Skeleton-Dactyl-Mini VS miryoku

If you have access to a 3D printer, I would recommend handwiring a Skeletyl or Scylla.

if you are looking for a sculpted/keywell design I would start with something like the https://github.com/sanderboer/chonkybois or https://github.com/Bastardkb/Skeletyl then work on refining your needs from those ideas.

There's these made by Quentin, which can be mirrored for Skeletyl/Cnano.

Awesome. Do you think single-key RGB would be an issue? Would it add too many cables? I'm currently looking at the Skeletyl, but am intimidated by the four additional cables per LED.

If you have access to a 3d printer you could print something like a skeletyl or a dactyl manuform and then handwire it with some diodes and wires. That's the cheapest way I can think of.

I'd throw BastardKBs Keyboards into the mix as well as he's open sourcing all of his designs, for instance the Skeletyl or the Charybdis

You can take a look at the Skeletyl. It's a 5x3+3 design. Basically the upper three thumb keys of the one you posted and with 2 keys less on row 3 and 4.

a printed, blue Skeletyl

I've seen https://github.com/manna-harbour/miryoku but it doesn't appear to be easily modified.

A 75% keyboard still require quite a lot of wrist movement, which is not ideal in your situation. It's better to learn to use layers, you could still have all the function keys and such with a 36 or 34 keys. With with such a small keyboard you don't need to move your wrist while typing. A Corne or even a Ferris Sweep can do the job with a proper keymap, like Miryoku.

If you prefer to have semicolon on Base you'd substitute custom Base, Nav, and Sym layers, swapping semicolon and slash, with https://github.com/manna-harbour/miryoku/discussions/85.

The Miryoku layout [1] has a dedicated number layer which turns the left half into a number pad. Practical (once you get used to it) and portable.

[1] https://github.com/manna-harbour/miryoku

It's understandable if some people would prefer a larger layout. I wouldn't argue people should be using smaller keyboards.

It's "I don't mind moving my hand to hit the key" vs "I don't mind holding down some Fn key to hit the key". (Or with F1-F12 on Macbooks, you need to both hold down a Fn key and move your hand).

For an example of "36 keys ... how", I think the popular miryoku layout is fascinating. https://github.com/manna-harbour/miryoku/tree/master/docs/re... -- Often, mnemonics for particular keys aren't all that complicated.

Except for those who use Miryoku, which is not optimized for software development, probably every single person here will have its own custom keymap.

The keyboard on the other desk is a wireless Corne low profile kit I built up a while back using a couple nice!nano controllers and their low power display too. For general typing I don't have much of a problem going back and forth between the two, but the Corne is only 34 keys and I use a complex layout called Miryoku to get access to most symbols and functions I have by default on my 360.