[neoberg]

Using programmable keyboards with a firmware like QMK, you can reduce the number of modifiers needed on smaller keyboards.

I use a 30%(33 keys) as my daily driver and I very rarely need 3+ button combos even though my arrow keys are in a seperate layer.

For example: My "A" and "O" key acts as shift when held. My "Z" key switches to the layer where "h;,." are arrow keys and adds "CMD" as a modifier. So to select left I do "Z + A + H". I use colemak so A is right above Z.

There are other tricks I do for reducing layer switches. On almost every keyboard "." and "," are next to each other but they are never used together in any human or programming language. "/" is not used that often so it doesn't make much sense to have it in the main layer of a small keyboard. So I made my "," key to output a "/" if pressed immediately after "." for typing "./". I have some other keys that act different if pressed after a certain key.