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| ▲ | adornKey 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Less things to connect, less switches, less caps, ... I think it's mostly about manufacturing cost. If you build a keyboard yourself, you're glad if you have to solder less. So for sure any prototype of a new design will start small. If you go full size price goes up a lot. For usability alone those small sizes don't make much sense in an office or on a desk. | | |
| ▲ | alpaca128 a day ago | parent [-] | | > For usability alone those small sizes don't make much sense They do. Having every key reachable without hand movement is quite comfortable. Switching to and using arrow keys is as fast as typing a capital letter with shift. But it's not everyone's cup of tea, just like Dvorak seems to be great for some people here and pointless for others. |
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| ▲ | mechanicum 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It’s about hand movement, not desk space. The “missing” keys are on additional layers reached via a modifier key, or by overloading keys on tap/hold, or by increasingly esoteric methods the smaller the board gets: chording, tap dance, etc. They’re typically no less accessible than capital letters, while allowing you to keep your fingers on the home row. For me, the additional keys on my larger keyboards rarely prove useful in practice. I end up mostly using the same subset available on the 60% I’m typing on now – it’s quicker and more comfortable than reaching over to the dedicated key. | | |
| ▲ | adornKey 2 days ago | parent [-] | | On the other hand there is spatial memory. Overloading things has some downsides - it adds more possibilities for errors - and makes muscle memory complicated. In a lot of software those extra function keys are well used, easily go into muscle memory and help to safe a lot of time. | | |
| ▲ | alpaca128 a day ago | parent [-] | | I actually make fewer errors and in some cases reach higher speeds when typing a lot of special symbols as everything is reachable without moving my hands and I arranged all special symbols in a way that makes sense to me. Muscle memory works perfectly fine, with the difference that I don't need to make blind error prone hand movements across the keyboard to use arrow keys etc. | | |
| ▲ | adornKey 21 hours ago | parent [-] | | That sounds promising. Training muscle memory for a custom arrangement of keys is something I'm not (yet) brave enough to do. Did you arrange everything yourself? Normal Arrow-Keys on a layer are good. But I need Arrow-Keys usually in combination with Shift and Ctrl. (move to start, end, next instance, declaration, implementation, Select something). This is already overloaded a lot, so I'm not sure, how well this works with a layer. The thing that's missing for me most are those function keys. I need them a lot - sometimes overloaded in combination with Shift and Ctrl. Those actions are usually something that should be out of reach from normal typing (Terminate something, start a Compiler, mess with Breakpoints, ...). Those small keyboards never include function keys. But I think I could just build something for that.. Custom button-Panels with a few keys are quite easy to make. |
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| ▲ | HankStallone a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yeah, I got a compact keyboard once because I was focused on other features. Never again. Give me all the keys. My favorite keyboard was the one I had about 1996, but the "retro" IBM-style keyboards are awfully pricey these days. | |
| ▲ | justsomehnguy a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | There are a lot of full-sized keyboards there aka 100%, for example look at Keychron, there are 39 100% and 30 96% along with some variants. But the obsession with <80% keyboards are steaming from a couple of factors and less soldering as other commenters said is one of them. Other one is what "the community" as many others were overwhelmed at some point by "the influencers" who adored that "digital nomad" lifestyle[1] and ~65% is surely more convenient than 100% one. Another point though I'm not sure it's conscious one is what a lot of people not even using 100% in their life anymore because their devices has a not 100% keyboard from the start - laptops, or don't have a keyboard at all - smartphones. So there is no attachment or "spatial memory" of quickly punching some number on keypad or using navigational block naturally. And at last but not least if you have 100+ keys it's hard to justify all that layers shenanigans and whatnot, heh. As N=1 I can tell what despite what I ended with K3 Pro (it's 75%) accidentally I'm pretty happy with it because it's compact enough what I can toss it in the laptop bag (though rarely) with my 14" or postman-like[3] with an 8" Android tablet but I still do have the function keys (I was aiming at 65% at first), don't need another keyboard at the desk and 65% isn't that much smaller than 75% despite the looks. EDIT: oh and don't forget what 90% of the market is just [stupid] fashion anyway, you can't be a serious about MK, DIY and all that when you can buy "solid mega gaming mechanical keyboard with cool anime girl themed keycaps and 95 modes of RGB backlight! (only 3 keycaps btw, but it's not mentioned)" for less than $50 not only from no-name (or RJELTHKETG) Chinese shop but from the big names too. [0] https://www.keychron.com/collections/all-keyboards [1] from the home to Starbucks and back making a lot of photos and selfies in process, if you understand what I mean [2] https://www.keychron.com/collections/keychron-k-pro-series-k... [3] albeit it's thinner and vertical https://www.victorinox.com/en/Products/Travel-Gear/Backpacks... |
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