I am in need of an #foss #open-source #keyboard that has keys (lower and uppercase) that you can change and customize any time. I need that big #₿ in my keyboard!!!!
Discussion
https://ymdkey.com/collections/75-keys-ortholinear i got two of these
https://thepihut.com/products/relegendable-plastic-keycaps-for-mx-compatible-switches-5-pack
sadly i still need another 7 packs of these to cover the second one but they are pretty reliable (the keyboard i mean).
it's incredibly difficult to get the keys outside of UK/USA, i had problems in bulgaria and bosnia with shipping.
anyhow, you probably will want one of those staggered key layout things, but the relegendables will cover you there for all the letter keys at least.
it's quite a lot of effort to get used to typing on a pure grid layout keyboard with no double or any width keys, basically nobody hardly does it and as such the best layouts for them are pretty much unknown and probably what people use is highly idiosyncratic, but i can tell you one thing:
i never want to go back to normal keyboards. the cherry silvers i have on the switches, they could be even softer, with shorter travel for me too.
the faster i type the more it matters that the keys don't go far and don't have to go far to register a press.
as some other mech keyboard heads i have talked to on nostr say though 'if i get used to it, i'll never be able to cope with regular keyboards'.
my answer to that is: my idobao always travels with me if i'm gonna do any serious work.
Thanks, I should have specified that I was talking about a software keyboard, sorry. But still, interesting to see there is also hardware keyboard that like this, imma keep it in my mind.
As for keyboard layouts: I am using thumbkey on my phone which is a square grid using swipes.
ah, i didn't spot the software part.
i can't stand writing on touch screens, i hate the feel of them, the fact you can't use them with water says bad things imo.
yeah, unfortunately, nobody seems to have got the idea of a user customisable input app (keyboard). if you are handy with java or kotlin or objective c or whatever is used on your device maybe you should find a decent open source keyboard and build tools to customise it!
ah yeah regarding the programmable keyboard... it's not even that hard to do, although funny keys like a bitcoin key or whatever can be a bit funny, cos USB only sends key position signals, and depends on pc's interpreting them as regards to a layout, rather than sending a signal representing the symbol.
it can be done, but a different protocol has to be used for every different OS. i haven't dug into how to do that yet, though i wish i had the time to, it's a pain in the ass because i have already got a dvorak latin and custom russian cyrillic layout layer on mine but i have to press two rather complicated key sequences to switch between them, and for games, because so many older games especially make huge assumptions about keyboards don't for example, let you customise keys like "<> which on a dvorak keyboard are... yeah, right there where the WASD sits... so i have to also have a qwerty layer, and a button to switch that on and off.
if i had the compose key stuff set up right, and macros programmed in, i could eliminate that, have not just my dvorak, dvorak-russian/bulgarian and qwerty layout, i could have some easy keys to do portuguese and spanish and yugoslavian accents, since i can probably find excuses to be able to type in those languages as well.