For what it's worth I really hate the dinky little F keys on my Kinesis Advantage 2, they're hard to hit, awkwardly positioned and feel gross. F8 and F9 are entirely impossible to hit without moving your entire hand.

I consider this an upgrade. I personally think layer beats any keys I can't hit without taking my hands off home row.

That said my other main daily driver is an HHKB so I'm pretty used to switching layer for F keys.

Personally I would not get a smaller (fewer keys) keyboard if that meant giving up keys like the F1 to F12 keys. I’m fine with having that home row option via layers and Vim and whatnot, but not having normal keys is just a downgrade in my opinion. Some applications want to use funky key combos, and I don’t want to make contortions in order to use them; the key combos might be uncomfortable enough on a regular keyboard where you don’t have to use some “F” key to access something basic like the arrow keys or “Home”.

On the whole the “home row” insistence seems like a bit of an obsession at times. It’s often nice, comfortable, and efficient, but I refuse to believe that anyone ever got hurt (RSI and all that) by moving their hands to the nav cluster every once in a while. (Or else all those piano players must be in some real trouble.)

I like the tenkeyless formfactor. Then I get a standard keyboard minus the numpad. And I can use a dedicated numpad if I need it.

I use 65% keyboards almost exclusively these days. No numpad, pgdn/up/home/end cluster or function key row.

Function keys are on the number row with a Fn modifier (Fn+1 for F1).

You get used to it in about half an hour. It becomes second nature in less than a week.

It makes the keyboard much more compact, which is definitely a plus. Less hand movement, less deskspace consumed, lighter.

It's good to reduce keyboard width because we need to put pointing device somewhere near. But reducing height isn't sense for me because vertical space isn't matter at all. I don't strongly need F1-12 keys but prefer to have because nothing is harmed by having dedicated keys.

Agreed. I think the lack of dedicated F-row is a dealbreaker for me, as I use the media control keys pretty often

I've been using the Kinesis Advantage (modded QMK) for 6+ years, and I was so excited to see the headline. Then I realized there is no Fn row. :(

It seems like I should go stock some of the old version in case they decide to discontinue it and only offer non-Fn version later.

Perhaps you can check out this one with F keys and ZMK. https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMechKeyboards/comments/rc2pxj/t...

>Sadly, no dedicated F-row. I would even settle for a subset of keys that aligned with the columns. I do not consider layers an adequate replacement.

Damn, I missed that part. The original Advantage has a set of small rubber F keys along the top which works surprisingly well given the amount that I use them (i.e. rarely).

Looking a bit more, I see that there are an extra set of keys on the "inside" of each half (to the right of G and left of H) - it's plausible that remapping these to key function keys would be enough for most use cases.

I would imagine you can add an F key layer pretty easily so this shouldn't be a big deal. I found it impossible to touch-type the F-row on my Advantage 2, and it's awesome to be able to move keys closer to your fingers.

That being said, I don't see a reason to upgrade. I've ordered replacement key wells so I can install my own switches, and since the Advantage is my desk keyboard I'm not worried about portability.

> I would imagine you can add an F key layer pretty easily so this shouldn't be a big deal

That may be the case, but the issue I have with this is that I need, often enough, to press random F keys while not actively using the keyboard. Like for example refresh HN while eating an apple (F5). It's a pain to have to press multiple keys.

They also sell pedals, which, I guess, you could use to switch layers. I am thinking about using pedals to switch to the arrow keys layer. I wonder what other uses the pedals have?

IME the pedal is even more clumsy than pressing two keys to switch layers (I've had an advantage pro for ~15 years and am now using a planck and also building my own split keyboard to replace the planck with something more ergonomic).

Modifier keycombos are often harder to use than simple keypresses. First of all because it involves two hands (if touch typing) and second of all because you have to coordinate the hands so that you type the combo in the right order (e.g. control before C).

“But the home row.” Right. And that’s sometimes a plus. But (1) moving your hands a bit is often not a big deal (unless you have to go back and forth a lot—then I think it’s a drag), and (2) even if things like using the (F key layer) arrow keys might be comfortable, it might not be comfortable to have to use yet another modifier key in order to use common functions like move-by-word (e.g. Ctrl+Left) or even move-and-mark-by-word (Ctrl+Shift+Left).

It’s not an objective win either way. So you definitely cannot just say that it “isn’t a big deal” as if having to use another layer has no cost associated with it.

My concern with this keyboard and others without F keys would be how awkward some IntelliJ keyboard shortcuts would be

e.g: LayerX + cmd + shift + 9 to rebuild a file. There are much worse offenders I am sure.

If you're using layers already, it's a small step to just add dedicated keys for those things in a layer. So that becomes LayerX + 9, or LayerX + R (for rebuild), or whatever combination you want.

But at this point you are just fixing an invented problem with more tasks to be done. A lot of these custom keyboards could just have been built with more of the standard keys.

Pessimistic: "without the full set of keyswitches, you need to use fancy tricks to make shortcuts usable".

