My touch-confusion with the thumb keys didn’t last more than a day. I find I never mistype for want of a more prominent homing bump, but I still think it’s the one downgrade over the Model 01 (assuming you aren’t a die-hard Matias switch fan).
I’ve gone with (from left to right): Backspace, Shift, Ctrl, Cmd, Alt, Ctrl, Shift, Space, plus Space-Cadet parentheses on the shifts. I could have gone either way with the placement of Space/Backspace relative to the modifiers, but it seemed “cleaner” to have all the modifiers together.
Some complicated multi-modifier combos get tricky, but I’ve mapped the modifiers so that they’re sticky when accessed from the “Fun” layer, and that helps a bit. Still slow, but I rarely encounter combos that require too much contortion.
I may have to play with swapping Cmd/Alt, though.
I also treat the Esc/AltGr keys as an extension of the thumb cluster since I find it slightly easier to reach the tallest corner of those keys with my thumbs than to move my whole hand over to get to them with my index fingers. It’s still a bit awkward, but it’s getting easier with practice.
I found the SHIFT a bit hard to reach as well, maybe because of my somewhat smaller hands. My fix turned out to be simple: swap the SHIFT and CTRL on the left cluster (as others have done). This way capitalizing words is comfortable and shortcuts with CTRL are also still comfortable (via the right cluster).
Also, for common shortcuts I have a dedicated key under a palm layer.
So what are you using the palm keys for?
So what’s your current order of thumb keys?
Only the SHIFT and CTRL on the left side are swapped. So: shift, bksp, cmd, ctrl.
I moved the shift keys in, and CMD and alt to the outer arc. I also flipped sides for the space and backspace keys. Since I only type in English, I made the altgr key another tab so alt-tab and alt-shift-tab window switching is really easy. I left the ctrl keys on the inner arc which is probably the least comfortable to reach but works well with the copy/cut/paste etc. shortcuts.
From left to right: [L] ctrl, space, shift, CMD [R] alt, shift, backspace, ctrl
Fun key has taken some getting use to, but is becoming indispensable. I try to remember to use the opposite palm from the key I’m trying to stroke or it can be awkward feeling.
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Would you be able to share the file you used for this keycap? Thanks.
sure, here you go
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It’d be helpful if the “home” thumb key was concave instead of convex.
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I have adapted the model from @superfell to have more obvious bumps. One variant with two vertical bars and one variant with three dots. I found someone to
print them for me with ABS like resin. See the attached pictures for the result.
I think I prefer the vertical bars over the dots. The bars could have been further apart. The dots could actually be more subtle, but both are ok.
If someone is interested in the models, they can be found at
GitHub - hupfdule/m100-thumb-keycap.
Be aware that they acually don’t fit in the stem of the switches! I had to
cut away the corners of the “thing under the keycap that should stick in
the stem which I don’t know the name of”. It can be seen in the pictures
(after cutting).
I don’t know if this is a necessity for creating them with a
3d-printer or could actually be created to fit without manual
intervention.
