When I read this, first thing that jumped to mind was ergodox, but I guess you've dismissed that.
Next thing that might be worth looking into is a QFR or filco TKL and doing some switch swaps and possibly a controller swap to achieve the programmable functionality you want. WASD Code TKL might be worth looking into as well, with its dip switch options. All three boards are only slightly larger than the keycool 84, but offer a lot more functionality.
The biggest problem with looking for a keyboard smaller than a TKL is they mostly tend to have nonstandard layouts and sizes, missing keys (such as your R_Ctrl, R_Alt_Gr), or other compromises to fit into a small form factor space. The particular 70% form factor you're looking at is not very popular at all -- most people who are looking for that set of keys go for a TKL instead. I might be able to think of something more if you can shed some light on why you need something smaller than a TKL?
It's full-size features in an almost TKL size.
long shot, but found this one while googling:
https://www.trulyergonomic.com/store/truly-ergonomic-mechanical-keyboard-soft-tactile-cherry-mx-brown-keyswitches-207-english
Expensive and nontraditional layout, but it might work for you?
Also, I know of at least one person who has modded a microsoft natural board to use MX switches.
One thing I'd be considering: If you're happy with the layout and functionality of the TKL form factor, I'm pretty sure it's at most an inch and a half wider than the 70%, and a quarter inch deeper. Still gives you an extra 3+ inches of space over a 104-key, and more than that coming from a curved ergo board like the natural. How big is your trackball, and how far apart are your shoulders?
Wow. thanks man. i'm impressed. Not only you had the exact keyboard i'm using but also had a ruler the exact length the difference of the two keyboards :D
hum, maybe not the exact same.. mine is 18in and does not have the coiled cable.
shoulders are 41mm or ~16in from center joints.
so, my rationale to go with the smallest width is... i use the natural right now exactly where it is on your desk.... i put my elbows on the desk. the natural help my hands be a part a little... with the non-natural format, my hands will be even more centered, so that will tend me to push the keyboard even further. with the keyboard even further back on the desk, even the small distance of the arrow keys is amplified by the arc the arm has to execute... maybe i'm just being nuts.
i should probably get a few used keyboards and see which one i like best... for a total of $100 on craigslist i see i can get both a TKL mx blue and a 70% alps... maybe i should just test instead of imagine
One more recommendation: Try the TKL MX blue first. My guess is that you'll be happy with it, and you may not even care to look for another keyboard after that. Blues are pretty amazing, particularly as a typist switch (general opinion, ymmv). I personally only made myself a board with clears because I'm still in university, and have a position on campus which requires me to live in dorm-style residence beyond first year. People complained about how loud my keyboard was last year :P
Show Image(http://mechanicalkeyboards.com/shop/images/products/large_412_84keyGREY_PBT.jpg)
- keycool 84
case may be glued. big no.
odd reviews. some love, some say are cheap junk with clone switches.
crammed backspace
they are not very hard to build at all. hell it is kind of fun. and you can make it whatever the hell you want it to be. any switch you want, any layout etc.
xmodmap -e "keycode 9 = grave asciitilde"
xmodmap -e "keycode 49 = Escape"
$HOME/bin/xcape -e 'Caps_Lock=Escape'I would love to have custom mappings and dual-role definitions in the firmware, but this can only be done with a teensy controller and that open sourced firmware that's available.Browns aren't loud -- not any louder than clears or rubber domes, at any rate.
Heavy Vim user chiming in.
I just wanted to share how I solve several of the problems you present.
I've just purchased a Poker II and I am so utterly happy with it. I am getting used to a few quirks with regards to the occasional arrow key as well as having to choose between left and right FN or only right FN with mod4/win-key on the left.
While in Vim, I'm not hampered by the 60% layout one bit and just enjoy the amazing feel of typing on my Poker.
I didn't know shift-insert was the shortcut for paste in a *nix-os, but I've always used shift-ctrl-v in gnome-terminal or konsole.
...that is why i think in the end, even a programable keyboard will not free me from much. I mentioned it on the requirements as nice to have (extra points) but in the end I know i will never be able to abandon software hacks. :(Why is it that you think that firmware will not be able to fix all your custom mappings and behavior?
