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MiniVan with 78g Zilents up top, Preonic with Gateron Yellows at bottom.

Having found the perfect keymap that worked for me with my MiniVan, jumping to Ortho was much, much easier than going to a 40% from a larger keyboard.

Despite the Preonic having one extra row I've kept my layout largely the same from the MiniVan.

F-key row is RSPACEBAR+ZXCVB row (F1) with UpArrow, Forward Slash and Colon as F10, F11 and F12 respectively.

Numbers are RSPACEBAR+ASDF (1-0)

Shifted symbols are on RSPACEBAR+QWERTY (Q=!, W=@, etc)

I went with two 2U spacebars as I find it more comfortable to use that way. Left SPACEBAR is just a regular spacebar, right SPACEBAR is Tap-Mod and doubles as a FN-key/layer toggle.

The first mod to the right of RSPACEBAR is a layer toggle for an embedded Numpad layer under QWE/ASD/ZXC with the surrounding keys mirroring a Numpad.

FWD SLASH uses Tap Dance so it's Backslash when tapped twice. The COLON is my ENTER key, CAPSLOCK+ENTER is SEMICOLON. The TILDE/BACKTICK key is UNDERSCORE and TILDE when double tapped (I spend a lot of time in the Terminal and Linux in general).

CAPSLOCK+Q/E is Home/End, CAPSLOCK+T/G is PgUp/PgDn, CAPSLOCK+Y/H/M is VolUp/VolDn/Mute

I write a lot of code so CAPSLOCK+U/I/J/K/M/, are the paired braces {} respectively with CAPSLOCK+O/P/L/' are _+-=

I switch the default layout back and forth when I'm on my mac and when I'm in Windows/Linux.

The only thing different is that I use Home Row mods on mac OS and the modifiers as swapped over. Also Home/End on the Mac I have it mapped to COMMAND+LEFTARROW/RIGHTARROW since that's how it is on the mac and I have LSPACE+ESC is COMMAND+BACKTICK so I can swap open windows quickly.

Man y’all got some reaaaaallly interesting keyboards lmao

They get smaller the further down the rabbit hole you get lol.

Big brains use built in virtual keyboards. Thats the end game . Lmao jk

Neat boards and nice write-up of your key map!

Thank you! Hope it helps convert some people to Ortho and 40%s as well!

For sure! Supporting the cause 🫡

Thanks for the mapping sample you have. I code at work every so often, so seeing all the missing brackets nicely laid out seems awesome.

I gotta admit that I had a lot of questions looking at your pic so thank you for explaining. It’s an interesting keymap that makes sense on a lot of levels.

You're welcome. Hope it helps give you some ideas!

Hi, I just bought some 40s ortho and staggered so I really appreciate the writeup as I try figure out what layers I need. Are the keycaps on your ortho available for purchase somewhere? I like the sub legend setup

nice 🚐

>right SPACEBAR is Tap-Mod

Can you clarify please? I'm liking the mapping, just not sure I understood this

Tap-Mod means it’s SPACEBAR when tapped, but if held down it’s a modifier key instead—in this case it’s a momentary layer toggle or “FN” key to access a specific layer.

I have a dedicated layer where the F-keys, numbers and shifted symbols are. I access it by holding down the RIGHT SPACEBAR.

The reason I don’t have Tap-Mod on the LEFT SPACEBAR is because when playing games Tap-Mod is no good when you need to press SPACEBAR repeatedly.

They’re no longer made unfortunately but I think KBDFans has similar sets in “NP” profile and there are probably similar sets on AliExpress.

Here is the original product listing from 1upkeyboards if you want to see what’s included.

The set isn’t an Ortho set just FYI. I just used the alphas and extra mods to fill out the board since I don’t have any other sets that have two 2u keycaps for my spacebars.

Still my favourite small keeb!

Thanks for the link!

I want a non-ortho 50 so bad.

Yah not much action on that front these days.

The notable ones to me are the THE50 and TMOv2 which I would happily have on my desk if I didn't already have these two...

I’ll look into those for sure. Thanks for the response!

I've been away from keyboards too long, why is it 50s rather than 50% now?

I’ll be honest I have no idea since my Preonic has 58 keys. I imagine it’s because some Ortho and splits have 50-some odd keys… just wanted to get in on the action here lol.

Thanks for the details.

I am new to the layer game and you seem to have figured it out. How do you cope with the delay when typing a word and then a number? Even with adjusting tapping term I seem to tap space and letter instead of an number.

Any tips? Thanks

Having two SPACEBARS helps so if I'm doing a lot of sustained typing I'll use the non-Mod-Tap one instead. I did spend a lot of time tweaking the tapping term to suit my typing habits though and have since adjusted to the keyboard.

I should also mention I had less of a problem with the delay after moving to linears from super tactile switches before.

Hope that helps!

Thanks mate