1 # The BDK Ergodox Keyboard Layout
5 This was the first alternative layout I switched to and I don't want to change
8 ## Mod-tap / Layer-tap is great for thumb keys
10 This means a key that activates a layer/modifier when you hold it down, but
11 results in a keyclick when you tap it. Thumb keys are great for this since
12 they are good for both high-usage keys as well as modifiers.
14 The one thing to avoid is when you mean to tap a key, but hit the next key
15 before you release, which results in the modifier/layer instead of a tap. To
16 avoid this, I chose Enter/Tab as the tap keys, since they aren't chorded
17 together with other keys often.
19 The other issue is I found several problems with using the standard MT,LT code,
20 so I rolled my own to handle it.
22 ## Don't have too many layers
24 My first layouts had multiple layers that I could switch to, but that
25 overloaded my brain. This layout basically only uses 1 extra layer.
26 Technically there's also a function key layer, but I only use those keys for
27 a handlful of things: boot order, rename, reload page, that's basically it.
29 ## Brackets should be easy to use
31 There's a lot of ways to lay out a symbol layer. I organized mine around
32 making the {[()]} chars easy to use since they're so frequent in programming.
33 I put them all on the symbol layer home row.
35 I also arranged the numbers so 0/1 were also on the symbol layer home row.
36 This makes for fairly easy chording of "[0]" and "[1]".