Hiya. I'm sort of new here, and found your thread recently while looking for an ergonomic keyboard; wrists have been giving me a bit of trouble and it seems like a good idea to head things off at the pass...
So, first of all, awesome work (extremely awesome). Favorites are:
- the keystation version with the extra buttons (or space for a trackball, perhaps) in the middle... but I'm constrained to finding something relatively portable
- the V-shaped 70% version... which is just gorgeous, but I think I would like to keep the split halves for tenting and adjustability reasons
- the version wrapped around the laptop, which very well could be the best thing ever.
A couple of questions/suggestions (for split versions mostly, but they sort of apply to anything):
1) If I understand correctly, you are planning on offering LEDs under each key for backlighting/etc. Will it be possible to have the keys change color so that all keys on a particular layer are lit the same color? As in: For layer 0, all keys are backlit white. For layer 1, keys that are unchanged from layer 0 (or unassigned) remain white, layer 1 mappings are changed to red. Layer 2 keys might be blue, but holdovers from layer 0 or unassigned will again remain white, etc.
Granted, the idea is not to be looking at the keyboard, but the monitor does not fill one's entire field of view, and the glow from the keyboard can serve as a cue (especially while learning) for what layer we are on and what features we have access to... this becomes more important when considering options for dynamic changes to the layout based on context information fed back from the computer... I would love to experiment with the keyboard as a sort of I/O device.
2) Is there any chance you could add a scroll wheel to each half (either near the index finger or the thumb, not sure which would be better)? I'd like to use a pair of scroll wheels (in combination with remapping scroll wheel functions based on currently selected layer, and a nearby LED for each wheel) to replace a subset of actions that are usually handled by the mouse and/or the arrow keys. These actions seem to fall into a few categories, roughly delimited as follows:
The first is area/pane selection. A lot of what the mouse ends up doing is clicking within some bound region of the screen; this can be file panes like in an ftp client, subsections of application interfaces, etc. I can see this as a type of action that could be replaced with the cursor controlled by either a scroll wheel (or two, one each for quick jogs in x, y), or a numpad-like arrangement of keys on a separate layer, with sections of the numpad corresponding to screen regions; hitting a key jumps the cursor to the desired region... faster than tab, and then minor adjustments can be made by moving the cursor with the scroll wheel.
The second is within-pane navigation. In some applications the arrows keys or pgup/pgdn/home/end are pretty good for getting around, but in others, they lack both the speed and precision of a scroll wheel. Moving the cursor around with the arrows keys is acceptable sometimes, but kind of a pain most of the time; especially if you are using the cursor or highlighted section of text as a bookmark while referencing something else. This could be set as another scroll wheel layer.
The third is text selection. Like many of you, I spend a lot of time in text editors. Some actions, like shift+home/end or shift+arrows are great for grabbing lines or blocks of text, but they leave something to be desired when navigating and selecting from single lines; too much tapping, and/or waiting for key repeats. Mapping scroll wheels to arrows, and/or shift+arrows on an alternate layer gives a much faster way of moving through text.
The fourth, and last one for the moment, is selecting fields within a document or page. Tab and shift tab are nice, but again, that ends up being a lot of tapping... bind them to scroll, and get around faster...
I think the addition of scroll wheels would eliminate some of the use cases that tend to force a switch to the mouse and break up the mostly-keyboard workflow that I (and probably others) are looking for. They are probably less expensive than trackballs, pointing sticks, or touchpads (and definitely less frustration-inducing than the third option), so they might be worth looking in to...
3) Are you planning to offer tent stands, (ideally with the degree markings that were on the single-unit adjustable angle/tent board) with the split version?
(Random suggestion, though kind of useless to me on account of "too big to travel with:" mount each half inside a partial sphere, then put that into a partial box (three faces, xy, yz, xz) with a spherical mounting, then you have a very adjustable glove thing... doesn't really have a huge advantage over more reasonable ways of adjusting the boards, but it would probably look neat...)
Anyway, keep up the amazing work and best regards!
(I've already signed up for the beta.)
