Pre order was out in December, sounds like they are aiming to have the first keyboard drop in the summer. At least it was implied in their blog: https://kinesis-ergo.com/zmk-and-kinesis/
> Users of the Advantage keyboards tend to fall into two rough buckets: 1) people who suffer from pain when typing on a conventional keyboard, and 2) software developers.
I assume the second bucket is software developers who do not have RSI problems. What are the advantages of this keyboard for software developers? Is "software developers" just another way of saying users who want to customize how the keyboard works?
I'm a software developer with no RSI, who originally bought an Advantage (and then Advantage 2) to play Starcraft II better...
* it's just vastly more comfortable than any ordinary keyboard. I now consider any "ergonomic" keyboard without key wells to be a joke, including the cheaper Kinesis keyboards like the Freestyle.
* you can get a version with "linear" cherry mx red switches for gaming, which is what I did.
* no drivers, no autohotkey scripts, nothing.
* every key is easily remapped; press a key you want to remap, press the key you want it remapped to, repeat until done. Put that escape key on top of caps lock where it belongs.
* there's a crucial "keypad shift" function where you can make one of the keys a modifier that remaps all the other keys. The default functionality is to give you access to numpad and media keys while holding the kpshift key, but you can freely reprogram any of the keys to trigger macros, move hard-to-reach keys to a better position, etc. Basically doubles the available keys.
* as many profiles as you want. You can completely reconfigure the keyboard for each activity you do. The other day I wanted to play the original Diablo 1, which doesn't support changing shortcut keys, so it took me 2min to create a profile that moves the uncomfortable F5-F8 spell casting keys to the home row. Again, there's no alt tabbing or mucking around with GUI's or config files; you just remap keys on the fly while playing the game.
* other stuff like programmable macros, etc. I don't really use this personally.
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edit: I realized I didn't really answer the original question. For software developers specifically I would say at the end of the day it comes down to comfort. The key wells, thumb clusters, and wrist pads ultimately keep your hands in a comfortable position. And the programmability features ultimately work in service of comfort as well: having modifiers like CTRL/ALT/SHIFT available on the big thumb keys makes emacs chords much less of a stretch. Having Super/Windows on a thumb key makes i3/sway window management very comfortable. And the kpshift feature I described above makes it so you can move lots of functionality to the home row instead of stretching for it somewhere else.
I think so. Plus the thumb clusters which makes accessing modifiers like ctrl as well as home/end and page up/down easier than a standard keyboard. I personally never used home/end and page up/down before I got my Advantage 2 but I find I use them more since they are easy to access without going off home row. I also use the "numpad" more and I've taken a lot of common programming symbols like {},[],| off my pinky and onto the numpad layer. Although that's more a pain thing.
criddell|4 years ago
> Users of the Advantage keyboards tend to fall into two rough buckets: 1) people who suffer from pain when typing on a conventional keyboard, and 2) software developers.
I assume the second bucket is software developers who do not have RSI problems. What are the advantages of this keyboard for software developers? Is "software developers" just another way of saying users who want to customize how the keyboard works?
lodi|4 years ago
* it's just vastly more comfortable than any ordinary keyboard. I now consider any "ergonomic" keyboard without key wells to be a joke, including the cheaper Kinesis keyboards like the Freestyle.
* you can get a version with "linear" cherry mx red switches for gaming, which is what I did.
* no drivers, no autohotkey scripts, nothing.
* every key is easily remapped; press a key you want to remap, press the key you want it remapped to, repeat until done. Put that escape key on top of caps lock where it belongs.
* there's a crucial "keypad shift" function where you can make one of the keys a modifier that remaps all the other keys. The default functionality is to give you access to numpad and media keys while holding the kpshift key, but you can freely reprogram any of the keys to trigger macros, move hard-to-reach keys to a better position, etc. Basically doubles the available keys.
* as many profiles as you want. You can completely reconfigure the keyboard for each activity you do. The other day I wanted to play the original Diablo 1, which doesn't support changing shortcut keys, so it took me 2min to create a profile that moves the uncomfortable F5-F8 spell casting keys to the home row. Again, there's no alt tabbing or mucking around with GUI's or config files; you just remap keys on the fly while playing the game.
* other stuff like programmable macros, etc. I don't really use this personally.
---
edit: I realized I didn't really answer the original question. For software developers specifically I would say at the end of the day it comes down to comfort. The key wells, thumb clusters, and wrist pads ultimately keep your hands in a comfortable position. And the programmability features ultimately work in service of comfort as well: having modifiers like CTRL/ALT/SHIFT available on the big thumb keys makes emacs chords much less of a stretch. Having Super/Windows on a thumb key makes i3/sway window management very comfortable. And the kpshift feature I described above makes it so you can move lots of functionality to the home row instead of stretching for it somewhere else.
goosedragons|4 years ago
fermentation|4 years ago