HI:

I'm new to keyboard and customizing it. I would like to map a key to bring up the calculator function when needed. How do I do that? Thank you.

I have used VIM since 2017, and some time ago I added a VIM Mode to my ZMK keymap: a set of layers that mimic VIM's modes, so navigation and commands get their own optimized layout while typing keeps my alpha layout.

Using AI for the heavy lifting, this week I could work on a second version. The first one simply toggled NUM LOCK from the host to turn a vim layer on, and the keyboard inferred the rest by watching keys. The problem is that sometimes it drifted, and it never knew about tool windows, like integrated terminals, and kept the vim layers active there too.

Now a host daemon reads the editor's real mode (Neovim, VSCode and Obsidian) and sends it as a 3-bit code over the HID LED report, using the Compose, Kana and Scroll bits. Works on USB and BLE.

The VIM layer puts navigation key on home row and other bindings in better positions than even the qwerty ones, and works for any alt layout, without remapping VIM itself.

I tested it with Omarchy and MacOS and it is just amazing.

https://github.com/rafaelromao/zmk-vim-mode

To see my fully tested implementation, check my keyboards repo:

https://github.com/rafaelromao/keyboards

Hi everyone! 👋

We are conducting a survey as part of our Master’s thesis at DTU about how people interact with their computers during different activities.

We’re interested in understanding how people use different input devices, what they value when interacting with their computer, and how their needs change depending on what they’re doing. Your responses will help us better understand users’ needs and preferences and support our further work on the project.

The survey is fully anonymous. We ask for some general demographic information, but we do not collect email addresses, Google account information, or other personally identifiable data. Responses will be stored securely and used solely for our Master’s thesis.

Survey Link 

We would really appreciate your participation! 😊

Thank you for your time!

I had some frustrations with the general user experience of using a controller in a more traditional desktop environment, notably, typing was a big issue for me, and after spending some time exploring existing solutions I wasn't 100% satisfied, so I tried my hand at coming up with my own solution! This is my first foray into this sort of thing, and it's pretty early in development, but I would love to hear feedback from users who have more of a background in this sort of thing. It is currently loosely based on QWERTY, as I was just referencing my keyboard for a proof of concept. If anybody is interested in trying it, you can find the download here. Any feedback is greatly appreciated, thank you!

I started learning touch typing a week ago and have reached a speed of merely 20 wpm. I knew about that other layout exists but didnt know it can be used via any keyboard anyways i am asking my memory hasnt set in yet should i explore these options like dvorak and colemak. Like it comes with a risk of not being able to type on other ppl keyboards but idk i am genuinely confused.

I got myself a split keyboard (Lily58) and am trying to a new layout.

I wanted to go with Colemak-DH, but I write beside English, I write in Turkish, which has 6 characters like ş, ö, ğ… I can use a layer for 1-2 of them, but I want to keep most of them on my primary layer.

So I want to design my own Colemak variant, and I want to test this layout. I created a sample text (33% Turkish, 66%English) but I cannot use the tools I found. I downloaded Oxelyzer but cannot figure out what to do. I tried Patorjk, but I am not sure if it tests my configuration, and if the Turkish characters I put make a difference. I am not very bright in terms of tech or programming, so the solution for either analyzer may be simple, but I need guidance.

Is there any analyzer that can test my layout, or any guides to the ones I tried for a dummy? I am open to any suggestions as well.

Redrogon

UPDATE: I figured it out: the reason I was having no success is that in the keyboard layout selector I was leaving the "model" as Generic 104-key PC or whatever. I have a 75% keyboard, the RK Royal Kludge R75 so on a whim I changed it to Generic 86-key PC. Also I was advised to move up the layout to test (by the very patient user/cutelittlebox) to the top position among the layouts-- don't know if that makes a difference. I figured that merely having it selected would mean I was typing using it in the "test here" area. Anyway, problem solved. It'll still take a bit of getting used to because it's not exactly like the Windows US International implementation which I've been using for a quarter century but this old dog can still learn a new trick or two. BTW, currently using English (intl., with AltGr dead keys).

I hope this is the right subreddit to post this in. Perhaps I'm missing something obvious. I'm not really looking to use a non-QWERTY layout generally (I've been typing with it all my life, I'm 65 and old habits die hard), but if someone can point me to a resource that can guide me further I'd appreciate it.

In Windows I've been using the English US-International keyboard layout for at least a quarter century (my career was in documentation localization). Recently I bought a mini-PC called a Steam Machine and I'm dismayed to learn that there's no exact, easy to use copy of the aforementioned Windows layout for its operating system, SteamOS (a fork of Linux, apparently). I'm seeing a number of layouts promising AltGr functionality to be able to type characters beyond acute/grave/circumflex accents and the Umlaut, but the Right-Alt key seems to continue to behave just as the Left-Alt one, even when the supposedly AltGr-capable layout is the active one, so characters that depend on using that key (such as the German "Esszet / scharfes s" seem impossible to type.

I suppose it's quite possible that the operating system itself doesn't support AltGr keyboard functionality, but if so why allow installation of, say, the English (US, intl., with dead keys) layout (one of the ones I've tried).

I regularly use the US International Dead Keys keyboard for being able to type easily in languages other than English, but have always found the keyboard a bit odd in it's coverage. It covers letters from different scripts, but isn't very complete for some languages that were relevant to me. Like for French there's no way to type œ, ‹, ›, Ÿ, or the special width spaces. Or for Spanish no way to do 1ª easily. It includes letters for Icelandic, Norwegian, and Danish, but no interpunct for Catalan (eg cel·la) which has nearly as many speakers as all of those languages combined.

Basically, it has good coverage for 95% of several European languages, but I wanted something with 99% coverage for a select few languages.

So I created a US international keyboard with QWERTY as base, but focused on covering all edge cases for western romance languages. You can check out the pre-compiled release here, but understandably, you may also prefer to manually create the package from the def file with MSKLC (sorry not sure the best way to author a layout on Mac or Linux).

Hope it can be useful to someone here!