Hey there,
I’ve been doing a lot of typing lately on my shitty old Compaq keyboard (it has a good build quality, but keys require relatively much force to be pressed) and I experience some discomfort in my fingers.
Would anybody suggest any specific keyboard or keyboard type that would help me ease the strain? I know absolutely nothing about keyboards lol!
I’d go for something slimline. I don’t know how people use chunky mechanical keyboards… That said, there needs to be some clearance. I used a macbook with the butterfly keys and that was attricious.
I used a Cherry ultra thin usb keyboard and it wasn’t too bad. It’s not ergonomic, it’s just thin like a laptop keyboard so there’s not much distance to press down.
Have you considered that it might not just be your keyboard? Four things that made a real difference for me:
- An upright mouse.
- Dictation software. It takes a while to get used to and putting on a rhotic accent can help if you don’t already speak with one. The one built in to OSX is better than the one built into Word, but it may depend on what you’re writing about. Expect copious editing – which is where the upright mouse comes in handy.
- A lumbar support cushion. This will help your posture so there’s less strain on your neck, shoulders, elbows, and wrists. Mine is cylindrical. It attaches to my office chair. You don’t have to get a cylindrical one but don’t get one of those cheap mesh things as they don’t provide any support. You could try wedging a rolled up towel between your chair and lumbar spine to see if it helps before forking out.
- Set up your office chair so your feet are flat in the floor with your knees bent at roughly 90°. Sat upright, your shoulders should be relaxed and your elbows should be open at roughly 90–100° and your wrists resting on either a dedicated support sponge thing or a rolled up towel. I had to cut an inch from the desk legs to achieve this; otherwise either my knees were too low below my hips, my wrists too high above my elbows, or my traps were tensed up. When you’re sat upright, put an arm straight out; you should just be able to touch your screen. Make sure the screen is titled upwards and the top of the screen is below your eye level.
Hope this helps. It makes typing much more comfortable.
10000% behind the ergonomic/upright mouse. Saved my wrist. I will never use a regular mouse for anything other than some occasional games.
Edit: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00BIFNTMC This one is the one I use now and it has lasted longer than any other I have had yet. (I’ve gone through 3 others) It’s only down side is battery power but a pair of good batteries lasts a good long while.
So I have mostly been a laptop person my whole life using trackpads (And the occasional trackpoint here and their) my whole life, I find them egonomic, my new job has me using a mouse and keyboard, and boy does my wrist start to hurt, and I wish I had an upright mouse or a trackpad
Perhaps try Dvorak style? Once you relearn how to type it’s faster and more comfortable for fingers IMHO
ColemakDH is my main rec since it has a lot of learning material online. If I had more time and could do it again, I’d probably go with Canary.
For a rec for keyboard, look into a Lily58 or Sofie for something if you are willing to build you own. You can find shops online that will build for you though.
Split column stagger has been a real game changer for me. I personally use a smaller board than what I me ruined but when you go smaller it gets weird and probably isn’t for everyone.
This is my first time actually learning about mechanical keyboards and I will most likely buy something that does not require macgyvering.
I am handy enough to make a simple wooden box, but that’s it - I never even got into soldering. It would be nice to learn something new in a spare time, but I’m not sure if that would be a good starting point. What do you think?
When I get around to making a custom keyboard, I want to try MTGAP.
Here’s an awesome split keyboard GitHub repository with a lot of information that may help.
I’m not sure how ergonomic this is, but it is a very unique design that enables insanely fast typing speeds: CharaChorder One.
On second thought, I would not recommend the CharaChorder, especially due to poor customer support, the double key press bug, the closed source firmware, and the fact it is still $299. I would be interested in an open source alternative, even if I had to build it myself.
Charachorder did respond to the video saying they fixed most of the issues, but if the device still has closed source firmware, that would be a dealbreaker for me, especially since you cannot remap keys at the firmware level.
$299
That’s almost half my salary 💀
Maybe ColonelRevolution should’ve specified he’s not American, just like me. We’re both Polish 💀
I saw his other messages regarding these issues. I wasn’t sure what he would think about what I mentioned, but I hope the other resources I’ve given are helpful to him or anyone else.
Ouch, is Poland that much cheaper to live in? I live in the Czech Republic and with that salary I would not be able to live anywhere.
Some Polish people travel to work in Czech Republic, so I guess that your salaries are a little better. I like to work abroad and spend money at home so I can afford my hobbies, but for personal reasons I’ll have to stay here for some time and I already feel the pain. 😅
I will have to settle for cheaper alternative for now, but I made a resolution to buy something similar to what you suggested once I finally get to work in the IT sector - at least I hope it will work out. Thanks for your suggestions - I never gave it much thought, the topic is very interesting and I really like the idea of getting a mechanical keyboard in the future.
I make a little above minimum wage, and no Poland isn’t that cheap to live in. If I were to rent I would lose like most of my salary and probably live paycheck to paycheck, if I were to find an acceptable deal or force myself to live in a tiny fucking apartment. I’m happy to live with my parents for the moment, and will continue to do so after I finish college.
Also I just did a simple conversion $300 * 5 = 1500zł, it’s almost correct most of the time lmao I just have that in my head because I’m lazy, but the currrent ratte seems to be 1zł to $0.25
So the keyboard would actually be 1200zł, but that’s still nothing to scoff at as that still would be more than a third of my salary.
Kinesis advantage if you just want to buy it and be good or something like a dactyl manuform if you’re interested in a more diy route (although lots of folks sell them prebuilt too)
And switch to a better layout like colemak dh mod or something (basically anything is better than qwerty, past that you get into diminishing returns)
Thanks. Do you mean Kinesis Advantage or the Kinesis Advantage 360 (the split one)?
I kind of like Cloudnine’s ergoeomic keyboards. They’re fairly inexpensive for a split mechanical keyboard, but I like most things about them. There’s a full size (huge) and a TKL (merely large).
The configuration software is Windows-only, and also not very good, but you don’t have to use it for anything.
You’re right, these are not that expensive for split keyboards. Too bad that they are not sold in my country, so I would need to consider additional transport costs.
I wonder if macro keys would be recognized by Linux? The configuration software would be unnecessary if I could use basic configuration files for my window manager and define behavior by providing key codes.