Optimistic: "with fancy tricks, you can make shortcuts easily accessible without the need for the full set of keyswitches".

e.g. on my keyboard I have shortcuts for "goto desktop left" when I press "cv", (and "goto desktop right" when I press "m,"). This is more complex than a standard keyboard's Ctrl+Shift+Right (or whatever, as varies per OS), but it feels so convenient.

Enlightened middle way: Custom software keyboard configuration that works with any keyboard and that doesn’t have to solve invented problems like “No man there is no Home key why would you need that just use this QMK module bro and—”

I am intrigued by your key chords though. You can’t get key chords like that with a stock keyboard. Does it rely on the key-up event to distinguish between “cv” (one keychord” and “c” and “v” (separate)? Or does it rely on timeouts?

> I am intrigued by your key chords though. You can’t get key chords like that with a stock keyboard. Does it rely on the key-up event to distinguish between “cv” (one keychord” and “c” and “v” (separate)? Or does it rely on timeouts?

Timeouts. I believe it's similar to how some users use "jk" as more convenient than the escape key.

I switch between tons of tools and computers throughout the day. No way I want to customize all of them.

Sure, yes I do have a huge bashrc on my main workstation and yes I do add macros and other combos for repetitive tasks. But some fundamental things, like rebuild file, I really don’t want to be the weirdo unique guy who can’t operate someone else’s keyboard and vice versa. Missing F keys is just not a professional programmers keyboard.

Under specs:

> Function Keys reside in new “Fn” Layer

> 10-Key resides in the traditional “Keypad” Layer

If you haven’t, you really should check out the Moonlander that’s referred to elsewhere in this thread. I switched to it from a Kinesis Advantage 2 and couldn’t be happier.

The Moonlander is also missing F-keys?

People can swear up and down how intuitive and natural layers are, but I do not care. If there is ever a decision to be made between more and fewer keys, I always want to default to more.

Keyboard people are a bit too enthusiastic about cutting out a few dozen keys only to add them back in layers.

Surely you don't expect people using keyboards without dedicated function keys (or number rows) are aiming to never need to use those keys?

The trade-off from fewer keys is reduced hand movement (& a smaller keyboard, cheaper to buy switches for, etc.), at the cost of additional complexity of use, & it not really being easy for anyone else to use your keyboard.

It seems reasonable either way to prefer one or the other. -- I suspect that most of the people enthusiastic about the smaller keyboard layouts are also into keyboard-driven workflows, and are developers who also frequently need to use the symbols accessed using layers.

> Surely you don't expect people using keyboards without dedicated function keys (or number rows) are aiming to never need to use those keys?

I could imagine that some people never use the function keys. Or never use the numpad keys. To some people they might be completely useless... Which would make a smaller keyboard understandable.

Now, people who do need all those keys and yet still go for a smaller keyboard is harder for me to understand. :)

> The trade-off from fewer keys is reduced hand movement (& a smaller keyboard, cheaper to buy switches for, etc.), at the cost of additional complexity of use, & it not really being easy for anyone else to use your keyboard.

The trade-offs seem a bit one-sided. Hand movements are not a big deal unless you are going constantly back and forth between the main part and the nav cluster or the numpad. And all of these custom keyboards with their 60%, 67.5%, etc. sizes are already so… boutique and expensive that I don’t think that people are forfeiting a dozen or so keys in order to save some money.

> I could imagine that some people never use the function keys. Or never use the numpad keys. To some people they might be completely useless... Which would make a smaller keyboard understandable. > > Now, people who do need all those keys and yet still go for a smaller keyboard is harder for me to understand. :)

Right, I don't think anyone goes "I need these keys, I should get a smaller keyboard".

But, no one is saying "I don't need those keys, I can use a smaller keyboard". e.g. 40% keyboards like the planck lack a number row, as well as lacking a number pad; of course they'll have to have access to type in numbers somehow.

> boutique and expensive that I don’t think that people are forfeiting a dozen or so keys in order to save some money.

Right, I don't think it's a persuasive/compelling point; but it is a benefit. Comparing the cost of getting switches for 110-keys vs for 48 keys, you can either afford nicer keys, or don't have to pay as much.

My conspiracy is that DIY keyboard builder want to solder less parts as possible.

Agreed. It's fair that remapping keys is great to reduce moving hands in some cases, but it not mean dedicated keys aren't needed. I prefer to have both. Remapping feature is confused to reducing keys.

You can solve this without layers on the Moonlander, or any keyboard that allows you to load your own firmware.

For instance, you could configure your number keys to have a "press and hold" generate the corresponding F key. The 'hold' doesn't have to be very long to still easily distinguish it from "normal" typing.

You could also make it a key combo very easily. Anyone who doesn't like key combos should take up a war against !@#$%^&*()+_?:<>{} and their friends.

Hold? No thanks. How does that work when you are debugging code and have to repeatedly press the step over button. Both VS and IntellJ use F-keys as default for this. With lots of shift-modifiers already, to toggle step in, over, out.