One of my favorite things about my custom mechanical keyboard, is being able to remap the entire key set in the firmware with VIA. I have fn+arrow keys for media, fn+space for play/pause fn+end for calculator, and a bunch of random others. It is so useful I could never get another keyboard that doesn’t have a similar functionality.

> It is so useful I could never get another keyboard that doesn’t have a similar functionality.

I do it at the software level (Linux / Xorg): complete remapping, with an "hyper" key modifier etc.

The reason I do it at the software level is that you can pry my Topre switches from my cold dead hands and the HHKB Pro JP I'm using doesn't have, by default, a programmable controller. Now I know some people mod their Topre keyboards to add a programmable controller but I never got to that point.

Doing so in hardware using .xkb files is... Something. I know way more about .xkb files than I should but, thankfully, so far I've just been able to brink my .xkb file to every new Linux version (supporting Xorg, I'm not on Wayland).

I take at some point I'll look more into how to mod my HHKB keyboards with programmable controller.