Unusual Keyboard Pet Peeves

[XTaran]

Oh, f*ck, this will be a loooooooong reply, although I don’t find these pet peeves “unusual”. For me, they’re totally normal.

First my own pet peeves which weren’t mentioned yet:

• Group buys and Interest Checks via Google Forms
  • Even worse: Those which require a Google login for filling out that form. I hope that all GBs which do that, will badly fail due to missing participants due to bad customer pre-selection!
• Group buys which only allows PayPal for paying and require a PayPal account.
• Keyboards which claim to be “community-designed”, but have no support for neither QMK nor TMK. WTF? WTF have they smoked? In which community are they living?
  • And yes, I’m looking at you, Uniqey C70 [FIXUP after reply by @Zambumon:] which Massdrop claimed to be “community-designed” by @livingspeedbump, @T0mb3ry, @Photekq, @Wodan, and @Zambumon. but they only seemed to be counselors from the community, not the main developers. It’s even worse with the C70: The software is windows-only and closed-source. (See also below.)

@rpiguy9907

Having to install unsigned software from a Google drive to use the programmability features of my keyboard.

.oO( Vortex, Varmilo, … )

Yes, and especially if it’s then closed-source and windows-only crap you can’t trust. (See also above.) And you’re entering passwords and credit card numbers with a firmware written by that software, right?

@dwarflemur

No thank you. Bluetooth never has worked well for me and I would lose a dongle right away. Wireless is going to work like crap in a metal case with a metal plate anyway unless you have a real RF engineer spend a lot of time on it and design specially for it.

Same here, plus:

• I don’t want to have to take care that the battery of my keyboard is charged when I want to use it.
• I don’t trust Bluetooth — too many security issues in the past.
  • And I even more don’t trust that Logitech Unifying crap which has known security issues which Logitech refuses to fix because of “backwards compatibility”. Srsly?
• You can’t really show off colorful braided cables with wireless keyboards, right? (No, charging the battery doesn’t count. )

Wired keyboards FTW!

And along the same lines:

Offering high-end input devices wireless only. Yes, Logitech, I’m looking at you again, this time at the most ergonomic trackball I’ve ever used, the MX Ergo. Unfortunately Bluetooth/Unifying crap only, despite it comes with a very stiff USB cable for charging.

In the end I used the ball from a $90 wireless-crap-only trackball in a cheap-ish $35 Pearl.de wired trackball and am happy now.

@pixelpusher

sub 40% boards are annoying

I kinda find 65% keyboards way more annoying: There are keys right of the Enter key without gap. Or keyboards with macro keys left of the Escape key. (Not to mention those 95% keyboards without gap between the main block and the number block.)

@TheNamesTy45

Sharp edges on metal cases. I love my Tina, but…

Oh yeah! I tested a Tina once at some meetup and really didn’t get why they have so sharp 90° edges at all. Love the Tokyo60 or the Rama U80-A for their chamfered edges! So comfy!

@rpiguy9907

It is not that unusual, but I despise universal plates that support tons of layouts. I know it is more economical to produce them, but it just makes soldering the bottom row, caps lock, etc. extra annoying.

Even worse with hotswap sockets: I have a acrylic MiniVan plate which is unusable on the MiniVan hotswap PCBs because nearly all keys with stabs have switch support only on a single side and hence push the switch out of its socket instead of keeping it in. (And there it wasn’t even the support for multiple layouts, just too big cutouts for the stabs, maybe to support multiple types of stabs or just plain designer madness.)

@AllOfTheMeat

I find it strange that more people dont have arrows assigned to WASD on another layer.

It’s easy: I’m used to use my right hand for cursor movement. Using WASD with the right hand is rather awkward.

@habbang

Am I a freak to using arrow keys this way? I find it the only convenient place for use with Fn!

I’m probably similarly crazy on 60%, kinda mixture between what you do and what @kimslawson does:

@kimslawson

This reminds me of a question I’ve had for a while: does anyone with a 60-ish% map their right mods on tap to arrow keys?

On 60% keyboards, RCtrl is my Right key and Fn (at least with Fn being where it is in your picture, my Fn is where the flower is on your picture) is my Left key — on the primary layer. Don’t need a second Ctrl or second OS key.

Up and Down are mapped to Fn-Enter and Fn-Shift. (For some reason I at least need Enter on the primary layer. Could though live without a RShift, too. )

Sounds awkward, but was surprisingly intuitive and I got accustomed to it really quick.

@kimslawson

The bottom row ones are usually 1.25u so they’d feel a bit wide for arrow keys, and the shift is definitely wide (a big Fitt’s Law hit target!) but maybe it would work? I haven’t tried it yet.

Just stop thinking that Down needs to sit inbetween Right and Left.

@hypersprite

Cutting all the little legs off of a set of pcb mount switches

Yeah, and even worse: Hotswap PCBs without the holes for these legs. Yes, I’m looking at you, GMMK! I surely won’t cut off legs of Zealios switches just to be able to use them with you. (Got a hotswap Rama U80-A now anyways… )

@hypersprite

• Spending time setting up all your layers etc. just so in QMK, uploading it and realizing you forgot a something. repeat 5 times.
• Thinking you bought all the random subsets (each containing 1 cap you want and 20 you don’t) of a keycap set so you have everything you need, waiting nine months only to discover you missed one of the keys you needed.

BTDT.

@hypersprite

Trying to type on someone else’s machine and hitting Caps Lock over and over again and making a mess of whatever it was you were trying to type.

Worse: Happens on my own keyboard with some remote consoles (or RDP clients) which seem to do keyboard handling on their own and disregard my local OS keyboard settings. Hrrrrrng!