My first ergo mech keyboard was a ZSA Moonlander which I got a little over a year ago. I love it. However, I am now being asked to come into the office more often and am looking at getting something similar, but more portable.

I was looking at the ZSA Voyager since the split keeb, low profile form factor, and columnar layout seem to check a lot of boxes, but I can’t tell if I can go cut out that many keys/rows. Mostly concerned about losing the bottom row where I often hit CTRL, and losing out on the 3 thumbcluster buttons I always use.

Questions I have are:

  1. Is it easy to switch from keyboard layouts that have dedicated ctrl keys, vs long pressing?

  2. If this is used for an office setup where the keyboard is going to basically be straddling my laptop keyboard, do folks often just dance between the split keyboard to the laptop keyboard for those extra keys or muscle memory chords?

  3. Are there low profile split type keyboards I should be considering?

  4. If I like U4Ts, what type of switches should I be looking at for low profile tactiles but not too thocky and loud?

  • ThyTTY@lemmy.world
    2·
    5 months ago

    Make an experiment and create a layout for your Moonlander without bottom row and internal columns. That way you will feel how the voyager will work for you. This was exacly my case and eventually I got Voyager with a Zip Kit for ML and stayed in this layout. Once I got used to it my fingers have to travel less and I’m satisfied with both of my keyboards. They have exactly same layouts now.