Ergodox Euro Tour

[Stabilized]

Congrats on getting onto the programme you wanted!

In that case I could put you after PollandAkuma? They will have it for three weeks, so that would put us into mid/late June.

[pansku]

That timing window sounds pretty good.

[RaleghDirat]

For me July and August will not be good for this testing.
If not June then September till the end of the year will be nice...
Thanks!

[Stabilized]

Sure thing, I will put you after Germany then.

[RaleghDirat]

That sounds good. Thanks.

[PollandAkuma]

AHHHHHHHHHHAm liking it!

[Rimrul]

Do you still have a spot free in Germany?

[PollandAkuma]

Best spot would be either at the beginning of the summer or the end of summer as I will move sometime in July (I just got accepted for EE bachelors/masters programme in Aalto University ) and next in line would be in central or northern europe.

Are you the next in line?

[hook]

ErgoDox is one of the layouts I would *love* to try!

I’m currently on Matias Mini Quiet Pro, but quite liked the layout of the Kinesis Advantage a colleague borrowed me for a week.

[Stabilized]

Do you still have a spot free in Germany?

Yeah sure, I will add you to the list

ErgoDox is one of the layouts I would *love* to try!

Should I put you on the list too? At this rate you would have to send it back to the UK, would that be alright with you?

Are you the next in line?

pansku should be next in line if they're still up for it!

[hook]

ErgoDox is one of the layouts I would *love* to try!

Should I put you on the list too? At this rate you would have to send it back to the UK, would that be alright with you?

Yes, please. I’m not in any hurry at all, so feel free to fit me in whenever and wherever it makes most sense for the least travel for your keyboard (Austria, Italy, Hungary and Croatia as neighbouring countries are good candidates), but I’m willing to chip in for higher postage costs as well, if needed.

My only limitation is that I will probably be on a AFK vacation during the first half of September, so that would be pretty much the only bad timing.

[pansku]

Just picked this up from my new local post and I'm typing on it right now Having no space for my left thumb sure is confusing at first I end up deleting 3/4 of the letters atm. I'll send this to next person in line (seebart?) on monday 24th.

[pansku]

Seebart said he is going to pass, so I'm currently waiting for response from fruitalgorithm about shipping details.

The board was really nice after I got used to it, but the switches weren't meant for my taste. I did kinda dig the non staggered layout, but the keyboard was too narrow for bilingual use as I had to bind apostrophe ' to a bottom row key. Thank you Stabilized for this tour. It was really nice to get to try something I wouldn't buy blindly and which can't be just tested in a store Not where I'm from at least.

[fruitalgorithm]

It arrived today and will be tried out. Thank you for doing this.

[Rimrul]

What's the current status on this? Is the board still with fruityalgorithm or is it further down the line? I'm not trying to rush this or push anyone to hurry, it's just been a little while since the last update.

[IjonTichy]

Because I just looked here, I did not read fruitalgorithms message. Just sent my address.

[IjonTichy]

The board is here with me since last week. Who is next in line? Daniel?

[AdrianMan]

Hi everybody, could I be added to the list ?

I was thinking about building my own for a while, but I don't know if I would get used to it or how does it feel.

So I would love to try it

Thanks!

[Rimrul]

Yes, I think Daniel is next.

[IjonTichy]

The package should be on its way to Daniel now. Thanks again for doing this! It really was a great opportunity for testing the board. At least now I know, that ErgoDox is not for me and so are Gateron brown.

The thumb cluster is great even though the number of usable keys is smaller than expected. And I should work on my typing skills since I found out that my technique is wrong...

[Daniel]

Hi,
I got the board today and trying it out right now.
First impressions:
- Using my thumbs for anything other then space feels really awkward
- As I almost exclusively use my left thumb to press the space bar I'm constantly pressing backspace
- As a altgr-intl layout user I'm currently contemplating where I would put AltGr to enable the third layer. Probably bottom most single unit key.
- I don't see myself using the upper three single unit keys on the thumb cluster as they can't be reached that good
- The Gateron browns feel like MX Clears with lighter springs (it's been a while since I used clears). But that's how I remember them. They feel heavier than 45g though (are Gateron Browns 45g like MX Browns?)
- I can't find the left bracket the way the board is currently programmed

[Lustique]

As I was also thinking about joining:

• How useable is this board if you're used to QWERTZ or any other ISO layout?
• How big and heavy is the package I'd have to send on, i.e. how much would shipping be, roughly speaking?

[Rimrul]

The Package arrived today. It's about 12*27*35cm and about 1.1kg

[codemonkeymike]

How useable is this board if you're used to QWERTZ or any other ISO layout?

The key layout that you are used to is not what effects the learning curve of an ergodox it is more about what physical switch layout you are used to IE: Horizontal Staggered (standard kb), Matrix (plank/typematrix), Vertical Staggered (ergodox, kenisis advantage). I went from a standard keyboard typing about 60-70 WPM and it took me about 1 1/2 months on the ergodox to get to the same level. I think the biggest issue with me was that I didn't use the correct fingers when touch typing for certain keys on a standard Horizontal Staggered keyboard which will bite you when you switch to an Ergodox.

[Lustique]

The Package arrived today. It's about 12*27*35cm and about 1.1kg

Thanks! I guess that would make shipping (incl. tracking) within Europe about 10–15€?

