What is SpaceFN and why you should give it a try
The SpaceFN concept - setting up your space key as a layer switch when held - is probably one of the most useful tweaks in the keyboard hobby. Let me explain how it works. My SpaceFN article on kbd.news made some rounds recently - quite surprisingly given the age of this concept. This piece you're reading is a condensed version of the full post. If you're left with unanswered questions, you'll most likely find the info you're looking for in the original write-up. On my imaginary top list of the most useful keyboard features, tweaks and hacks, SpaceFN would deserve a podium finish for sure. But what makes it so special? In short: SpaceFN is easy to implement, easy to learn, costs nothing, can be used with any keyboard, and can improve your productivity instantly. I will list its benefits below, but can state right at this point that the SpaceFN concept, setting up your space key as a layer switch when held, is clearly one of the most useful tweaks in the keyboard hobby....
Apr 30, 2024
For actual work I currently use a TKL. Muscle memory for me is fairly hard to overcome, and in different contexts I reach for different keys - for instance, hjkl navigation in vi is second nature, but I still use arrow keys in a lot of GUI apps.
I've been playing with a 60% at home. I can see adapting to hjkl nav for everything, and like that it requires me to think about and use the layers; it makes me experiment with it. Which is a huge time sink (especially when I screw it up and have to figure out what I did), but that's part of the entertainment value. And I have a VE.A coming, which should waste a ton of time.
Playing with the idea of going in the opposite direction and designing a seriously huge, absurd board.
One design choice I've been thinking about is potentially providing separate controllers for different parts of the board, meaning you could control programming of separate portions independently. This would potentially be really confusing, but would mean, for instance, your alphas and normal mods could be set for different languages or layouts and a cluster or two could independently track customization for different applications. Of course it would probably be much less confusing and less technically complex to just use a beefier controller.