I am happy with my purchase

Help and Getting Started
1

Just wanted to say this is a great keyboard.

Likes:

  • Coming from the ErgoDox and Das Keyboard, the key arangement feels strange, but I think it will grow on me in time.
  • I can definitely say without a doubt this keyboard is much more comfortable than both the ErgoDox and Das keyboard.
  • The thumb cluster is great, and I like the key selections made for it.
  • Today I successfully switched the layout to dvorak using the Arduino IDE, which went very smoothly.
  • The switches are the best I have used.
  • Quality and construction exceeded my expectations.

Dislikes:

  • Needs more buttons. An extra column on the outer edge like the ErgoDox would work.
  • Kaleidescope is fine, but I wish QMK was an option.
  • No capslock in the default layout.
  • It’s hard to see the function keys (in blue) on the included layout card.
  • No graphical configurator like the ErgoDox EZ.

Three of the dislikes will probably be solved by the community in time. Thanks for the hard work everyone involved!

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2

Out of curiosity, what does QMK provide that Kaleidoscope doesn’t? (Apart from the web based configurator)

Or in other words, why would you prefer QMK over Kaleidoscope? If it is something we can fix, I’d love to know, so we can make Kaleidoscope suit you better!

3

I haven’t had a lot of time to play with the kaleidascope firmware, so I am unsure of the comparison with QMK. One thing is certain: QMK has a much bigger community behind it with many different models of keyboards. That said, kaleidoscope is working well and suits my needs thus far. I am sure someday someone will port QMK to work with the Model01.

4

I have an ErgoDox and a Planck. That means, I know both firmwares. Because it is much nicer to work with (build system, design, …) I prefer Kaleidoscope and I am eagerly waiting for a ErgoDox and Planck port.

5
  • The palm keys are genius

My most favorite keys. I have a thousand commands (mostly Emacs ones) mapped on the palm key layers.

6

No capslock in the default layout.

I see this as a plus.

  • Capslock is annoying when accidentally pressed
  • It takes up valuable home-row real-estate in most layouts
  • I very rarely actually need to write anything in capslock

When I actually need to make long stretches of text in all caps, I much prefer to be able to:

  • Hold down Shift the whole time or
  • Highlight the text needed to change and use a keyboard shortcut (where supported - e.g. ctrl-shift-a in word)

There’s only 64 keys on keyboardio, and to me and probably most keyboard enthusiasts likely to get something like this, that’s too few to include a capslock (for me, infinity would be too few). So not including it as a default makes sense (though maybe they could have fit it in on the function layer). But it’s very easy to add to a keymap for anyone who values it.

It’s hard to see the function keys (in blue) on the included layout card.

I don’t think it’s hard to see, but I think green would have been smarter to better distinguish it from the black.

7

Chrysalis is an in-progress-but-functional graphical configurator! (I helped build it, so if you want to try it & have questions, let me know!)

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8

Awesome. Did not know about this! Thank you.

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9

I wrote a Caps Lock plugin a while back. There’s a thread about it here. It’s been downloaded by literal TENS of users.

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10

After a few weeks, I finally have my own firmware config: https://github.com/demizer/Model01-Firmware

Graciously copied from alrgernon’s example.

I have to say, I really like how composable kaleidoscope is, I don’t miss qmk at all.

I am still working out how to get colormap working the way I want, but I have a PR open at https://github.com/keyboardio/Kaleidoscope-Focus/pull/10 to fix some issues I encountered working with the Focus plugin and the python tool.

Now onto spending the next year getting used to my new keyboard! I think it will really help with my RSI in the long term.

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