I do plan a tinsy bridge. ie a PS/2+USB input to a PS/2+usb output that has a microSD card with all my config in a simple txt file and allow for mappings on how many levels i want in keyboard or mouse :) i will have time to make it eventually! right?
yeah, linux has two clipboards. it is a blessing and hell at the same time.If you have X running, you can run gvim in terminal mode, which should let you have access to the clipboards. I believe they're under the * and + registers. Do:
If you select something and ctrl+C, it will be in the your active clipboard. paste with ctrl+v
now, anytime you HIGHLIGHT something with the mouse, it will be in the X original clipboard. you will notice that if you activate another window, it will leave the non-focused highlight. it you highlight some other text on the next window, now that text is on X clipboard, and the non-focused highlight on the previous window disappear. Now you can paste it with shift+INS. It is convenient when you want to copy a url to paste on another browser but still have your text in the ctrl+v buffer. Also very handy to just double click a hostname in some ssh session, move to another one and shift+ins o middle click to paste. ...and then you go to widnows and you just highlight something change programs and wonder why the damn thing wont paste... btw, in windows shift+ins works just like ctrl+v.
ok, i will stop now. i told you i should not start in this topic... :/
:reg
to see your registers and their content.If you have X running, you can run gvim in terminal mode, which should let you have access to the clipboards. I believe they're under the * and + registers. Do:Code: [Select]:regto see your registers and their content.
Suddenly so many people!
@fragil1ty: What did you do to cause side print lettering to fade? I wouldn't imagine anything rubbing against it or anything of the sort....
Suddenly so many people!
@fragil1ty: What did you do to cause side print lettering to fade? I wouldn't imagine anything rubbing against it or anything of the sort....
Absolutely nothing brother. I just used the keyboard as a I normally would, it's strange how it erodes so quickly. I play a lot of games and what not, I do a lot of typing. (web developer + gaming, not the best combination, maybe?)
Maybe I missed it (most likely I did) but was there a reason you avoided the HHKB? It addresses a variety of your concerns, and I thought it was odd that someone using VIM as much as you do hadn't considered this board. I find the HHKB very enjoyable, for all the reasons generally mentioned about it. I use the Pro 2 (without the "silent" mod) and find that it fits my workflow very well.
Good luck with your hunt - I know how tricky it can be to find just the right thing.
If you have X running, you can run gvim in terminal mode, which should let you have access to the clipboards. I believe they're under the * and + registers. Do:Code: [Select]:regto see your registers and their content.
That is for all kinds of VIM (e.g. cterm and gui), even including VI. and that is *besides* all that i talked about X clipboards. :)
If you have X running, you can run gvim in terminal mode, which should let you have access to the clipboards. I believe they're under the * and + registers. Do:Code: [Select]:regto see your registers and their content.
That is for all kinds of VIM (e.g. cterm and gui), even including VI. and that is *besides* all that i talked about X clipboards. :)
Technically the clipboard registers aren't available through pure terminal Vim. If you have that, it's because your distro has packaged Gvim and Vim together and aliasing 'vim' to 'gvim -v'.
I would love to see your xmodmap bindings as I have a really hard time understanding how to properly remap everything. Please share them on a gist or paste somewhere.
my Xmodmap
CapsLock::Send {esc}
CapsLock & a::Send ^a
CapsLock & b::Send ^b
CapsLock & c::Send ^c
....Maybe you should try this:
http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=57723.msg1313182#msg1313182
Quotemy Xmodmap
I currently am not able to do that with only xmodmap. the reason is this http://www.jwz.org/xkeycaps/man.html#13 I'm using something different on all 4 boxes i have... not happy with any of them. the least worse for now is using the Xautomation package, and making copious use of system wide shortcut keys mapped to crappy shell scripts using `xte` for generating the key codes i need.
another solution is something like this http://git.adirat.com/carpalx-keyboard/src but using kernel hacks for capslock=esc/control... i doubt anyone else would apply my patches to their kernel for that. and i hate to re-apply patches every time i upgrade a kernel (which happens every week now with modern distros. damn kids)
ironically, on windows it is a little better. not because i'm happy with my current solution, but because there is only one option :) so i settled for a autohotkey script that goes likeCode: [Select]CapsLock::Send {esc}
CapsLock & a::Send ^a
CapsLock & b::Send ^b
CapsLock & c::Send ^c
....
it is ugly as hell, but sort of works. the down side is that esc on the capslock takes some time to register... so i'm often loosing the beginning of my commands in vim... sigh. if anyone knows how to get rid of that delay...
