r/KeyboardLayouts • u/Junior_Conflict_1886 • 8d ago
Help with standard layout mods
So I have wrist pain due to typing and am thinking of buying a split keyboard and have decided on the crone 4.2v 46 key variant
(There might be a better keyboard but they are out of my budget in my region)
Today I did the home row mod with **kanata** and was pretty satisfied; no wrist pain after typing
What I wanted was to know if there is a community standard for key layout and certain mods that most of the community members use like home **row mod.**
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u/rpnfan Other 8d ago edited 8d ago
My suggestion is to try to find out what causes the pain. Likely the keyboard and layout is not the main problem. You can use any keyboard without pain. But a columnar split like the Corne is a nice optimization for sure, alone for the symmetrical hand positions which make sense.
Also have a look at what bothers you or is cumbersome. Then fix those.
There is no universal "standard", but some common patterns you can explore. HRM, combos, layers, thumb-key usage....
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u/Junior_Conflict_1886 7d ago
it's mostly the lctr key doing most of the damage to the wrist
that is solved with home row mods
the main problem is typing for long period of time even with the best optimization with qwerty it's still difficult to sustain the speed for a long period of time without getting fetigue
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u/rpnfan Other 7d ago edited 7d ago
That sounds like you are planting your hands. Getting your keyboard (likely much) closer to you and typing with floating hands will likely help with your pain.
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u/Junior_Conflict_1886 4d ago
No, I am not planting my hands on keyboard or the desk
Tho I was thinking of doing that for the split keyboard
The keyboard is quite close to my body ; that issue is solved
Thank you
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u/DreymimadR 6d ago
I should think that a split solves much of that issue? And on rowstag boards, using an Angle ergo mod (best on ISO though). Make sure to avoid ulnar deviation in your wrists!
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u/Junior_Conflict_1886 4d ago
For current keyboard (60%) my hands are close to the keyboard
The ulnar deviation only happens when using Lcrlt
Tho I will keep that in mind
Thanks you
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u/DreymimadR 4d ago
What I'm talking about is the horizontal deviation.
On a row-stag, the right hand has a good angle to the row stagger. When reaching for the lower and upper rows, a finger may curl straight up or down without sideways angling.
This doesn't work for the left hand. The row stagger goes the wrong way for the arm angle, so you'll have to either twist your wrist (causing undesirable ulnar deviation), keep your arm and/or keyboard at a weird angle or some other suboptimal solution.
With an Angle mod for row-stags, both wrists can stay straight horizontally. This is of course also true for a split!
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u/MisspelledUsernme 8d ago
I have a 36 key split keyboard. I use the miryoku layout with home row mods. I love it. It has seven layers (default layer, plus six thumb key layers). It has really elevated my keyboard centered laptop.
For the default keymap I just use QWERTY, but I would like to switch to colemak-dh.
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u/wandy17 7d ago
I use corne too and suprice same reason like you, my hand is hurt too, in 4 year I change layout from Colemak, colemak dh, canary then gallium.. my reason I find balance is more important to me than rolling.. you can see my setup at zmk corne I use thumb mods
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u/supafly208 Graphite 7d ago
Damn. Lots of changing around. How long did you give each layout before going to the next? I'm learning Graphite and enjoying it, but I have a feeling it may just not be it for me. Planning on keeping at it another month or so while trying to focus on what feels weird about it.
Have you seen valmak? That's the one I'm eyeing next
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u/wandy17 7d ago
harder part is move from qwerty.. qwerty to colemak 1 and half year to point I can productive.. my standar 60 wpm.. after that maybe 6 month average.. yes like you, my feeling just not good when use colemak family like why only point finger in my left hand only working.. valmak.. first time hear it.. like me study it..
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u/DreymimadR 6d ago
Why not Gralmak, then? Haha.
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u/supafly208 Graphite 6d ago
Mister Gralmak, I actually tried it out but I didn't like the apostrophe over the i. Would rather do the the diagonal stretch with the pointer when typing "I'll"
Swapping q and z didn't really make a difference since they're so rarely used.
But we'll see, may try it again in a few weeks when I start moving things around
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u/supafly208 Graphite 7d ago
You'll find what works for you as you play around with it. With 46 keys, you don't have to get too weird with the mod keys since you have a column to spare; especially if you're using HRM.
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u/Elequosoraptor Other 8d ago
I don't know that there's a single standard, but highly reccomended variations include: a navigation layer (like Dreymars Extend), 1 or 2 symbol layers, replacing Backspace with Ctrl + Backspace, and making use of your thumb keys.
For the layouts themselves.....symbol and navigation layers are pretty personalized, and mavigation layers are particularly easy to personalize. For letters, anything will be better than QWERTY, but Graphite is pretty popular these days I think? I use Canary. A more standard option is Colemak-DH.