Post a picture of your ideal keyboard layout!

[Khers]

Whether it's available or obtainable may be questionable, but the slightly modified layout Daniel described was featured on the LZ RV:

[cumwagondeluxe]

I just want a split, smaller ergodox with less keys basically - atreus is kind of close, but not quite there. Currently enjoy my lets split the most.

Maybe also add the innermost column to each side for []{}() or something? Also, I only really found the two large ergodox keys accessible - would pref maybe 3 or 4 instead of 6 but have them all be easily accessible with your thumb.

[fruitalgorithm]

Spoiler:

The ergonomic TRON layouts are all very intriguing.

[rsbseb]

Does a layout like this exist? It should! =)

I have no use for a number pad myself but I absolutely agree that a left hand nav cluster should exist and am including one on my current project

[Phenix]

Couldnt this be done with an 96key board (say lightsaver) + an numpad /matrix board (say maxipad, or grid numpad)?
(or an 60% )

[//gainsborough]

!!! They layout does exist! Kind of....

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sperry-UNIVAC-U ... SwMmBVuC4N

[rsbseb]

!!! They layout does exist! Kind of....

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sperry-UNIVAC-U ... SwMmBVuC4N

That one is one my bucket list, they pop up every now and again.

[Tuntematon]

Does a layout like this exist? It should! =)

I have no use for a number pad myself but I absolutely agree that a left hand nav cluster should exist and am including one on my current project

I prefer left-hand nav as well. It makes for a more intuitive mousing/navigating experience. If you must use a full-size layout, I would go a step further and put the numpad on the left as well. This full-blown left-handed layout is actually ideal for right-handed users! (if you can get used to using a numpad with your left hand)

[rsbseb]

Here's the ideal for my DisplayWriter project, it conveniently covers most of my needs.

[zrrion]

For an ideal layout I'd have to go with something like this. I'm not sure about the AT fn keys on the left and I would probably replace one set of fn keys with more pf keys if I ever actually made something in this layout.

Perfect Layout.png (23.76 KiB) Viewed 7772 times

But that's for the home or office, for on the go typing I wouldn't be caught dead typing on anything other than a compact space saving layout.

Compactest layout.png (18.75 KiB) Viewed 7772 times

[depletedvespene]

Does a layout like this exist? It should! =)

Dude... every time I talked about my idea of a "leftnav" keyboard layout on the TG channel, you failed to mention you had thought of it first, before I had even joined DT? I'm now torn between saying "Dude, not cool!" and "Great minds think alike!".

Anyway, this is the layout I got in mind, as it currently stands after (ok, during) these months brewing inside my head:

The "leftnav" keyboard layout design.

leftnav.png (30.89 KiB) Viewed 7799 times

Yes, the space between the number row and the F row should be 0.5, not 1.

Note the expanded numpad, with additional signs for the comma (I'll NEVER understand why it's not there to begin with), equal signs and the parentheses. I'm undecided about keeping a Tab key there (I can see others preferring the E or the ^ symbols there); the Delete remains VERY close to its original position (and carries Insert with it), to make the most of the user's extant muscle memory.

The leftnav cluster remains essentially the same, but the (former) Insert and Delete keys can now be used for other stuff. I am tempted as well of shifting the HUDE keys one position left and make the (current) PgDn key into BackTab, but I'm guessing not many people besides myself yearn for that key of yore.

With a separation of 0.25U between clusters, this keyboard would be barely more wide on the right side than a common TKL, to allow easy mouse usage.

And I'm also tempted to add a 1U AltGr key between Alt and the space bar (reducing it to 6U), but that might be a tad too radical for some.


Getting this built, as a proof-of-concept keyboard is on the list of stuff I intend to do. Hopefully during 2019...

[Muirium]

Dude... every time I talked about my idea of a "leftnav" keyboard layout on the TG channel, you failed to mention you had thought of it first

Don’t worry guys. I’m quite sure neither of you got there first!

wiki/Left-handed_keyboard

Conventional full size keyboards are an instructive example of thoughtless feature creep. Every new thing gets glommed on the right hand side of the body, pushing the mouse ever further away. This all happened before mice were mainstream, but conventions are conventions and it stuck. Plenty of attempts have been made to right this over the years. They just didn’t displace the norm. Similar story to QWERTY.

[depletedvespene]

But that's a left-handed keyboard - it's the same thoughtless feature creep you describe, just moved all the way to the other side.

My idea was to move ONE cluster (the nav cluster) to the left, to ensure both hands would move a bit outwards instead of just the right one more and more to the side... and also improve the shortcomings of the traditional numpad, while at it (but not touch everything else too much).

Come to think of it, this idea first popped in my head back in the early nineties, at a time when I did a lot of numeric input in 1-2-3 spreadsheets, and thought that the left hand should be used for navigation and the right one for numeric input.

[kbdfr]

For an ideal layout I'd have to go with something like this. I'm not sure about the AT fn keys on the left and I would probably replace one set of fn keys with more pf keys if I ever actually made something in this layout.
[…]

I fully concur:

[skang0601]

Easy:



I can hardly fault the HHKB. It's absolutely superb.

Or are you talking about custom layouts you can't already buy?

This is almost perfect, but I like have the CTRL and SUPER swapped.

