Help with Keyboards

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Gurezaemon

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#288625 13-Jul-2021 10:30

I've been searching for the perfect keyboard for years.

For my work, I touch-type mainly text, but also use a lot of keyboard shortcuts that involve the Home|End|Pgup|PgDn keys.

Problem (1) - I need an ergonomic keyboard. Regular straight keyboards make my wrists hurt, and so they are not an option. I've tried, and I end up at the physio. Until recently, I've been using a Microsoft Ergonomic 4000, which I am generally pretty happy with, but it's big. This leads to

Problem (2). The 10-key off to the side means that I have to move my right hand over quite a way to get to my mouse, and that aggravates my shoulder.
A few months ago, I bought a Microsoft Sculpt keyboard, which I like in most respects. This has the 10-key pad separate, which suits me fine - I almost never use it. It has one issue:

Problem (3). The Home|End|Pgup|PgDn keys are in a line down the side, and even after several months, I cannot hit these automatically - I still need to look to find them. I still even have to look for the arrow keys because they butt up against other keys, just like on laptop keyboards. This slows me down enormously and is very aggravating.

In an ideal world, what I'd like would be a split keyboard, with the discrete Home|End|Pgup|PgDn and arrow key clusters, but without the 10-key.

Removing the 10-key section alone is doable, turning

into

but I've never had any success. (This pic has the Sculpt (what I'm using now) at top right for comparison.)

Thanks for any suggestions that anyone might have.

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littlehead

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#2743601 13-Jul-2021 12:09

I have a few staff/users with ergonomic/accessibility requirements so have a bit of knowledge around this. Can't find an ergonomic keyboard specifically with a normal sized and location arrow key and Ins/PgDn block, but a couple of suggestions if you can retrain your typing a bit would be the Kinesis Advantage 2 or one of the Malton Dual Handed Ergonomic keyboards. Both are split keyboards hand wells for the keys. The Kinesis places the INS/PgDN etc on the thumb cluster location with arrow keys over both hand wells, where as the Malton has either INS/PgDN in a central block between the two typing wells and arrow keys on the thumb clusters, or both arrows and INS/PgDN on separate thumb clusters depending on the model and layout. These are different styles of ergonomic keyboards compared to the sculpt but could be options.

djtOtago

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#2743668 13-Jul-2021 14:27

I too would love to find an ergonomic Tenkeyless (TKL) keyboard. So, watch this discussion.

Gurezaemon

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#2743673 13-Jul-2021 14:34

djtOtago:

I too would love to find an ergonomic Tenkeyless (TKL) keyboard. So, watch this discussion.

I thought I'd found it with the Sculpt - but I sadly underestimated the amount of muscle memory I'd acquired over 20 years using a particular software package.

If there was a Sculpt with the PgUp|Home etc. keys in a discrete cluster, I would be beyond happy.

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djtOtago

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#2743679 13-Jul-2021 14:45

Same issue. For me its arrows, PgUp, PgDn and End.

After 30 years, my fingers just expect them to be where they should be :)

Gurezaemon

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#2743681 13-Jul-2021 14:59

littlehead:

I have a few staff/users with ergonomic/accessibility requirements so have a bit of knowledge around this. Can't find an ergonomic keyboard specifically with a normal sized and location arrow key and Ins/PgDn block, but a couple of suggestions if you can retrain your typing a bit would be the Kinesis Advantage 2 or one of the Malton Dual Handed Ergonomic keyboards. Both are split keyboards hand wells for the keys. The Kinesis places the INS/PgDN etc on the thumb cluster location with arrow keys over both hand wells, where as the Malton has either INS/PgDN in a central block between the two typing wells and arrow keys on the thumb clusters, or both arrows and INS/PgDN on separate thumb clusters depending on the model and layout. These are different styles of ergonomic keyboards compared to the sculpt but could be options.

I've looked at the Kinesis type of thing over the years, and they're pretty intriguing, but given my difficulty in changing just a few secondary (but important!) keys, I shudder to think how I'd fare with some of the more dramatic remappings that those keyboards use.

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ANglEAUT

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#2743771 13-Jul-2021 17:54

Gurezaemon: ... I shudder to think how I'd fare with some of the more dramatic remappings that those keyboards use.

maybe it's that radical change that will allow you to adopt a new keyboard. With a minor change, you have no incentive to adopt. Maybe these keyboards are worth the hassle of changing?

