Mechanical Keyboards

8662 readers

8 users here now

Are you addicted to the clicking sounds of your beautiful and impressive mechanical keyboard?
If so, this community is for you!

Here you can discuss everything about mechanical keyboards (and only mechanical keyboards).

Banner by Jay Zhang on Unsplash

founded 4 years ago

LF 60% with mode toggle (feddit.it)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by mattreb@feddit.it to c/mechanicalkeyboards@lemmy.ml

6 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hi! I'm relatively new to mechanical keyboards and I need some help.

I need a 60% that will allow to toggle between two mode, one for writing and one for cursor movement with arrows (possibly on IJKL).

From what I found most of the 60% use the Fn button for arrows, but you have to keep it pressed, which will not work for me... I need to actually toggle the alternative layout. Some 60% have a "Fn lock" to support this, but it's hard to tell by just looking at their specs...

Do you know any model with a similar feature?

top 6 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] sloppy_diffuser@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I haven't made a keyboard in awhile but anything that supports QMK (or whatever is new and shiny today) should be able to support this.

QMK and the like are custom firmware so you can pretty much code up whatever feature you need.

If you are looking for a pre-built, I know my Tofu65 supports QMK from https://kbdfans.com/.

QMK is written in C but they do have a no code tool I used for my Tofu65: https://config.qmk.fm/#/.

If the tool doesn't cover your use case and you are able to do a little C, these sections are good starting points for layers (what you call modes) and cursor keys.

https://docs.qmk.fm/feature_layers

https://docs.qmk.fm/features/mouse_keys

[–] mattreb@feddit.it 3 points 1 month ago

QMK looks good, also because I'm familiar with C. I'll probably go with a prebuild to start out since I'm mainly interested in customizing the setup for now, thanks!

[–] Axolotling@beehaw.org 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Any keyboard that supports qmk should work for this. You can enable mousekeys and there are also functions to toggle layers

[–] mattreb@feddit.it 1 points 1 month ago

very nice pointer, have you flashed this on any keyboard?

[–] dubyakay@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Why not have both?

[–] mattreb@feddit.it 1 points 1 month ago

I'm currently on a TLK, and mostly because I want to learn to stop moving my hands away from the home row. It's not even only about arrows, but also home/end page up/down etc. and combinations with them which I use a lot and it just get slow and weird since I have to reposition my hands every time... mine is currently quite limited in what I can program it to do unfortunately.