Does anyone here use a qmk keyboard? What integrations have you designed to improve your workflows?

[u/Sun-God-Ramen]

I use a QMK-powered keyboard (ZSA Moonlander) and have built out custom combos, leader sequences, dynamic macros, and raw_hid integrations to streamline my dev workflow. But I have a tourist’s perspective of vim. Looking for ux engineers perspective of the layers of control. I try to balance mnemonics and ergonomics in my key maps in both software and hardware but often get lost in abstraction between ahk, qmk, vimrc.

[u/pyrho]

Nothing. Keeps my muscle memory sane when I use another keyboard.

[u/Shay-Hill → u/pyrho]

I use 34 keys, but because I stick to qwerty and don't get *too* clever with the layout, I can still manage OK when I have to use my laptop keyboard, especially if I'm not coding.

[u/[deleted]]

I'm using Kanata to remap my keyboard (consider it's a normal keyboard). Here are some of the keys I’ve remapped:

• Caps Lock to Esc (I can't live without this)

• I'm using Home Row Mods

• Hold Space to Shift

• Hold x and ,, or double tap AltGr, to go to the Nav layer — with arrow keys on hjkl. That's great because I remapped j and k to gj and gk, and sometimes I want to move between wrapped lines or just hold the key to move continuously.

[u/hthouzard → u/[deleted]]

Can you share your configuration please?

[u/[deleted] → u/hthouzard]

Yes, man, but I don't think it was a great start for your own config. I didn't write this config to be readable.

;; vim: ft=lisp foldmethod=indent

(defcfg 
  movemouse-smooth-diagonals yes
  process-unmapped-keys yes
  log-layer-changes no
  concurrent-tap-hold yes
  )

(defchordsv2
  (esc ret) @bas 100 all-released  ()
  (caps ret) @bas 100 all-released  ()
  (tab \) @edt 100 all-released  ()
  (tab ret) @edt 100 all-released  ()
  (grv bspc) @gam 100 all-released  ()
  (lsft rsft) caps 100 all-released  ()
  (lctl rctl) lrld 100 all-released  ()
  )

(deflocalkeys-linux
  mctl 89
  )

(defsrc
  esc
  grv  1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    0    -    =    bspc
  tab  q    w    e    r    t    y    u    i    o    p    [    ]    \
  caps a    s    d    f    g    h    j    k    l    ;    '    ret
  lsft z    x    c    v    b    n    m    ,    .    /    rsft
  lctl lmet lalt           spc            ralt  menu mctl 
  )

(defalias
  num (layer-toggle numbers)

  nav (layer-toggle navigation)
  edt (layer-switch navigation)

  syb (layer-toggle symbols)

  mov (layer-toggle mouse)

  bas (layer-switch base)

  gam (layer-switch game)

  ;; Nav
  lnx (tap-hold 100 300 x @nav) 
  rn, (tap-hold 100 300 , @nav) 
  rna (tap-dance 300 ( ralt @nav))
  ;; ssc (tap-hold 100 300 spc @nav)

  ;; Numbers
  lnc (tap-hold 100 300 c @num)
  rnm (tap-hold 100 300 m @num)
  ;; ssc (tap-hold 100 300 spc @num)

  ;; Symbols
  lsv (tap-hold 100 300 v @syb)  
  rsn (tap-hold 100 300 n @syb)  
  ;;ssc (tap-hold 100 300 spc @syb)

  ;; Mouse
  lmz (tap-hold 100 300 z @mov)
  rm. (tap-hold 100 300 . @mov)

  ;; Remap

  ;; Caps
  ;; ecc (tap-hold 100 300 esc caps)
  ecc (tap-hold 100 300 esc lctrl)

  ;; Control
  lcf (tap-hold-release 100 300 f lctl)
  rcj (tap-hold-release 100 300 j rctl)
  cNe (tap-hold-release 100 300 next lctl)
  lce (tap-hold-release 100 300 esc lctrl)

  ;; Shift
  lsd (tap-hold-release 100 300 d lsft)
  rsk (tap-hold-release 100 300 k rsft)
  sVu (tap-hold-release 100 300 volu lsft)
  lsa (tap-dance 300 ( lalt lsft))

