It’s a split keyboard in 4 parts and 101 keys, though i could move the number pad and control pad to outside of the thumb keys if making a 4-piece keyboard is too hard or complicated.
Left thumb gets space, control, and super. Right gets space, hyper (just a 3rd layer), and alt. The keys next to T and N are repeat keys. Above Fn is escape and sleep. Above power is compose.
The control pad has cut, copy, paste, open, select all, save, undo, and redo.
I think that’s every key i’ll need, especially with a compose key and so much extra space available on the hyper layer.
Is there anything i’ve forgotten to consider? Anything i should know about split keyboards, or custom shapes in general?
More specific question, are 0.5u switches and caps available anywhere for all my small keys? I could replace most of them with full size keys fairly easily, but the 101st key on the number pad would make the layout asymmetrical.
Wow, that’s suuuuper custom. What firmware? Are you going to hand-wire it first to test? The only half size mechanical switches I’ve seen were alps, but I don’t know if they’d be available for sale anywhere these days. Nor caps. If it were me I’d probably just mock up the layout in cardboard with switches and stuff to see how it feels, then go from there.
Probably QMK, since that’s the only firmware i know even a little. I’m still pretty new to mechanical keyboards and i’ve only had one ever.
I figure i’ll cut it out of paper or cardboard to make sure the keys aren’t positioned way off from where they should be and i can reach most of it from the home row, then i’ll probably go straight to having a circuit board printed. I’ll look into getting help with that part since i haven’t made a circuit board before and don’t know the process for going from a picture in Inkscape to a printable file.
Shame about the half size switches. I suppose i could just use the regular function keys on my laptop’s built in keyboard and move some symbols from the number pad to other keys. The other modifications to fit more full keys aren’t too bad.
If you’re new to pcb design, I’d recommend learning KiCad! I haven’t designed a keeb pcb in a few years so my skills are rusty, but I learned the basics with this series on youtube called ‘getting to blinky’. There may be better or more up to date ones available these days, though. I’d maybe just take one of the side macro pads and just make that as a standalone to get the hang of it first before going hog wild with the whole thing. Honestly though, despite how tedious it is, handwiring a matrix isn’t too too bad!
QMK is a pain in the Ass for Split boards unless they added support for esp32s while I didn’t look. The problem is that if you really want to use most qmk features like hot taps, macros, layers AND rgb you will quickly run out of flash storage on AVR chips like the pro micro. This would be a non issue on the black pills but last I checked they couldn’t do split boards
I don’t see what’s so bad about a wired split keyboard. I don’t need many layers or any RGB. Wouldn’t multiple independent keyboards covering different parts of my layout work as a split keyboard and be easier to set up as long as i have enough ports to plug everything in?
split keyboards are usually connected with a TRRS cable because you need to be able to communicate between the two MCUs to be able to do stuff like shifting layers, tap dances and chording that can start on one half and end on the other. If you dont want to use the full feature set of qmk then yes, you could just plug in a couple of HID usb devices.
Or just buy a kinesis advantage2 …