Hi!
I, recently, got bored and I play around with KLE.
I want a board with functions keys on the left size, though with 60% layout, there is only 5 rows and, thus, 10 F keys, so I think how about adding two more. Two more F keys on top will look a bit weird so I put them below.
Also, because I have two keys that’s below the bottom row, how about more? arrow keys below the bottom row, similar to some laptop’s keyboard would be a fit.
Looks interesting at the very least, I think it’ll be tough to make a case for it though
Have you looked into layouts such as the CA66, Revo Kmini, ALF X3 etc ? 65% with a macro cluster on the left.
I would try to get that space filled on the bottom. It looks interesting, but I don’t know how much people would bo for it. Also, I would numerate the F-row differently, like this:
F1 F2
F3 F4
F5 F6
etc.
For me, it wouldn’t be something I was interested in unless it was inexpensive. and I agree with @notG10 about the notification lights. it would be very cool if you could do an LCD or something on the bottom, even just a simple LED matrix display on the bottom. That actually would be really cool, now that I think of it. Be able to feed it anything, like computer stats or temperatures or something. That would get me interested.
Go all out – for what is normally the spacebar row, do a whole line of modifier keys and then one of those Wyse 10u spacebars below that to fill in the space between the arrows and F11/F12 …
I’d consider making the right modes 1u each so you can get Alt, Ctrl, and Fn there, then put Del where you have Fn now. Then you get a full size shift, and I think that would help with keyset compatibility, but I’m not a key cap geek, so I’m not sure. But for sure, I’d prefer not to accidentally hit Del when I mean shift. You could also just swap the order of shift and Del.
Maybe make an integrated wrist rest to fill out the bottom and make the case rectangular? Looking at my hands while I type, I’m noticing that my right hand would be bumping the left arrow, and a wrist rest might mitigate that.
I did a quick search on the google after looking up spacebar sizes, and there’s this one: Display that’s a 163 mm x 22 mm x 25 mm module (somewhere between 8 and 9u and a little over 1u tall) with an 153.5 mm x 16 mm display area (a little over 8u wide and less than 1u tall) for about $20 each when bought in quantities of 100 or more.
With a minimum order that large, if you contact the manufacturer, it’s likely they’ll sell or provide you with a sample so you can program and fit it correctly, or at least the models and exact dimensions for it.) There’s probably others out there that I haven’t found. I just did a quick google.
Or you could make it into the case like a blocker and allow people to put their own in also, so you could get cool things like a Vacuum Flourescent Display (VFD) on there like This old stock or this current stock.
thank for the link
that LCD should be a good fit, but it seems the quantity is too much for me, I will search around and maybe I will find a retailer who sell several of them to me.
Yeah, the minimum order amount of them is a bit high. Like I said, just a quick google. You don’t necessarily have to fill the area with the LCD either. You could do a smaller one that still displays some information. Smaller would probably be cheaper too. I know that Adafruit does some that are inexpensive and are on breakout boards. Something to look into as well. The only issue is it’s difficult to find any that are that wide and not very tall also.
