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van_dachs OP t1_jdn9sfm wrote

I was using a 40 for a few months exclusively already. I had this old planck laying around that I wanted to freshen up to use as my office keyboard. That lead me down a rabbit hole of experimenting with different layouts and this is what I ended up with. A split 36 key layout. I even managed to fit practical gaming layers to play FPS games with. Well, onto daily driving this thing until it either drives me insane or wrecks normal keyboards for me forever.

Drop planck acryllic, running Vial, Domikey WoB, Boba U4s.

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HadouKang t1_jdnab74 wrote

Nice job! Moving the home rows apart is such a game changer on a small keyboard like the Planck.

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van_dachs OP t1_jdnb5of wrote

Yes! I used an Alice keyboard for a while. Feels very similar now in terms of hand spacing. It also enabled me to have 3 key thumb clusters on both sides without having to weirdly tuck my thumbs in.

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gdezilla t1_jdpkbej wrote

You're doing great. I knew I wanted to try split layouts from the beginning. That's why I went with ID75 which gives me a unibody split.

Gaming on ortho/split shouldn't be too bad as long as you use QWERTY. I wish more games allowed you to switch the keyboard layout so that you can keep the same physical positioning.

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van_dachs OP t1_jdq3y6h wrote

I use Colemak. Nonetheless I prefer gaming in Qwerty - not because I dislike rebinding keys, but because I noticed that I use Colemak on muscle memory only (if that description makes sense to you). If the game tells me to "Press F" I'd be confused what key to press on Colemak. It's really weird.

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gdezilla t1_jdrnqyw wrote

Same here. I also have a QWERTY layer because trying to translate between that an Colemak in real-time while playing a game isn't happening.

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Temanyl t1_jdndazq wrote

I was Usinger the same approach on my lulu to get down to 36 keys. Was half a year ago and I never regreted it. 36 key Layout is so nice to use.

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van_dachs OP t1_jdnh9fi wrote

I was sceptical of home row mods before. I tried them before but I could not wrap my head around how I ever would be able to use them without accidental triggers. Turned out I had my QMK settings wrong. Once I fixed that it clicked. I'm not entirely sure if this is a layout I will stick with in the long run - but home row shift is a game changer I will definitely continue using.

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Temanyl t1_jdnjcjn wrote

I had home row shift first. Now shift is a dedicated key on my left thumb. Feels so natural to me. I only have Ctrl, Option/alt and command/winkey as home row mods

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led_coyote t1_jdnmoyp wrote

I wanted to like splitting the home row on my Planck, but couldn't get used to reaching with my index fingers that much. Coded with it for a few hours, but my output was at a crawl :P

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van_dachs OP t1_jdnnhq8 wrote

This is why I just straight up ditched the middle keys. Biggest change for me right now is definitely backspacing with my thumb. I kinda like it, but my pinky still reaches into thin air now and then.

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led_coyote t1_jdnoa2e wrote

That might have helped. My attempt was to pretty much just move the outside columns to the middle. Esc, Tab, and backspace were a rather onerous reach, while coding. I did like having shift in the middle where both hands could reach it though. May try it again sometime with more thumb / bottom-row emphasis

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van_dachs OP t1_jdnscbr wrote

I took my usual 40 percent layout and heavily used the Miryoku layout as an inspiration to port it to 36 keys. Definitely took a bit of trial and error until I reached a point where it felt good, but I found the Miryoku layout to be a great starting point.

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redddcrow t1_jdo83pb wrote

you're gone to the split world, you might never come back.

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ILikeShorts88 t1_jdp42if wrote

I do the same with my Preonic, but consider shifting your thumb keys one key outwards. It lets you relax your wrists a little more.

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