keyboards VS qmk-keymap

I have custom alpha layers and extremely optimized symbol layers, combos and other features in my keymap. It is not designed for web development, but it is good for VIM and Java.

That made me think. If I would adapt Romak for 20 keys, it would be something like this:

But since you are a programmer, I invite you to check the fancy programmer features that I have implemented in my keymap. I still need to rework on the documentation, but you can take some inspiration from there if you decide to design your own.

Romak also has some very nice attributes, as do poqtea and uciea. I also find Canary to have a lot of merit.

There is also the unusual option to handwire a keyboard without soldering, as I did here, but the result might not be so reliable.

You can see my layout here.

I started my own layout, Romak, using BEAKL as inspiration, with similar objectives, mostly making it more suitable for my home language and reducing the load on pinkies and indexes, concentrating in the middle and ring fingers instead. Another thing I did was to remove the top row key from both the central and pinkie columns. Later I also removed the bottom row key from the pinkies.

My first handwired board checks all your requirements, and I have some pictures of the process, but it is not a complete guide. It might help though. And I think the FFKB case can be great for a first handwired project.

Really nice work, congrats. My custom layout is designed for both Portuguese and English, and I have some of the same ideas implemented, with similar reasoning. I also have some programming features that remind yours, but I preferred to remap hjkl instead.

I've used two different options in my builds. You can see them in the build logs: FFKB and Rommana.

Yes, it is technically possible in QMK to record a history of the previous 2 keys (or more) to have a skipgram-reducing magic key. This is possible in QMK by saving the keycode for each event in a sliding buffer. See my example on triggering based on previously typed keys and the source for my Sentence Case for implementations of such a key history buffer. I see u/mEFErqlg shared an implementation as well in another comment thread.

I really appreciate all the work that's going into ZMK, and am by no means an expert on the limitations or architecture that they're working within, but personally feel that the recent macro-parameter implementation fails to elevate the Behavior[3] into a sufficiently powerful construct. I'm trying to imagine how it could offer greater composition and control over an invoked sequence of keycodes, key-positions, and behaviors, but if that ever comes to be, it will be on the shoulders of giants. Development has been very active, and the contributers have all done great work. Shoutout to zmk-nodefree-config[4] and thumbkey[5] for android, which has also been under rapid development from a wide group of contributers (special thx to WadeWT and sslater11, amoung many others).

[1]: https://github.com/getreuer/qmk-keymap/

Check out my keymap. My intention is to put a rather light load on the thumbs. Lately I've been doing this:

Uses getreuer's 400 entry autocorrect dictionary. https://github.com/getreuer/qmk-keymap/blob/main/features/autocorrection_dict_extra.txt

A cool thing with QMK is that you may insert arbitrary C code to handle key events. That's a lot of power, and I've been having fun with that. Check out my keymap. Some gems:

Please pull or re-download getreuer/qmk-keymap to get the latest.

I am a software engineer and use a 65% as my daily driver. 65% is enough for the most common keys including a number row on the a base layer, and I have special symbols and F-keys on a symbol layer (see my keymap). For me, the point of mechanical keyboards is ergonomics, and on that front I suggest a split, columnar keyboard with QMK or other programmable firmware. Here is a brief features tour of why I think these keyboards are so awesome.

I'm a software engineer and naturally spend a lot of my time at the computer writing code, plus quite a bit of non-code writing (emails, reviews, ...). Since RSI is something of an occupational hazard, mechanical keyboards are for me mainly about preventative ergonomics and comfort. Though, writing custom code within QMK keymap has interesting productive possibilities... I've been having fun with that.

You want fun experimental features?—check out my QMK repo =)