I'm curious what people use on the bottom row of their plancks, both in terms of key profile, and layout?
This question is partially driven by the fact that I keep seeing "ortho" key sets everywhere based on that same layout, which I found incredibly awkward and uncomfortable in both ways, and I'm curious if I'm the exception, or if the majority of planck users do a lot of customization.
for my keyboards, I use the full 48 key grid, and my favourite profile is SA 2-3-4-4, but I flip the middle 6 keys (which I press with my thumbs) so they're row 2 instead of pounding on the sharp bottom edges.
I've also done some using cherry and oem profiles with the flipped keys on the bottom row (which look stupid unless it's a blank set). I also have used R3 SA (On the keyboard I'm using right now, in fact) and DSA. Both of which are pretty okay, except that my thumbs get sore.
Flipped keys for the middle 6 is the way to go IMO.
As far as layouts go,
I have shift keys in the normal places on both sides. Backspace in place of caps (got used to this when I was using colemak). And my bottom row goes:
ctrl, win, alt, tab, (nav), (num), (punc), space, enter, alt, app, ctrl.
I put the space bar in the exact spot where I would naturally hit it on a normal 104 keyboard instead of in the middle, which seemed like a weird reach to get used to. Then I put the modifiers in all the remaining thumb-key spots.
The "nav" modifier puts a standard inverted T arrow key set under my right hand fingers when they're in home position, and an inverted T that is PgUp, Home, PgDn, End under my left hand home position. (Seems way more intuitive than the weird bottom row arrows.)
the num key gives me both a num pad under my right hand in home position, and a top row of number keys (on Q-P) coincidentally, the 7,8,9 line up in both sets of numbers, and I use top number key codes for both, so I can num-shift-1 for a !, etc.
The punc key fills out the other weird stuff that I couldn't really find a good place for like []=-, etc. It's the layer that still needs tweaking.
I would suggest anyone else who wants to try this layout should adapt it slightly for their typing habits. Start by putting your space key where it's most natural, nav key on the other hand in the mirror position, then put num in the remaining spot on the left hand (assuming you want num-pad on the right), and punc in the last remaining place.
Does anyone else have any other good suggestions/optimizations that they use on theirs?
-Nick