This review is a great summary of the pros and cons of the Ergodox, but my single biggest complaint was the precise location of the thumb key clusters. But after about six months of use, I still found some things weren’t quite right with the board. My typing speed also increased from ~70 on an Apple keyboard to ~90 on the Ergodox. Now instead of holding down the capslock key with my much weaker left pinky finger to trigger a new layer, I could use my much stronger left thumb, freeing up my left pinky finger to actually type key strokes.Īll together, the Ergodox EZ was a major improvement in my typing, both in terms of ergonomics and efficiency. My single biggest improvement in using the thumb keys was to swap what used to be my capslock layer trigger to a thumb key. In contrast, the Ergodox has several keys right under each thumb, enabling far more efficient and comfortable access to using your thumb to type. Your thumbs are quite strong, but on most keyboards they’re only useful for the space bar and maybe some contorted use of modifier keys. But the single biggest improvement was probably the thumb key cluster. Being able to directly control what each key does gave me all sorts of new ideas that made my typing incredibly efficient and far more comfortable than anything I had used in the past.
#KARABINER VS KARABINER ELEMENTS SOFTWARE#
First, the Oryx software was a game changer. There are a lot of things to like about the Ergodox. So I started searching for a split keyboard to be able to hold my hands at a more natural position while typing (split keyboards actually fix a lot of ergonomic problems).įigure 7: Screenshot of the Oryx software. My specific pain was from prolonged ulnar deviation, where the hands are bent outward at the wrist joint. Typical keyboard layouts are not that ergonomic, and after several years of using my WASD keyboard I eventually started developing wrist pain. Towards better ergonomics with split keyboards You can see all of my Karabiner Elements settings here. Typing my email send off ( "Cheers,\nJP") with a single hotkey.
Opening Google Chrome to a webpage (e.g. gmail) with a single hotkey.Launching applications like Google Chrome or Terminal with a single hotkey.I use Karabiner Elements for lots of other things too, like: Your browser does not support HTML video.
#KARABINER VS KARABINER ELEMENTS CODE#
I became so dependent on it that I decided to design a custom key cap set for my first mechanical keyboard from WASD Keyboards to match my Karabiner Elements settingsĪs you can see in the demo below, this modification enables me to navigate the cursor and edit code / text without ever having to leave home row: I made loads of customizations to simplify common operations. This seemed like a powerful idea for reducing key strokes, and after a bit more searching I discovered Karabiner Elements for mac. Somewhere along my searching, I came across articles about people who “re-mapped” their keyboards so that some key presses would trigger other events. Needless to say, I immediately started searching for a mechanical keyboard to replace my crummy old Apple keyboard. But it wasn’t just aesthetically better - I was able to type at a faster speed and with fewer errors when using a mechanical keyboard. There is something about the combination of aural and tactile feedback you get when typing on a keyboard with mechanical switches that makes the typing experience just… better. Curiosity got the best of me, and after trying out his keyboard for a few minutes I immediately understood why people use mechanical keyboards. One of my first roommates in graduate school was a remarkably fast typist and used this loud, clacky mechanical keyboard (I had to wear earplugs or listen to music to get anything done when he was typing). Figure 1: Me back in 2011 reading about mechanical keyboards.
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