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Ergonomics and modifiers?

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joesventek:

--- Quote from: vvp on Sat, 19 May 2018, 13:15:30 ---OK, so the firmware postpones a dual shot key effect even more (until a key in a chord is released). Non-gamers would not really mind. Gamers would mind even the shorter postponement I mentioned before. Makes sense.

--- End quote ---

Fortunately I'm not a gamer, so this is not a problem to me. I guess I just have to test out modifiers on the home row for a bit longer to make sure they work for me.


--- Quote from: algernon on Sat, 19 May 2018, 15:32:54 ---You want one-shot modifiers, on the thumb cluster. One-shot means it remains active until *after* the next press, even if you release it. You can also chain modifiers this way, because one-shot modifiers do not cancel each other (talking about QMK and Kaleidoscope here, other firmware may implement them differently). This means if you want to type `Ctrl+Shift+Alt+F`, you type `Ctrl, Shift, Alt, F` instead. No chording, no weird finger gymnastics, and you only need one set of modifiers, saving a few keys on your layout. (Ok, you may want Right Alt)

I've been using oneshots this way for almost two years now, my pinkies love it, because they don't need to hold anything at all. My thumbs love it, because they can drum on the thumb cluster from time to time - and they don't need to hold anything either! My keymap loves it too, because I could put more useful stuff on my base layer, after removing all the Right modifiers.

Seriously, try one shot modifiers. They help, and are incredibly easy to get used to.
--- End quote ---

I did try one shot modifiers and did not like them at all (because using them felt awkwardly slow to me and I got all confused when I accidentally hit a modifier). But I guess I have to give them a serious try again to finally form an opinion on them.

algernon:

--- Quote from: joesventek on Tue, 22 May 2018, 04:32:25 ---I did try one shot modifiers and did not like them at all (because using them felt awkwardly slow to me and I got all confused when I accidentally hit a modifier). But I guess I have to give them a serious try again to finally form an opinion on them.

--- End quote ---

For accidental hits, I set up my Esc key to cancel any oneshots if active, and only act as Esc when there are no one-shots in flight. This made the accidental hits much less confusing. As for speed - that's just a question of practice. After about a week of using oneshot modifiers, I found I type capital letters faster, because my thumb got used to pressing shift, and moving my thumb slightly and tapping a key turned out to be faster than reaching for Shift with my pinky, and holding.

stevep:
Thumb keys are the way to go. Thumbs are perfect for modifiers, but the design of traditional keyboards is unfortunately very stupid, which makes optimal usage harder to achieve than it should be.

One option is to go for a radically changed keyboard design, such as the ErgoDox or Planck. They provide convenient thumb keys and can be programmed in hardware. But they do require a bit of relearning, and it might be annoying if you need to frequently switch back to ordinary hardware.

Another option, for standard keyboards, is you can access the Alt keys via your thumbs, with alternative functions assigned to them. This works especially well on laptop-style keyboard where the Alt keys are directly below C and comma. Here are some ideas of what you could to with these modifier keys. Also some keyboards have split space-bars, such as the Matias Ergo Pro or the upcoming UHK, which allows you to use one of the spacebars for something else. I have been doing this for years and highly recommend it.

joesventek:
So after having used modifiers on the home row for a bit now, I come to the following conclusion: When they work, modifiers on the home row are really really great and comfortable! Unfortunately, no matter what settings in QMK I change, there are always some quirks that get in my way.

So the next experiment in trying to save my pinkies is building a custom split keyboard with thumb keys: https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=95919.0

vvp:
Can you please elaborate on the "quirks".

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