Clicky Keys

Since a soup-related accident with my Magic keyboard a couple weeks ago, I’ve been using a cheap, terrible backup keyboard (I tried using my big, old clicky keyboard, but it’s very big and old, key switches are flaky), and looking for a good replacement.

I got my new Keychron K2 w/Gateron Red switches, and it’s sweet. Kind of overly tall, I got a cheap foamy wristpad (they sell a ridiculous hard wood rest, ha ha no). Playing with the backlights, I have pulsing waves of green for now, looks very TRON in the dark (same as site aesthetics). Hooked up the nice wrapped wire cable, so I can quit using BT; I’m probably in no espionage danger out here, but I distrust BT anyway.

Good size for it, it’s not full-size but not as teeny as some I’ve used; I might prefer one about 10% bigger. Not as sharp a click as the Northgate I imprinted on long ago, seems like much less key travel, but it’s still deeper than the Magic keyboard, so gotta get used to fingers going down, up, not just over, keep tapping my fingernails on the next row.

So far I keep missing [ ] but I’ll get used to them. Will take some time to get used to the cursor controls (PgUp/Dn, Home, End) on the far right, but I normally use the Mac’s emacs-like keys so I don’t care that much. There’s a funny box icon next to Del, turns out it’s Sh-Cmd-4, region screen capture!

Used Karabiner Elements as they suggest to remap keys, currently just Caps Lock->L.Ctrl, L.Ctrl->Fn, since they put Fn over on the right (great for media control, bad for anything else). They sent some replacement keycaps and a cap puller, but just for Windows equivalents. I need to order proper Ctrl, Fn keycaps.

Update 2022-01-22: I made Home/End send Sh-Cmd-[ and Sh-Cmd-] so I can easily shift window tabs. Download home-end-tabs.json and do what the README says.

What I have not got is the Das Keyboard 5QS. It literally runs a keylogger & Internet spyware to “display information” on the keyboard; I can’t think of a dumber, less secure idea.