When Sleepdealer finished the PCB revisions, it was not feasible to add stabilizer holes to each switch footprint of the bottom row. So the bottom row options will remain as they were, i.e., 1/1/3/1/1, 3/1/3, and 7. People have built the F&F/FE units with all of those configurations and they're working out fine.
Wow, first of all, thank you everyone for the comments and IC responses—I really appreciate your interest and feedback.
I had planned on sitting down and discussing bottom row options yesterday, but I had family in town who stayed longer than expected.
tl;dr just use 1/1/3/1/1
if it's not too much swiss cheese, would love a bottom row layout like 1.5/2/2/1.5 so there's a split space option without a gap in the middle
To add onto the 1.5/2/2/1.5 split bars request: a 1/3/3 split bars config would work way better than a 3/1/3 IMO.
I think a good compromise that is still very aesthetic would be to add support for 1/275/225/1. It still won't swiss cheese the bottom row with any overlapping holes, and we get an uninterrupted split spacebar option.
A small note before we begin: I'm surprised there's this much interest and diversity of opinion re: split space options—I've been using 1/1/3/1/1 the entire time I've had the prototype, and I find the single small spacebar + 4x mod layout super comfortable and usable. I figured that would be the most common bottom row option, with split space and big bar available as alternatives.
That said, while I'm not really committed to 3/1/3,
I am sticking to my guns with 1/1/3/1/1; Mesektet was designed with this bottom row in mind, making it a core aspect of the board's identity—in addition to being
highly functional (accommodating dedicated Ctrl, Alt, Sys, and layer keys, plus another layer accessed via tap/hold on the bar) and
remarkably comfortable (all four 1u keys are easily accessible by the thumbs, with no need for stretching pinkies or moving away from the home position).
So, in terms of adding bottom row options without creating Swiss cheese, let's start with the current layout, which supports 1/1/3/1/1, 3/1/3, and 7:
1/1/3/1/1 + 3/1/3 + 7Here, we can see that as long as 1/1/3/1/1 is supported, we already have all the switch cutouts we need for 3/1/3 and 7; they only require the addition of the leftmost and rightmost stabilizer cuts. Or, put differently, if you support 1/1/3/1/1 and 7, you get 3/1/3 for free. As a consequence, there's no way to "replace" 3/1/3 with a different split space option without also affecting support for 1/1/3/1/1 and/or 7. (I also won't be separately listing 3/1/3 in any of the captions below, since 3/1/3 is
implied by having 1/1/3/1/1 and 7.)
Here's what happens if we add 1.5/2/2/1.5:
1/1/3/1/1 + 7 + 1.5/2/2/1.5Even connecting cuts across the tiny gaps on the left and right, that's still a fairly messy plate with several very thin verticals (and some quite wide-open horizontal stretches). I also don't love 1.5u mod keys on a board that is very consistently 1u (with the exception of 1-2 stabilized keys).
Things look maybe a bit better if we use 1/2.75/2.25/1 instead:
1/1/3/1/1 + 7 + 1/2.75/2.25/1A bit cleaner, though there are still some thin verticals, and the second-from-right cluster has that really long horizontal gap extending through two overlapping stabilizer cuts. Not too bad looking from the layout perspective either, as Raijba points out in the first layout image above, though I do prefer the bars being equal length on this layout.
Which brings me to 1/3/3. We can go ahead and add 3/3/1 as well, resulting in the following:
7x1uNow
this is a different beast entirely—not a few layout options but
ten:
- 7x1u (which, yes, one stabilizer hater has asked for this in Discord)
- five options with 4x1u + 1x3u (i.e., with zero, one, two, three, or four 1u keys left of the bar)
- three options with 1x1u + 2x3u (1/3/3, 3/1/3, and 3/3/1)
- 1x7u (for the big bar enjoyers)
So (setting aside 7x1u and 1x7u for the moment), you end up with a lot of options for positioning the minibar or the split bars to fit the way your particular thumbs land on the bottom row. 7x1u (with the corresponding stabilizer cuts) also keeps the plate/PCB nice and clean. The downside, such as it were, is that the two new split space options (1/3/3 and 3/3/1) are asymmetrical. But I think Raijba has a point here, for two reasons. First, considering the 1/3/3 image in Raijba's post above, I just don't think that looks bad—to the contrary, I actually find it rather elegant, and reminiscent of the unorthodox mod key alignment of some vintage boards, most notably the Family Basic. Second, as Raijba correctly points out, Mesektet's design is generally unconcerned with symmetry; I don't necessarily see it as a downside if the split space options lean into that further.
In brief, I think adding 1/3/3 and 3/3/1 offers the best solution for split space, considering the tradeoffs involved between layout flexibility and Swiss cheese. This would also create new options for positioning the single 3u bar (and satisfy the Discord fan who asked for 7x1u). Unless people overwhelmingly hate this for some reason, I'll talk to keebnewb about revising the PCB to 7x1u between the revised prototypes and GB.
Thank you very much Dede, Raijba, and Baconspoon for your valuable suggestions on this topic!
