[Valodim]

For anyone looking into this who doesn't want to design their own layout from scratch, a well maintained layout for small keyboards is Miryoku. Worked very well for me (in qwerty base + vim directional keys mode) on a keyboardio atreus

[alphavibe]

Miryoku is a solid layout. Designing your own layout is definitely time consuming, and not something most should try diving into if they are new to small form factor keyboards.

[evilduck]

Can't say I agree with the sentiment. Miryoku's layout looks pretty arbitrary, as is any other <60% setup. I daily drive a Planck (4 more total keys, but very similar levels of layout restrictions) and my layer designs are wildly different.

I would say just find or build a keyboard with support for Via or Vial so that you can change things on the fly when it feels wrong. If you're going down the small form factor keyboard path you're already committed to rewiring muscle memory, you might as well design your layout to meet your specific needs too. It's highly unlikely you will encounter someone else's Miryoku layout in the wild and need to type on it.

[mandw]

I don't think Miryoku is a good layout for many either, it will depend on your usage.

  A strange thing is that many come in to the small split keyboard world and then don't have the motivation to come up with something that works for them.   You can make anything work, so a lot make Miryoku work but I doubt for many that would be the best layout for them.

   I code a lot and find that its layout would not suit me. I have 99% of what I need on a the base layer and one more layer for doing development work - on a 36 key board.  I could not imagine that I would want to switch layers as much as I would have to  for a continuous stream of alphabet/symbols and numbers.

   I think Miryoku would be fine if you were an average computer user editing documents, emails etc and I do sometimes forget that there are a lot of guys out there using Miryoku doing only that.

[exq]

I use this on my 42-key Corne: https://mark.stosberg.com/markstos-corne-3x5-1-keyboard-layo... It's a sensible starting layout that I've made very few changes to. I added a mousekeys/macro layer, moved single quote to put semicolon on pinky, added print screen bind, and added a homerow combo J+K for esc.

[PerryStyle]

I’d definitely recommend Miryoku for those starting out. You’re then free to make any modifications to suit your preferences.

I ended up making the layer activations happen on the same hand to allow 1 handed use.

[MorehouseJ09]

Using this for my next build. Could you share more on how you did the activations for 1-handed used? That sounds quite interesting.

[PerryStyle]

It's not super complex. I ended up just modifying the locations of the layer toggle keys. In the default Miryoku layout, in order to switch the keys to a different layer on the right hand you need to hold a button on the left hand. I found this to be annoying since some actions like entering and using a navigation layer can be done on 1 hand.

[Philpax]

For reference: https://github.com/manna-harbour/miryoku

[MorehouseJ09]

I'm building a toucan (piantor style layout) and was thinking about using seniply layout, but this looks much better.

[alphavibe]

I just got a toucan. The touch disc on it is great. Having a pointing device in fingers reach makes it appealing enough for me to consider upgrading from a corne.