Funny, it reminds me of one I built in 2022:

AFAIK, you are not missing anything, although there is some work being done by lowprokb.ca (toward a silent linear choc switch, then maybe later a tactile one).

Also there exist (somewhat tedious) mods to make choc switches silent: tape mod and its variant with dental floss.

I am currently using thumb shift on all my keyboards as it feels very natural: no need to move the whole hand (unlike classical shift) and no priority conflicts (unlike HRM shift: with HRM, if hold is preferred then you shift letters by mistake, if tap is preferred you end up typing erroneous extra chars instead of shifting).

Actually I combine enter and shift on the same key, giving priority to hold/shift. Since I don't need to roll enter, there is no conflict.

It looks like a MoErgo Glove80 to me.

I used to have space on the right, but it was pointed to me that, with my layout (for a reason I cannot remember!), space on the left would be more convenient. So I switched.

However the key symmetrical to space is not enter, but backspace, both keys being the most used in my thumb clusters (I used to have both on the same side, and it was quite bad).

Enter is on the left thumb, next to space.

What is wrong with it? What are you looking for?

The starting point is whether you need an ergo keyboard. Is there some specific pain point out fatigue you want to alleviate? Are there some parameters you need to fix first?

The next obligatory step, assuming you need (or want for whatever reason) an ergo keyboard, is a visit here: https://jhelvy.shinyapps.io/splitkbcompare/

Select interesting layouts, print them 1:1 scale and try placing your fingers on the print. Then you will see whether the Moonlander us for you (maybe you need to fold the sheet along the thumb cluster hinge, in the case of this keyboard), or if some other 2d layout is better.

(There will remain the question whether a 3d key well would not work better, à la kinesis advantage/dactyl/glove80/…)

It's a pretty new issue. It seems latest Jerboa requires lemmy 0.18 (which surprises me since this server version is just two days old... )

But actually I am posting this comment with Jerboa right now. So the app complains but still works anyway.

My first ergo split was a Kimiko (roughly the same as a Sofle v2) which also had this num row I quickly stopped using (I ended up affecting it to F keys, still useless anyway; even for switching VTs I tended to use F keys from one of the layers).

My current daily driver is a 3x6 dactyl with a 4th key under middle and ring finger columns and... a 6 keys (2 rows) thumb clusters. All 6 keys can easily be reached because of the 3D shape. I would say only a couple of keys among the 50 are not really useful, hence it is the sweet spot for me now (for a sculpted keyboard anyway; for a flat one, I have to make it work with smaller thumb clusters).

Anyway the similar layout of the thumb clusters and similar goals (Linux user; typing in French) made me want to comment :).

Convex in the X direction, concave in Y one, it's a saddle shape, isn't it?

Edit. Ah no sorry it's more subtle: there is a stairway effect. The keys face outward, but those in the middle are indeed deeper!

By switching to a mech keyboard leave you will indeed have more choice in the switches (more or less hardness, tactile versus linear, etc. ), which can indeed help preserving your fingers.

However, most causes of pain are due to other factors:

• the way you sit (in particular related height wrt keyboard and screen)
• mouse (type of mouse, position wrt keyboard, ... )
• the frequency of pauses at work
• keyboard physical layout (less keys, with better placement, means less effort)

Since we are in a ergo keyboard community, naturally we would like to address the last factor in this list and suggest you small split keyboards with columnar layout (many examples in other posts, I will not cite any here!).

Such keyboards would make a much bigger difference than other suggestions already made in other answers to your post (which look too similar to your current keyboard), but they require some effort learning new habits.

Anyway, don't neglect the other factors in the list: use an ergo chair, prefer a trackball to a regular mouse, keep it close to your typing position (easier with a small keyboard, or with a split, if the trackball is between halves), ...

Not currently available, and the budget is not yet known, but it checks all your other criteria (except the travel case): https://x-bows.com/products/x-bows-split-keyboard

Otherwise, you can start with another existing option and adapt it to add what is missing. For instance, if the keyboard is built around a pro micro and you want to make it wireless, you can replace the pro micro with a nice nano and find a way to place a battery and power switch.

I learned about thunder in this thread today, but i have troubles figuring the UI even for basic things. For instance, how do you reply to a specific comment? (I can only see this icon in the lower right corner, but it does not look like it will do anything else than creating a first level comment!)

Got it. Replying is one of those swipe actions. Disturbingly unusual UI, although it could be quite usable in practice! (still missing other options such as editing or deleting posts... )

It's an interesting design. I wonder if that could work with high profile MX switches and keycaps.

In Dactyls, the reason keys often face inward is as to keep key tops is close to each other as possible. Facing outward would obviously have the opposite effect, but with low profile keys it is less noticeable.

Now, there is one case you really want the keys closer, it is between 2 columns belonging to the same finger.

Wow, I did not expect such a thorough answer!

I still only had the time to skim through it, but I believe it deserves is own post!

Considering that you never press enter next to space, there is no same finger bigram involving these two keys, so I believe it makes sense.

Right hand consonants must have been the reason indeed (t, s, r, n, ... ). It is counterbalanced by the fact that punctuation is on the vowel side, but I suppose it doesn't count as much.

Facing with the same problem (not exactly: my keyboard have a few more keys than the Corne), it always felt more disruptive to me to interrupt the flow with layer switching than to stretch the pinkies to the outer column (or middle fingers to an extra row) for uncommon characters.

So I used Bépo (and now use Optimot) with very little adptations.

It implies outer column stuff must move either to thumb clusters (for the most used keys) or to layers, to give priority to letters.

All my Dactyls are hotswap, so I cannot compare... But it seems that, as expected, stuff is more likely to move and break solder joints when you have hotswap sockets.

A cure for this is to make sure everything is securely glued to the case, but the point of hotswapping, in my case, was the ability to hotswap the whole matrix wrt the case so I can iterate case versions until I print the one with the best parameters.

So after the prototyping phase is over, I encourage you to glue everything you can glue, and screw everything you can (some per-key pcbs, such as the su120, have screw holes... but probably it is even better to use flexible per-column pcbs, instead of per-key, as solder joints that do not exist cannot be broken!).