😜 Or maybe go full on DVORAK? 😝

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Gurezaemon

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#2743772 13-Jul-2021 18:00

ANglEAUT:

Gurezaemon: ... I shudder to think how I'd fare with some of the more dramatic remappings that those keyboards use.

maybe it's that radical change that will allow you to adopt a new keyboard. With a minor change, you have no incentive to adopt. Maybe these keyboards are worth the hassle of changing?

😜 Or maybe go full on DVORAK? 😝

Um... shudder.

It took me long enough to get up to speed on a QWERTY keyboard, and something that different would take literally years. And also make it infinitely harder to use a regular keyboard, I suspect.

I'm thinking I should go back to the MS Ergonomic 4000, and get used to having another mouse on the left as well - that could reduce the amount of stretching off to the right.

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fe31nz

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#2743857 13-Jul-2021 23:48

Gurezaemon:

I'm thinking I should go back to the MS Ergonomic 4000, and get used to having another mouse on the left as well - that could reduce the amount of stretching off to the right.

If you are right handed, then it can be a very bad idea to use a mouse in your left hand. Your dominant hand has much more resilience to damage from using a mouse - the other hand can wind up with permanent damage. I started out using my left hand for my mouse, before any of these problems were really known about. My entire left arm suffered badly, until I moved the mouse to the right hand. Even now, 20+ years later, if I use a mouse at all in my left hand, it will get very painful in just an hour or so.

For the navigation keys problem, I started out with keyboards that did not have separate navigation keys, and even now my fingers just naturally use the keypad keys for those functions. I have never used the keypad keys for the numbers - I do not do data entry that needs lots of number keystrokes.

Gurezaemon

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#2744020 14-Jul-2021 12:51

fe31nz:

Gurezaemon:

I'm thinking I should go back to the MS Ergonomic 4000, and get used to having another mouse on the left as well - that could reduce the amount of stretching off to the right.

If you are right handed, then it can be a very bad idea to use a mouse in your left hand. Your dominant hand has much more resilience to damage from using a mouse - the other hand can wind up with permanent damage. I started out using my left hand for my mouse, before any of these problems were really known about. My entire left arm suffered badly, until I moved the mouse to the right hand. Even now, 20+ years later, if I use a mouse at all in my left hand, it will get very painful in just an hour or so.

For the navigation keys problem, I started out with keyboards that did not have separate navigation keys, and even now my fingers just naturally use the keypad keys for those functions. I have never used the keypad keys for the numbers - I do not do data entry that needs lots of number keystrokes.

I'm a leftie 😋.

I've dealt with a sore wrist on my mouse hand (right) for 15-odd years, and now work with a wrist brace that fully prevents pain. If I use the mouse for more than a few minutes without it on, the wrist starts hurting again.

My business partner has used a mouse on the left as well (with both plugged in) to avoid the same sort of problems - it might be time for me to give it a go.

Ideally, though, I'd prefer to work without using a mouse for anything other than gaming. Keyboard shortcuts FTW.

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gravisus

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#2745874 17-Jul-2021 17:59

for me a possibility to remap keys with AutoHotkey was a revelation

I started from CAPS + I J K L as cursor then added U and O as home and end. this drastically changed my hand tension and reduced aches due to right hand stay in the same position most of the time.

PS: looking for a Dactyl like keyboard to try :)

Batman

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#2745912 17-Jul-2021 19:17

what about cherry MX keyboards with shorthands and macros?

i find that it's not the wavyness but the lightness of the switch keyboards that does the trick

ymmv though

i tested a lot of mechanical keyboards and found logitech G710+ to be the lightest for typing

Gurezaemon

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#3105058 17-Jul-2023 14:17

After looking fruitlessly around shopping sites for a disturbingly long time, I stumbled upon the Perix Periboard-335, a tenkeyless, mechanical keyboard.

This has a metal top with a very solid feel, and has the format I've been looking for. Low-profile mechanical Kailh switches, with options of blue, red, or brown. I went with brown.

Typing feel is good, and the brown switches mean it isn't annoyingly loud, but it still has decent feel.

I haven't bothered playing with the macro functionality, as I already have two separate mechanical add-on keyboards (8 keys and 12 keys+2 dials) along with a large AutoHotkey configuration to handle all of that stuff.

The only downsides I've found so far are the legs that raise at the wrist side of the keyboard are weak, and broke within a week of usage. I remedied this with a bit of foam sleeping roll cut to size and placed underneath, and it works perfectly.

The other issue is the unnecessarily sharp corners at the bottom left and right of the keyboard, which can poke the wrist at times. I've got around this by cutting another piece of sleeping roll to act as a wrist rest, and again, it works perfectly, even if it looks a little janky.

All up - consider me very impressed.

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