[IC] GMK Paperwork

@evangs I can’t believe the audacity of this set. I’m not buying unless you support my 6 key macro pad. This is ridiculous. :rofl:

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Gonna be hard to woo a person who literally needs arrow keys for testing accessibility and number keys for writing out a bunch of arcane layout algorithm stuff :sob:

I dig the colors :+1:

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The minivan has arrows :eyes:

Hmmm… I’m a software engineer (though not doing any frontend stuff like it sounds like you do) and get by just fine with my numbers on a layer…

I’ve posted this before, but when I got my first van I honestly expected to have to resell it within a month (I had even lined up a buyer!) but after using it for a week I wanted to give it a second week, and then a third, and then a fourth, and then it got hard to give it up. Now I have a bunch of different 40%s :joy:

If you live in an area with a lot of other keyboard enthusiasts I’d recommend trying to find someone with a van that will let you borrow one to try for a week or two. I keep a spare one around just to lend to people who are unsure if they can live with the size drop.

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Yeah, I’d love to try out some of them at a meetup sometime; hopefully there’s a Chicago-area meetup soonish!

Considering grabbing one of the new Haze M60s and giving that a try, in combination with a numpad (my current setup is a TKL + numpad). My gut says “You’re gonna miss that function row where you put all your macros!” but my brain says “You can remap those to something else, probably.”

We’ll see! I don’t think I’ll make it all the way down to that 40% life, but 60% with a numpad (because my brain just has never been able to make numeric input work on anything but a tenkey) could work, maybe. Or maybe the teased RAMA M100 will be my perfect daily driver ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Plenty of folks work on 40%. Just because you can’t, doesn’t mean others can’t.

Thanks for the feedback :slight_smile:

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Man this community is getting toxic. This mentality of “support my board or else” is ridiculous. Great work putting this together @evangs , I just think if you add 86 more keys then you still won’t make everyone happy. :joy:

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Sure, there are some toxic people, but I think the majority of feedback has been constructive. The “support my board or else” mentality applies to the actual product presented though, so I don’t know where you are going with that.

Still, there’s nothing inherently wrong with limited compatibility nor is it even the first set to do it. There’s also nothing inherently wrong with liking a set and wanting it to support your layout. Neither of these are free from criticism either.

I think dropping most of the custom colors while supporting 65% standard/WKL/HHKB through additional kits would go a HUGE way towards making this successful at a great price

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having a single custom color, in this case, brings the same restrictions as 13 so reducing the number of custom colors wouldn’t make sense unless all of them were removed and only standard GMK colors were utilized. unfortunately the standard GMK colors create a very bad version of this set.

I appreciate all the feedback for supporting other layouts. I agree that it is all relevant. The discussion over here has been much more civil than other places.

This is an interest check and any and all constructive feedback is welcome. I can totally understand liking the concept and wanting support added for various layouts.

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This is the part that bugs me. The GH version of this thread is melting down that someone had the audacity to run a set without a numpad, but hasn’t had the same level of outrage for any other narrowly-focused sets (GMK Mondrian, GMK 3Run, that Acute set Jack ran, any of the other weird ortho-only sets that have run in the past few years)… IMO there is a huge difference between “Man, I wish this supported my layout” (which seems to be what most of this thread is saying other than this one and “What kind of garbage set doesn’t support my ISO HHKB with 1800-style numpad” (which seems to be what most of the GH thread is saying).

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Personally, I feel like that is because the people that ran those sets didn’t piss off the set designers and people in the community, and then never offered a good apology. TheVan Keyboards used, and continue to use, colorways from designers without their permission. People may be displaying their anger on these ICs. I am not sure. They are also trying to genuinely help TheVan, by offering their opinions and their feedback. Whether that feedback is presented in a helpful manner or not is another matter.

Personally, I don’t think that selling 250 of these sets is possible. Especially not with the compatibility it possesses at the moment. All that would be needed would be a 6.25u spacebar, several 1.25u bottom keys, and a 1.75u r3 key. That’s it. Yet TheVan refuses to add them, saying, “I don’t use other 40s so I don’t have a lot of insight into what is needed” (direct from Discord, by the way). Just take a look at the JD40/JD45. Add keys to support the most common layouts for those boards, and the set will probably reach MOQ. I’ll give a list.

JUST 1 1.25u r4 key. JUST 1 r3 1.75u key. JUST 1 6.25u spacebar, and/or a 2.75u spacebar. That’s all you need to support a “standard 40% layout.”

If you want to support 45%, all you need is another alpha colored r3 1u key, and an r2 1u key in addition to the keys I listed above. Mod or alpha colored, I think that’s up to @evangs.

But that’s just my opinion, and what do I know, right?

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This set looks really nice! But I think I would have a hard time ordering it because it’s not very flexible right now. I’m using a full grid Zlant as my daily driver but I don’t use arrow keys, so I wouldn’t have enough keys to properly cover the bottom row.

Also, while I I use Esc in the top left, it doesn’t seem very common for other ortho or Zlant users, so I can imagine that being a problem too.

I think if you added another 10 or so caps this could be great for the 40% community, but right now it’s basically just a Minivan cap set.

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So I guess the obvious question is - for the vast majority of 40% to be covered, what keys need to be added. And as a bonus question, what keys for a 65%? I see people quoting keyboards that they want to cover, but not specific keys. That seems like it would be the most constructive path to take. Look at the keys that are offered, and suggest keys to be added. That’s the way it normally works, so I don’t see why people aren’t just throwing out suggestions for @evangs to mull over and decide what direction he wants to take if you’re interested in the set.

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Update time! While some may think I don’t listen, I actually do. I’ve been reviewing the feedback and I have added 9 keys that I think make the most sense.


this adds support for JD40/45, Daisy, Core, and more. I have updated the OP with some layout maps of these other boards as well as the revised base set.

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Fantastic! I’m probably in for this set now!

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Nice additions @evangs

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set is looking great many thanks for the the additional keys such as R3 1.75 etc, definitely interested now :slight_smile: I think 40% cause us all a headache finding compatibility but it seems by adding a few keys you’ve supported a few more boards in one go!

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Final IC Update!

We are proud to announce that we are partnering with Jack of OLKB on GMK Paperwork and will be hosting the group buy on both https://thevankeyboards.com/ and https://olkb.com/

The group buy will launch on February 15th 2019 and run until March 18th 2019.

Thank you to everyone who provided feedback.

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Hype!! :heart_eyes:

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Nice, any chance of an EU proxy?

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