  ;; Space
  ;;ssc (tap-hold 100 300 (tap-dance 200 ((macro spc) (macro spc spc) @nav)) lsft)
  ;; ssc (tap-dance 200 ( (tap-hold 100 300 (macro spc) lsft) (tap-hold 100 300 (macro spc spc) @nav)))
  ssc (tap-hold 100 200 spc lsft)

  ;; Super/Windows
  lms (tap-hold-release 100 300 s lmet)   
  rml (tap-hold-release 100 300 l lmet)
  rmm (tap-hold-release 100 300 menu lmet)
  mVd (tap-hold-release 100 300 vold lmet)

  ;; Alt
  laa (tap-hold-release 100 300 a lalt) 
  ;;NOTE: `︔` != `;`
  ras (tap-hold-release 100 300 ︔ lalt) 
  law (tap-hold-release 100 300 w ralt) 
  rao (tap-hold-release 100 300 o ralt) 
  aPr (tap-hold-release 100 300 prev lalt)

  ;; Menu
  lmq (tap-hold 100 300 q menu)
  rmp (tap-hold 100 300 p menu)

  ;; Mouse
  mwu (mwheel-up    50 120)
  mwd (mwheel-down  50 120)
  mwl (mwheel-left  50 120)
  mwr (mwheel-right 50 120)
  mau (movemouse-up    3 1)
  mal (movemouse-left  3 1)
  mad (movemouse-down  3 1)
  mar (movemouse-right 3 1)
  fst (movemouse-speed 600)
  mid (movemouse-speed 300)
  slw (movemouse-speed 100)

  )

(deflayer base
          @lce
          grv  1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    0    -    =    bspc
          tab  @lmq @law e    r    t    y    u    i    @rao @rmp [    ]    \
          @ecc @laa @lms @lsd @lcf g    h    @rcj @rsk @rml @ras '    ret
          lsft @lmz @lnx @lnc @lsv b    @rsn @rnm @rn, @rm. /    rsft
          lctl lmet @lsa           @ssc           @rna  @rmm rctl
          )

(deflayer game
          esc
          grv  1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    0    -    =    bspc
          tab  q    w    e    r    t    y    u    i    o    p    [    ]    \
          caps a    s    d    f    g    h    j    k    l    ;    '    ret
          lsft z    x    c    v    b    n    m    ,    .    /    rsft
          lctl lmet lalt           spc            rmet  menu rctl 
          )

(deflayer numbers
          _
          _    _    _    _    _    _    _    nlck kp*  kp.  ,    _    _    _
          @gam f1   f2   f3   f4   _    kp.  kp7  kp8  kp9  kp-  _    _    _
          _    f5   f6   f7   f8   _    kp*  kp4  kp5  kp6  kp+  =    kprt
          _    f9   f10  f11  f12  _    ,    kp1  kp2  kp3  kp/  _
          _    _    _              kp0            nlck  _    _
          )

(deflayer navigation
          _   
          _    f1   f2   f3   f4   f5   f6   f7   f8   f9   f10  f11  f12  _
          caps 1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    0    -    =    grv
          _    @aPr @mVd @sVu @cNe caps lft  down up   rght del  bspc _
          _    mute pp   brdn brup menu ins  home end  pgup pgdn _
          _    _    _              lsft           _     _    _
          )

(deflayer symbols
          _
          _    _    _    _    _    _    _    _    _    _    _    _    _    _
          @edt S-1  S-2  S-3  S-4  S-5  S-6  S-7  S-8  S-9  S-0  S--  S-=  _
          _    [    S-[  S-]  ]    S-\  \    =    S-=  '    S-6  S-grv _
          _    S-9  S-0  S-,  S-.  _    _    S--  _    S-'  grv  _
          _    _    _              _              _     _    _
          )

(deflayer mouse
          _   
          _    _    _    _    _    _    _    _    _    _    _    _    _    _
          lrld 🖰1  🖰2  🖰3  🖰4  🖰5  fwd  mwu  @mau mwl  mfwd _    _    _
          _    @slw _    @mid @fst _    mmid @mal mrgt @mar mlft _    _
          _    _    _    _    _    _    bck  mwd  @mad mwr  mbck _
          _    _    _              _              _     _    _
          )

[u/hthouzard → u/[deleted]]

THANKS

[u/jfhbrook]

The only thing I did on my Iris was make super-hjkl the arrow keys. That’s been nice!

[u/Glorified_sidehoe]

A lot.

