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by alpaca128 1387 days ago
It's much more comfortable imho. You can reach all buttons without moving the hands all over the place, arrow keys are directly under my fingers at all times. It's not faster if you meant that with "efficient", but it certainly makes standard keyboards feel cumbersome to use. On the other hand more keys everywhere don't make you more efficient either, they just increase the chance of you messing up a hand movement when typing blindly.

With fully programmable layouts the number of keys doesn't mean that much, though for me the sweet spot is around 42. Going much lower than that comes with too many compromises.
2 comments
comfypotato 1387 days ago
For me, it’s the confidence of knowing you’re hitting the right key. Memorizing how your layers are configured is nbd (it quickly become second nature). 42 keys (CRKBD?) allows you to confidently strike each key and confidently return to home. I’ve never been able to guarantee this if a single key is even 2 units away from home.

That being said, I think the most important thing is that you like what you’re using. If you prefer Mac’s native keyboard, more power to you. More keyboard happiness is less work stress.

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jhanschoo 1386 days ago
> Memorizing how your layers are configured is nbd

Ymmv; I have difficulty remembering the chords for keys I use once a week or once a month.

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comfypotato 1386 days ago
I put a lot of thought into where I map things. If I make sure it’s in line with my long term plan, then I never have to move it. I get the rarely-used mappings memorized eventually.
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jhanschoo 1386 days ago
As you helpfully state in your reply, that is not a nbd worth of effort. (Baseline effort being hunt-and-peck on dedicated keys)
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comfypotato 1385 days ago
I see what you’re saying. What I meant is that I don’t actively work to memorize mappings. An initial effort/push when convenient to intelligently create the mapping is all that’s required. From there it happens naturally.

I was clarifying that the greatest hindrance to this process is changing your mappings (I get so confused if I ever try to move a custom mapping). I put in a little effort up front to make sure I don’t have to change the mapping.

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keyle 1387 days ago
Yeah nowadays I stick to TKL.
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