efficient to have a whole row of keys just to have the one more.

Thanks!

zegonix:
this is how i do it: https://github.com/zegonix/zegonix-qmk-configs/blob/main/zegonix/cycle7/keymaps/quaken/keymap.c
don't know what your background is, but don't let the c code scare you, the mappings should be relatively selfexplanatory. just know MO() is a 'momentary layer shift' and df is a 'default layer switch' (check the qmk docs). `QUAK_x` are c macros to keep my mappings formatted nicely (ask chatgpt if you don't understand)

tldr: i mapped the key to the left of `1` to ESC and use right ALT and CAPS as layershiftkeys, for 'ALT+F4' i press 'RALT+L+4'/'CAPS+LALT+4'

Leslieann:

--- Quote from: Garrosh on Sat, 08 February 2025, 18:55:12 ---So I've been reading a lot, thinking a lot, debating a lot, searching a lot, and I'm not finding tons. I'd like to build myself a keyboard, hot-swappable, as heavy as possible, not wireless. I'd like to end up with something like the Monsgeek M1 or the Keychron Q1. I think my ideal layout is at 75%, but I'm actually open to suggestions. I don't use my F-keys all that often, I found out, but not having my F4 would sometimes definitively suck. How do you guys handle that?

--- End quote ---

Get a board with QMK compatibility (then you can use VIA to program it on Linux, Windows or Mac) or comes with programming software (usually just Windows or Mac),  makes it a few mouse clicks to change any key with no flashing. Most work similar but here is GMMK explaining it.  Just beware any company telling you do download their software from a Google Drive. These are often infected. With this software you can completely remap the board, add macros, etc...


On Fkeys, you just have a FN key, it's similar to a shift but gives you another layer, just like on laptops. So FN+1 is F1, FN+2 is 2, etc... You can also use it to make macros, make some keys arrows, etc... Mine remaps up/down arrows to volume control.  Some people a random key they don't use or use space as a FN key when held with any other key. On my 65% I used the middle key on the far right but I wasn't happy with it. I also floated the idea of using caps lock.

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