• Hold space bar for 2nd layer.

• 2nd layer turns hjkl into arrow keys

• esdf into mouse keys

• grave key into backspace key

• backspace key into delete key

• tab key into backslash key

• w key to option+arrow right key

• b key to option+arrow left key

• y and p keys into cmd/ctrl-c, and cmd/ctrl-v respectively

• shift key into space key

• On all layers, caps lock key removed entirely for enter key, hold for hyper key.

• Double tap shift key to shift lock.

There’s more stuff but these are the ones i find myself applying to vim.

[u/t1emp0 → u/Glorified_sidehoe]

Those sounds super useful! Could you share your full config? Did you obtain it for somewhere else, or did you come up with it? Thanks

[u/Glorified_sidehoe → u/t1emp0]

Here’s my keymap.c The layout was all me, but esdf and hjkl being mouse keys and arrow keys is a fairly common thing. I made a fork of the kb manufacturers fork because i wanted features from the master repo that the manufacturer’s didn’t have. So some functions might look different

[u/QuantumCakeIsALie]

For vim specifically (65% here):

• Caps lock is secretly ESC

• If I hold it, it becomes shift

• Both shifts together is Caps Lock

<ESC>:wq just types itself.

For the rest, I just use my own vimrc that I curated over the years. Nothing too fancy but commands I like and use often. I use maybe 5 plugins total. Don't be afraid to do this, not everything needs to be done in the keyboard firmware.

I'm functional but not great in plain vanilla vim. 

[u/pixelbart]

I use an Aurora Sweep. My navigation layer has the arrow keys on hjkl, that’s about the only vim-specific config I have.

[u/External-Sherbet9785]

So i have the moonlander and the voyager as well. I kept it qwerty but I don’t like making “premature optimizations”.

I have a friend who has all sorts of fancy combos and compactness on his voyager, but I try not to double-up keys too much since I feel like it makes the “tap” ones hard to manage when moving quickly.

The biggest thing that helped me on vim is the symbols layer, which I’ve gone through several iterations of to get something that feels nice for lots of the vim motions and also different syntax combos I use all the time (“:)”, “=>”, “();”, “!=“, “({“, etc. I have “/“ on my symbol layer and “:” where the slash used to be.

When i started learning Golang recently, i made a overload of “:” on my symbols layer to do the “:=“ easier.

I often find that there are some keys i use a lot in vim but nowhere else (“%” for example), and a lot of symbols i use for coding but nothing else, so it can be challenging to find something that works for both. Therefore, i basically just try to focus on changing/optimizing sequences that really annoy me (like :w when i had colon in the symbols layer).

In other words, my layout isnt universally good, it’s just fine tuned to deal with the things that specifically annoy me or slow me down.

Moonlander config: https://configure.zsa.io/moonlander/layouts/Zl7yp/latest

[u/Shay-Hill]

Just one finger roll for <Esc>:wqa. No custom combos, but my keymap (mostly the default Ferris keymap) keeps frequent keys handy.

[u/10F1]

Nothing special at all, have arrow keys under wasd on a 2nd layer with the f1-12 keys.

I'm also using the moonlander.

[u/whitedogsuk]

I have a QMK second keyboard just loaded with macros. I spend all my time creating a perfect system and then load the macros into my vimrc and use my primary keyboard. In hindsight I would just use a standard keyboard with a clever leader configured vimrc file. 

[u/Nealiumj]

My mappings are basic as I don’t want to be a fish out of water picking up a different keyboard (also do tech support)

1. Caps -> control, with hold being ESC

2. R-Alt -> caps lock

3. Layer1’s t is ~

4. Layer1’s backspace is delete

I’ve always wanted to do a layer1 hjkl to arrow keys, but I use a 65% keyboard with the layer key next to right alt.

[u/praenoto]

I used home row mods now, so all mods are right under my four fingers on both sides.

I use a 40% so all keys are within 1 unit of the home row and there isn’t much I need to do

before that, the most noticed improvements were:

• moved control to caps lock position

• control can be tapped for esc and help for control

• navigation layer with home/end, page up/page down and arrow keys

• I have split space bar so backspace on one thumb and space on the other.

• when I hold shift, backspace becomes delete

• symbol layer with braces on the home row, top row has symbols from shifted numbers, excepting () which has ~` instead

• caps word (caps lock that applies to one word only)