Wow, some truly awesome mods in this thread! I first experimented with two footswitches to momentarily enable keyboard layers (e.g. symbols layer, numbers layer, embedded arrows, etc). This worked really well and in addition I was able to type caps when pressing both footswitches simultaneously. Recently I have started experimenting with thumb modifiers on a Japanese keyboard (which has a bunch of extra thumb keys). While footswitches took me no time to master, I am finding the thumb modifiers a lot harder to master, so I am wondering how palm switches compare.
The main problem is that when the index, middle, ring and pinky fingers move away from the home row to reach for other keys (especially keys that are more than one key away), the whole hand moves and naturally the thumbs have to follow. For example, on a normal keyboard when I press the number 8 key with my right index finger, my relaxed right thumb ends up over the N key, instead of the Space key. Things get tricky when you need to press more than one key with the same hand, because the thumb modifiers perceived location changes relative to the other fingers depending on which key combination is being pressed, which makes developing muscle memory really difficult. To mitigate this, standard keyboards have modifiers on both sides.
By contrast, footswitches are always in the same place, that is, directly under the feet, so you
and that have experimented with footswitches and &)))thumb modifiers as a replacement for footswitches, so the need to develop any form of positional muscle memory is automatically removed.
My question is, does anyone have experience with all three solutions (thumb modifiers, palm modifiers and footswitches)? I am really interested in hearing your experiences. There are some keyboard mods on this thread with two palm buttons for each palm, does this mean you cannot rest your palms on keyboard? How usable are the palm buttons when the hand is reaching for numbers row keys?