geekhack
geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: hawkhandlerr on Sun, 03 April 2022, 22:51:04
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After going through the process of ever shrinking keyboard layouts I have worked my way back up to an 1800 and am loving it. The ideal layout, i think, would be an FRL 1800 which I have as a southpaw but am eagerly awaiting the Jiot. In the meantime, I'm using a Rekt1800 and I'm curious what other folks do with the layers on a board this size. I'm sure there are practical layouts with the layers I could be using so I thought I'd solicit some ideas. I would love to see what others have done. Thanks!
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When you have enough keys layers are pretty optional - you could use them for media keys if you don't use a spybot to control that, or you could have duplicate keys on layers just to be that bit lazier and never leave the home row as you would on a 60%. Or if you use a lot of spreadsheets you could have a layer where the keys above the numberpad are more relevant, I used to use Tab and Esc far more often than Home and End for starters.
On my 1800ish the only layer is for Colemak which I keep meaning to learn but realistically I could swap the FN for the only key that's useful once in a blue moon that didn't make the cut, but I've not missed it in the 5(?) years I've been using this board so I'll keep the useless layer.
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I implemented a couple of layers on my Boston....which is probably silly with a full extra set of F-keys. The most useful thing I have done with layers is to have different functions for my Encoder:
[attachimg=1]
- Layer 1: Volume /Mute
- Layer 2: Side scroll (at 1x speed)/Mute
- Layer 3: Rapid Scroll wheel (4x scroll clicks for each encoder click thanks to a for loop)/Mute
- Layer 4: Backlight brightness / Backlight on-off
Layers 2 and 3 also remap PF1 - Pf12 from F113-F24 to either ctrl-F13-F24 or alt-F13-F24
I might change the button function for Layer 2 to Ctrl to allow scrolling/zooming in some programs. Layers 1-3 have a dedicated key, Layer 4 is toggled by holding down the current layer key. I might add a "reset" button to that layer for firmware upgrades.