mm - doesn't sound too hopeful for the old fn key?

hmm, time to dust off the soldering iron then..

or perhaps i just buy a TKL when I can get hold of a bluetooth ISO one?

I am still using my Matias Ergo Pro:

What's great about this keyboard, as well as the split spacebar, the Alt keys are in comfortable positions (closer to the centre than on most keyboards). That means you have four excellent thumb keys available.

Mine is mapped like this:
Left Alt: Extend
Left Space: Shift
Right Space: Space
Right Alt: AltGr

My only real complaint is the lack of hardware remapping, which means I have to use custom software remapping of modifiers to achieve this. But it works very well nonetheless. In fact, I contend this combination of thumb keys can't be beaten!

The split space is only semi-programmable - there are limited options - so I have to remap in software.
It is fully wired, but that doesn't bother me - at least it eliminates batteries. And it's quite handy as it also has a built-in USB hub.

Hmm, possible options for Extend:
1. Do you actually use AltGr for anything currently? If not, you could use your AltGr key as normal Alt, and then remap LeftAlt as Extend.
2. Switch LeftAlt with LeftWin (Mac style) so that your Windows key becomes LeftAlt, freeing up LeftAlt for Exend.

Other options (not as nice but better than nothing perhaps?):
3. Use LeftWin for Extend?
4. Use Tab for Extend?

I seem to remember someone posting on here ages ago who had implemented Extend on AltGr, and then had his navigation keys on the left (FRST). I still think arrows are better on the right though.

Sounds to me like you are talking about SpaceFN

I'm very sceptical to SpaceFn, since Space is so much used (every fifth stroke is a space stroke) that the smallest chance of confusing the roles of that key will prove very annoying. I've tried a dual-role Tab key (for Extend2) and even that is a bit annoying.

Also, Ext+Spc as Enter is extremely useful (unless one already has a thumb Enter key).

steve - i think you could be pragmatically on the money there..

if i had my time again, I think I would have looked very carefully into a JIS layout as per davkols suggestion

they seem inherently better due to the extra thumb modifiers

i.e. bit like the minila, but without the hard wiring issue

if you only ever needed to type on one keyboard, you could invest in something proper ergo, which i think long-term would be lovely

but it just doesn't work if you can't guarantee its the only keyboard you ever type on

keyboards, like life, are a series of subtle and complex compromises.. ;)

I've found that even for the Vi commands that are not explicitly positional, such as "dt", "diw", etc, the muscle memory is pretty firmly established. But I'm getting pretty used to the commands by now. By the way, I ended up never changing the "hjkl" bindings. After a few weeks, I got used to the positions of these keys in their Colemak positions, which are not too bad actually.

Another stumbling block for me has been the Unix shell commands such as "ls", "cd", etc. I've automatically reverted to Qwerty for these many times.

By the way, the Esrille keyboard looks cool: .

Short update, 4 and a half years later: still using Colemak (which I've been using non-stop since the start), just recently bought a Kinesis Advantage 2 (after having some initial problems with what felt like RSI).

I'm really impressed by how comfortable this keyboard is to write on -- especially for ordinary text; I don't like the positions of []{}`~=+, and arrow keys, but I've not yet decided if and how I should remap them (hardware support for remapping is good). Thumb keys are great, but takes some getting used to. Also it would be even better if there were some extra modifier keys under the shift keys -- there is room for it.

I bought the US layout of the keyboard and I've remapped the Delete thumb key to be alt-gr, to be able to write Swedish characters å, ä, and ö more easily. Tried DreymaR's mod-dh (formerly known as mod-dh(m)?) for a day or two, but never got to the point where I saw the point. I don't find "d" and "h" especially hard to type in vanilla Colemak, and breaking the locations of "hjkl" (for Vim navigation) *one more time* was really not something I wanted to do.

Well, anyway... That's a short update and a mini-review of the Kinesis Advantage 2. It's ridiculous how expensive it is, but so far I've not regretted it! Colemak on that keyboard is a new local maximum for sure!