[…]
The key layout that you are used to is not what effects the learning curve of an ergodox it is more about what physical switch layout you are used to IE: Horizontal Staggered (standard kb), Matrix (plank/typematrix), Vertical Staggered (ergodox, kenisis advantage). I went from a standard keyboard typing about 60-70 WPM and it took me about 1 1/2 months on the ergodox to get to the same level. I think the biggest issue with me was that I didn't use the correct fingers when touch typing for certain keys on a standard Horizontal Staggered keyboard which will bite you when you switch to an Ergodox.

I'm not that concerned about the learning curve (although I probably should be), but more about the fact (?) that I might have to use an extra layer just to type normal (German) letters (e.g. umlauts or ß), because the keyboard lacks the number of alphanumeric keys a normal ISO board has, which would be one more than ANSI. If this is less of an issue than I think it is, I'd probably like to get in on this tour, as well. I wouldn't want the last two guys to wait for their turn any longer than they already have, so I'd take the last spot, I guess.

Apart from that, I definitely believe you that getting used to a vertically staggered (or even just split) layout would be pretty harsh. I haven't even used a matrix layout, yet (apart from numpads, of course). Luckily, I think the only key that I sometimes type with the wrong finger might be the B key, which I sometimes type with the right index finger instead of the left one.

[codemonkeymike]

[...]
I'm not that concerned about the learning curve (although I probably should be), but more about the fact (?) that I might have to use an extra layer just to type normal (German) letters (e.g. umlauts or ß), because the keyboard lacks the number of alphanumeric keys a normal ISO board has, which would be one more than ANSI. If this is less of an issue than I think it is, I'd probably like to get in on this tour, as well. I wouldn't want the last two guys to wait for their turn any longer than they already have, so I'd take the last spot, I guess.
[...]

While I don't know much about the keys which are different between English and German I do mess around with my layout all the time so I don't think you will have any issue as long as you can flash it for you desired layout. I personally have all my symbols on a layer, so I cant type / or . so on without holding down a layer key. If you ended up doing something of that sort, like putting some symbols under a layer, you would free up keys for alpha's like the umlauts.

I also found this post on reddit which may help https://www.reddit.com/r/ergodox/commen ... iss_users/

[Rimrul]

Is it normal that the LED on the right half is much brighter than the one on the left half? Also was the one foot already taped on when you sent it on the tour?

I'll write up some words about German layout and characters over the weekend, but I'll have to test it some more before doing so. I can already say the layout Daniel sent it in has 3 ctrl keys, 2 left arrow keys, 2 right arrow keys, and about 3 keys that seem to do nothing. It's also a little weird in that what's usually on the right side of the main cluster(umlauts, F11, F12,...) is in the middle now.

[Rimrul]

I've apparently found a layer that's solely a numpad (inluding num lock, home, end, ..., but no 0) that I can't leave. yay.
EDIT: I've managed to escape it. I have no clue how I did it.

[Lustique]

[…]
While I don't know much about the keys which are different between English and German I do mess around with my layout all the time so I don't think you will have any issue as long as you can flash it for you desired layout. I personally have all my symbols on a layer, so I cant type / or . so on without holding down a layer key. If you ended up doing something of that sort, like putting some symbols under a layer, you would free up keys for alpha's like the umlauts.

I also found this post on reddit which may help https://www.reddit.com/r/ergodox/commen ... iss_users/

It seems I'd really have to get used to using layers. It's just that I never really had to or could use layers, as the only keyboards I have that support any kind of layers beside the usual ones (i.e. Shift, AltGr, etc.) are laptop keyboards (or my new G84, which I haven't tested, yet), and even then it's just a layered numpad or Media/Wifi/etc. keys, no normal symbols.

Thanks for the link! I'm also thinking of trying something completely different than QWERTZ/QWERTY. I wanted to try out the Neo layout (German website, English Wikipedia entry) for some time now and while searching for Neo for an Ergodox, I stumbled upon the AdNW layout, which seems to be even more funky (German website), but apparently has been adapted to be used on an Ergodox as the ‘BuTeck’ layout, already. According to the Keyboard Layout Analyzer, this layout seems to be excellent.

I've apparently found a layer that's solely a numpad (inluding num lock, home, end, ..., but no 0) that I can't leave. yay.
EDIT: I've managed to escape it. I have no clue how I did it.

Maybe you should try to flash your own layout rather than trying to get the current one to work.

But thank you for writing your experiences down. I'm pretty sure I want to join the tour now and try this out as well.

[hook]

I'm not that concerned about the learning curve (although I probably should be), but more about the fact (?) that I might have to use an extra layer just to type normal (German) letters (e.g. umlauts or ß), because the keyboard lacks the number of alphanumeric keys a normal ISO board has, which would be one more than ANSI. If this is less of an issue than I think it is, I'd probably like to get in on this tour, as well. I wouldn't want the last two guys to wait for their turn any longer than they already have, so I'd take the last spot, I guess.

If you plan on going ergo, you might as well go the full length and also switch from QWERTZ to an actual ergonomic layout such as https://neo-layout.org

It even has a wiki page for Ergodox:
https://wiki.neo-layout.org/wiki/Ergodox