[samuelcable]

Ideal.png (42.04 KiB) Viewed 7668 times

A bit of a weird mashup i made of different features i liked in keyboards. Credit to chyros for the keyboard lock button

Its a hhkb version of the 1800 (my personal favorite unmodded layout) with 32 pf keys and a lot of numpad changes

[depletedvespene]

Good changes to the numpad area. Thumbs up.

[RidgeRunner]

I like the standard 104 key layout, though a 101 key layout doesn't seem bad either.

[depletedvespene]

The post I made in this thread the other day ruffled my neurons and made me meditate further on the several ideas I've toyed with for months for a custom keyboard. At the very beginning, I had wanted to make a keyboard with an extended numpad at its left, while keeping the nav cluster at the right; later, I flipped this around, following/creating the path of a possible evolution of the F AT's layout; this was the "leftnav" layout I tinkered with for quite some time (and is what is described in my previous post).

In these last few days, after further ruminations and with pretty good feedback on the TG channel, I've flipped things back: the nav cluster on the right, the numpad on the left — it feels more natural nowadays to have a keyboard that looks like a left-extended TKL, like the "shoutpaw" custom (yes, I may or may not have thought of it first, but the southpaw creator MADE it first, so good for him). I also gave in and ditched "battlecruising up" the keyboard, so no second F row. Now, the numpad...

The 5×4, 17-key numpad has always felt incomplete to me, and my old idea of a larger, multilayered one came back in full force. And why limit myself to a 6×4 keypad, as I had designed before, if I have space for seven rows here? Seven rows it is, then!

The Folly115 keyboard layout (ISO version). It's a TKL with a multilayered 7×4 keypad to its left.

Folly115.png (129.08 KiB) Viewed 7637 times

In this newest iteration, the multipad has five layers. With NumLock off, it has the common navigation layout. With NumLock On, it uses one of four layers, as selected by Fn+F1..F4 (could be more, but the keycaps can't comfortably fit more than four legends topside). Layer 1 (white {{black}}) has a usual numpad, albeit extended with the most common symbols that accompany numbers, to make it as easy as possible to enter all kinds of numeric expressions with just one hand; note the presence of Backspace, Delete and Back Tab keys. Layer 2 (red) is a hexapad, meant to input hexadecimal numbers (including IPv6 addresses, CSS colors, Unicode code points, etc.); note that this is the "tall", not the "square" version of the hexapad. Layer 3 (green) is... available. Layer 4 (blue) contains the Greek alphabet — because it obviously has to be in the blue layer.

Note that besides the traditional lock lights, the multipad has an additional one indicating which of its layers is active.

Esc still is not a corner key anymore, so it needs to remain moved to the right by 0.25; may not be "pretty", but it's quite necessary.


And now I definitely have to build this thing. I may make some further changes to the logical layouts (as I write this post, I've discovered with horror that the multipad's layer one lacks a colon!), but I am happy with the physical layout (and even if I added the F13..F24 row... I think that the multipad should remain 7×4).

Custom PCB or teensy+handwiring. QMK or something else. MX clear or black switches. Floating design or case. Custom printed or artisan lettering on the keycaps. One way or another, I must build this.

[rnet]

Main



Fn layer




I just ordered a 19X and plan on installing this layout in it. The main alpha cluster is very similar to the HHKB layout which is what I use on all my 60%-ers so I want to keep it as close as possible with some changes to accommodate the arrow keys, such as moving Fn to the lower left corner and give the keyboard its own Caps key tucked away to the right of the bottom row for the few times I need it. The positioning of the Fn key allows me to press it easily with the palm and with that I added the arrow keys to the Fn layer under the WASD keys to quickly navigate with them in a familiar manner. Media controls are also easy to access.

Other than that, there's not much else. NUBS in the QMK configurator is the ISO extra key, which in the ISO-UK IME would be the backslash key. I use European IMEs quite frequently so having it available is always a plus. As the screenshot is taken directly from the firmware configurator tool the left Shift shows as split when in reality it will be just a normal ANSI left shift. Bottom row will have 1.25-1-1.25-6-1.25-1-1.25 spacings.

[Muirium]

By the way: what software are you lot using to draw your layouts?

[mhinsch]

My first build is pretty close to my optimal layout (I just need to find decent replacements for the three Atari key caps I used). I was worried the vertical modifiers (which I placed like this to avoid unsightly gaps on the left hand side) would be weird or annoying, but they work surprisingly well.

IMAG0833.jpg (2.86 MiB) Viewed 7376 times

[AJM]

It might look familiar ....

layout.jpg (49.14 KiB) Viewed 7355 times

[depletedvespene]

By the way: what software are you lot using to draw your layouts?

Start with http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/.

[Muirium]

And end with? <rimshot>

Being lazy, I’d rather start with a template and drag things around than have to define every key up front, in text. Thanks for the answer though, I recognise the look and surely many layouts submitted in this thread were done on it.

[madrobby]

I fully concur:

What board is that? I like big boards and I cannot lie...

[davkol]

Tipro, three of them.

[Muirium]

Tiproman gonna [wiki]Tipro[/wiki].

They’re sort of the Lego of keyboards. Not my thing at all, but if you really want to spread out, there’s modules for that.

[kbdfr]

And every single key is programmable in 4 layers, even with macros or Unicode characters.
I simply love it

[ThePillenwerfer]

This would be mine:—

Keyb.png (65.64 KiB) Viewed 7256 times