geekhack
geekhack Community => Off Topic => Topic started by: vasouv on Mon, 02 September 2013, 12:57:10
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I'm making this thread here because it's just out of curiosity...
I've seen that quite a few of you guys have those compact Happy Hacking Keyboards or similar ones that don't have arrow keys or Ins-Home etc keys.
How do you cope without the arrow keys or the 6-key Home cluster? Personally I use the arrow keys quite a lot, I can't imagine having a keyboard without them. Even if it's just about typing, someone's bound to make a mistake and have to correct it, be it a whole word or a whole sentence.
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The HHKB has a function layer that works pretty well. The poker and some other 60% are hit and miss. The GH60 is fully custumizable of course. I use my HHKB on a server, so I don't mind it too much. For daily use I like a full keyboard.
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How do you cope without the arrow keys? There is no how about it. Some people can't handle it and some can.
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Some people like being able to use the arrow keys from the home row. For example, pressing the function key with one hand while using WASD, ESDF, or IJKM as arrow keys.
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Some people like being able to use the arrow keys from the home row. For example, pressing the function key with one hand while using WASD, ESDF, or IJKM as arrow keys.
Exactly. With my HHKB I can access almost every key a full sized keyboard has without ever taking my fingers off the homerow. Once you get used to it, which took like a day for me, you will find it much more functional than a full sized.
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I don't use any of those keys.
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I only really miss the arrow keys if I make typos.
Considering I have a blank HHKB, that happens more frequently than I'd like.
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I use arrow keys all the time, I actually really like the function layer on my HHKB... after you get used to it, it's very convenient, but it's all preference and a lot of people don't like it. Just have to try it and see if it works for you.
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Like you, I have been intrigued by compact boards. I started by moving from a full-size IBM Model M to an IBM SSK. Then I got curious about other TKL boards that were more compact than the SSK, so I have looked at a Filco MJ2 TKL with Cherry mx blue switches and a CM QFS with Cherry mx green switches.
I then jumped to a 60% form factor, looking at boards like the Poker II whose arrow keys are in the Fn layer, and the Tex Beetle, which has dedicated arrow keys. The Poker II has a standard layout, which makes touch typing and replacing keycaps easy, but I found that I needed the arrow keys quite frequently, and I did not like having to use Fn+WASD. Although the Beetle has dedicated arrow keys within a 60% form factor, it does this by shrinking the right-shift key from 2.75x to 1.00x, which is far too small for me. The Beetle also has a non-standard staggering in the z-row, which together with the small right-shift key interfered with my typing.
There are 75% boards such as the Keycool 84, but I did not like the build quality or appearance of such boards.
Finally, I tried two 60%-plus boards, the Leopold FC660M with Cherry mx blue switches and the Leopold FC660C with 45-gram Topre switches. This was the solution I was looking for. These Leopolds have dedicated arrow keys along with an Insert and Delete key, but they have maintained a standard layout in the main typing area with the exception of reducing the right-shift to 2.25x, which is the same size as the left-shift and quite acceptable for touch typing. The layouts of the two Leopolds are the same, but I find the Topre switch version to be light years ahead of the Cherry switch version for typing. In fact, the FC660C is now my second-favorite board, next to my IBM SSK. It might even jump to first place if Leopold would make high quality dye-sub Topre keycaps available for it.
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Aaaaah, there's another function layer! I thought they were completely missing! Oh OK then :P
Many times compact is good, there's no much hand movement around.
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The Pure is nice because you can turn the arrow key cluster on and off. IDK if you can do that with the HHKB