another thing i do is map L_WIN+hjkl to arrow keys... but for the life of me i don't know how to disable WIN+L shortcut in win7 to NOT lock the screen. so that sucks.
now, back on topic :)Maybe you should try this:
http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=57723.msg1313182#msg1313182
That is awesome. dammit. now i'm devouring the docs (https://github.com/tmk/tmk_keyboard/blob/master/doc/keymap.md) on ps/2/usb converters... and you are right, that may be the solution before i pull the trigger on a ergo* build. i think we may have a winer. heck i can even improve my use of the ms natural until i decide on a keyboard with that thing. now off to research ...dammit, that was what i was trying to avoid :'(
Thank you so much for sharing. Would you know how to get your kernel patches working on system V?
in case i laughed at something that wasn't a joke, just take a look at source/drivers/hid/usbhid/usbkbd.c and you will see,, even if you don't know C, how to 'reprogram' your keyboard (assuming you have a USB one)... anyway, it is late and i'm pretty sure it was a joke and i'm just making an ass out of myself.No problem. I was serious though, but I should rather have asked: Does this patch work on sysV?
oh sorry. I'm not sure what you mean by SysV... i thought it was a joke because from what i understand from "system V" is something that nobody should still be using for some 20 years :D
...now i realize you must mean some of the HPUX, AIX, etc? well, I have no experience with those. Barely used them as a lowly user. sorry.
Old Keycools don't have clone switches. If you can find an old one, then you will get Cherry.
Also the case is not glued. I am a massive fan.
There's the Poker 2, fully programmable 2nd layer. You can then set the programmable Pn layer to be the Fn layer.
I am working on a 2nd prototype for my keyboard design. If it works out well, I'll be doing a limited run of them to sell to GH'ers. Also working on easy-to-use software to program the layouts with a nice GUI which will be able to flash them to the board easily, too. Should be able to set any key to any function, with 4 layers of characters / functions. But it will still be a while, lots of things to work out / test before going to production.
@gcb
I don't think you're supposed to program the fn layer, it's the pn layer that's programmable.
1. Enter programming mode.
2. Hit the key you want to program.
3. Hit the key chord(s) you want your key to perform.
4. Hit Pn.
5. Exit programming mode.
Now you hit pn+key to activate the binding, or if you're going to be using hjkl for a while, just type fn+right-shift to lock the PN layer.
You can actually set the Fn key to be a Pn key, so you don't need to map Fn+key to something. You just program the Pn layer using the keys you want to assign and then switch the Pn and Fn keys with a DIP switch.
Poker 2 with MX Blacks and PBT caps: http://www.vendio.com/stores/E-sports-Gaming-equipments/item/shop-mechanical-keyboard-by-br/kbc-poker-2-61keys-mechanical-/lid=35050923
If you're on Windows, you could also try this for creating a custom layout on any board: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=22339
I don't mind the insert key being on a Fn layer
Boy I get a l;ot of grief for using emacs, but I have to say at least it doesn't require a custom keyboard.
Boy I get a l;ot of grief for using emacs, but I have to say at least it doesn't require a custom keyboard.
I think i've found my main grip with most keyboards!
After years of using microsoft natural, i LOVE the spacebar ending under the N key!
the right modifiers for me on a regular keyboard, with spacebar ending on the , key are all but useless for my style.
I think the only one that has the short space bar like that with mechanicals is the Vortex KBT Pure Pro. so if anyone wants my CM+storm ktl blue stealth plus money for a Vortex KBT Pure Pro, i'm in.
meanwhile i will continue to wait for my ergodox and think how to add a bag of mx brows i have around on a ms natural shell.
I think i've found my main grip with most keyboards!
After years of using microsoft natural, i LOVE the spacebar ending under the N key!
the right modifiers for me on a regular keyboard, with spacebar ending on the , key are all but useless for my style.
I think the only one that has the short space bar like that with mechanicals is the Vortex KBT Pure Pro. so if anyone wants my CM+storm ktl blue stealth plus money for a Vortex KBT Pure Pro, i'm in.
meanwhile i will continue to wait for my ergodox and think how to add a bag of mx brows i have around on a ms natural shell.
Pretty sure someone's done this, but it was not an easy mod to do. It required chopping up the board and PCB, hand-wiring a matrix, among other things.