40% 4x13

[mecano]

Hello,
I'm planning on building this :


I would have save some and get a planck but I can't get the 12 columns design, every qwerty build of it I saw cut one or more alpha key to get modifiers on the left, right or both.
I came to the conclusion that to preserve the qwerty you had to add 1 column.
I suspected some firmware/chips/matrix limitation for nobody taking such an obvious way but how could it be? If we can have 4x12 or 5x15, 4x13 should be fine.
Still, maybe I am overlooking something? What do you think?

[NoahBC]

I'm unclear on the problem you're trying to solve here.

I'm typing on a planck right now, and all my alpha keys are where they would be on any other keyboard, aside from being in a matrix.

[mecano]

Hello Noah,
by alphas I mean alphas and signs commonly included within (maybe I'm not using the right term?).
Problem is a lot of people are using control/modifiers/tab on the left, doing this you have to sacrifice the last "alpha" column on the right, if not cutting off two "alphas".

I want to preserve the brackets and have modifiers on the left as on the picture in first post.

How do you deal with brackets and such yourself?

[vivalarevolución]

On my Planck, I put the brackets, semicolon, and pipe/backslash on the function layer.  Everything else is on the first layer.  Considering that I use these symbols infrequently, it is not much of a problem.  But I guess that it comes down to what you prefer.

[mecano]

Hello viva,
thanks for joining in.
I could live without direct access to pipe and backslash as I come from azerty but brackets would be a turn back.
How do you deal with the equal and addition signs? Curious about this.

Otherwise, I met a metal worker this week end, he'll may work on a custom case (forming/bending and brazing).

[hoz]

uhm, im pretty sure you will find having enter, backspace, esc and tab within an fn-layer far more inconvenient than brackets...

[RoastPotatoes]

This is an excellent idea. Those other keys were just holding you back.

[mecano]

uhm, im pretty sure you will find having enter, backspace, esc and tab within an fn-layer far more inconvenient than brackets...

In fact I'm using this layout on my Pure Pro at the moment.
The enter, esc, backspace and tab are on the control layer and are the more convenient things I have tested so far!

This is an excellent idea. Those other keys were just holding you back.

What do you mean Roast?

[RoastPotatoes]

It's like the HHKB layout. I don't use the bottom right and bottom left keys so they don't exist. You seem to be taking this a little further.

[mecano]

Oh yes! 
Still wondering if not putting keys there is a good idea though, there is the estate why not use it? But putting keys I'll use twice a year…
Maybe putting a tracking device on the right?
Right now on the Pure I have a mouse mode with jkl; moving down up left down, I don't use it very often though, I must add diagonals.

[mecano]

I better understand your "holding back", Roast, if you put functionality there, you won't put it elsewhere and as it has poor accessibility…
I'll leave it as is.