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Daniel Mayovsky
Daniel Mayovsky

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Split keyboard is awesome!

Two weeks ago I have assembled my first split keyboard, and I am documenting my transition process here. If you want to read my initial post, here's the link:

Initial post

Transition complete?

Image of my current setup

To keep my productivity at work, I would use my regular qwerty keyboard. I would use this keyboard when I didn't have to deal with any deadlines and would just go through a regular routine of colemak.academy every time I would plug this keyboard in. Not anymore though!

Now that I have learned the colemak layout and reached about 30wpm on this keyboard, I decided to just use this keyboard at work as well. I have now unplugged the qwerty keyboard until emergency's, and have dedicated myself to the split keyboard full-time.

What about Vim?

This is where it gets hard. My Vim muscle memory is completely messed up and I reckon that might affect my productivity for a few days. Despite the challenge I am still committed to using this keyboard.

Navigation solution

Vim uses hjkl for movement. I decided not to remap those keys in vim and keep them genuine, since if I did, I'd have to remap n e i and o as well, and that sucks.

What I decided to do was to create a second layer in qmk and while I am holding the layer button, I can use arrows for navigation, but those arrows are at the regular hjkl location, so I get the best of both worlds: familiar Vim position and the I can use that same position to operate other apps, like scrolling in the browser.

Scrolling? What about the knob?

Yes this keyboard has a knob, and you can map it to scroll. The problem is... I broke it during installation. I held my solder next to it for too long and it seems that I have damaged the mechanism, so I will have to purchase a new knob.

Have you figured out the keyboard mapping?

I am still fiddling around with where to put the special symbols, but for the most part, I have not changed the layout on this thing in a while now.

What's next?

I will be improving my Colemak typing speed and trying to rewire my brains in Vim, and I will keep you posted!

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