On the rare occasion I’m feeling serious enough about WASD gaming to be concerned about my winkey, I have a gaming-specific keyboard whose blocker doubles as a winkey toggle switch.
Something to look forward to :3
On the rare occasion I’m feeling serious enough about WASD gaming to be concerned about my winkey, I have a gaming-specific keyboard whose blocker doubles as a winkey toggle switch.
Something to look forward to :3
I have a GAS67 and that’s exactly what I do to disable the Win key while shooting up the map.
Incidentally, my space bar also used to jam unless I flipped it - until I put a thick layer of tape under the spacebar stabs.
My main desktop and work keyboards are Windows, and my personal laptop (lives on the coffee table) is Ubuntu. I use the Windows key quite a lot, and the Super key in Linux a fair bit. For Windows, Win-R to open the run command, Win-D for desktop, Win + Arrows for app-window management, Win-Shift-S for the replacement for Print Screen, and probably more. I don’t mind moving it around a bit, but not having one easily accessible would be extremely annoying.
Looks like NuPhy is offering those glowing-homing-bar keycaps on their own as well.
Currently on preorder for $30 - not bad at all IMO. I’m grabbing some because I’m curious and because I know someone who wants black-and-pink keycaps; I’ll let you folks know how they turn out.
I use my windows key religiously (window repositioning, opening file explorer, min/max windows, shutdown options, and I only ever start menu search the app I want to launch instead of using the mouse on an icon). The left winkey has to be on the lower left of my board somewhere. My left control is already on capslock, so with WKL or HHKB setups, those two keys go to winkey and alt (also super important). The only thing I miss from a WK setup is mapping the left control spot to F10 on press (VS/VSC/Chrome debugging) and Shift + Control on hold to only need one modifier for whole word highlighting.
For gaming, I use the left half of a keeb.io FoldKb (sans knob) with no layers as to not introduce any lag in input. It’s got an Ortho layout that I find to be much more comfortable for gaming, while having regular sized modifiers for keycap set accessibility. I also picked up a 3d printed case for it to keep the dust off of the PCB.
Thank God I am on Linux.
Matter of interest, do you use the System/Code/Tux key on Linux or do you just run Emacs fullscreen?
Look what I found in a 30 year old issue of Mondo 2000: a Sega mega drive modem add-on with a keyboard with a 75% layout. Too bad it didn’t make much of a dent.
Oooh, interesting. Any US vendors yet, or just Gateron’s store? Might need to grab some to try 'em out.
Nice click leaf system - it’s indeed new (the Zeal one is different, and is made to be modular).
The stem rails are new too.
These linears have the newer stem rails:
All of this is really interesting. Going to order some clickies
I already did
Really happy to see another click-leaf switch, it’s good with more variety.
Same feeling here. This one seems to be a dedicated click leaf platform, unlike the Zeal Clickie which can be modified to become linear or tactile. The new rails are intriguing too - I suppose these will eliminate wobble entirely but maybe at the cost of smoothness ?
I’ll let you know as soon as I get them.
I figure there will be a lot of people interested in this one, and you’ve probably already seen it. But this is very interesting!
A new product from GMK that isn’t doubleshot but printed. I think these are the same profile as CYL, but I’m not sure. Uses new blended materials for aesthetics as well.
I love the desing, and if the UV printing turns out well, this seems like a good avenue for GMK to have a lot of customization going forward. Time will tell.
I would have liked to see the set at a more competitive price. $125 pre-order is close to the same as what you pay for double-shot. Maybe the price will come down after time. Anyway… cool stuff. Sign me up for this kind of creativity.
Cannonkeys has new switches from Haimu that clip in to the PCB! This could allow you to build plateless with Hotswap.
Very interesting. Might be a pain in the ass to get them out unless you are building plateless. Also, there definitely is a large variation in the size of those holes from PCB to PCB.
Says they fully clip in to 1.2mm PCBs and are not able to be removed.
That’s objectively worse than just soldering them in.
However, I’m guessing that with some careful use of angle clippers, one could possibly cut the tips from the bottom.
my eyes are bleeding.
These might look a lot better IRL. Have to see. The novelties are nifty. Definitely not pre-ordering tho
@yeeb I am a Windows user and use the Windows key frequently. I use win+arrows constantly to maximize, minimize, and snap windows to the sides, though I also drag to do this, especially with the Windows 11 layout feature that came from FancyZones (also part of PowerToys).
I use the Start menu to quickly type the names of programs and open them, quickly pull up a settings section, and very occasionally for a quick web search (usually the name of someone in a movie).
Just as often, I use it as part of shortcuts like win+shift+S for screen clipper, win+tab for window/desktop management, and win+x for the advanced quick menu. I also use PowerToys, which has a selector to OCR and copy text to clipboard with win+shift+T (though the screen clpper also can do this now, ala the iOS feature).
There are other potentially useful winkey shortcuts for switching to programs on the taskbar based on their order, but in practice I don’t use them.
The future is obviously going to include LLMs, but I find Copilot in Windows useless so far and may have even turned off the command in the registry…or was that the awful MSN crap news ad feeder widgets pane? It’s also…not something I need in my OS until it can basically just resolve sticky issues that the largely useless troubleshooter scripts don’t. Maybe I’d use it for specific tasks.
I never use the Start menu as a file or folder search and turned off indexing at one point, but I do occasionally use the Explorer search bar, and turning off indexing makes that very slow. So I turned it back on, but I use Fluent Search instead. I often use that for opening programs as well.
Therefore, I do favor WK and only have WK keyboards except for my Arisus, which do still have some winkeys, just not in the typical place. However, I’m open to WKL if I like it better for a certain board and would not mind dealing with mapping a winkey elsewhere. I do have an issue in that I also use ctrl and alt on both sides daily, since my task manager TickTick uses them in tandem with A to add a task from anywhere, P to start a pomo or timer, and O to open the main window. I try to use opposing hands for shortcuts as much as possible for ergonomics. Those can be remapped to some degree, though, which I’d probably do if using a WKL board.
All that said, I think your average Windows user basically does not use the winkey except to pull up the start menu and then to hunt and peck for the few programs they need to use occasionally but don’t have on their desktop or pinned to the taskbar. Among nerds, yes, but average people non-nerds just using a PC for work or tasks, not so much.