[fpc-other] Developer workflow with Ergodox

[Graeme Geldenhuys]

Hi,

It's been a few months now since I got my Ergodox keyboard. Since then I
was gifted a Massdrop kit, and built my second Ergodox myself. An
amazing experience and very fun.

For anybody thinking of using a Ergodox keyboard for programming, I can 
highly recommend it. It took me a couple of weeks to settle on a 
keyboard layout that works well for me - especially considering how 
often we Object Pascal developers use F-keys, keyboard navigation of 
source code and such.

Here is my layout I've been using for a couple of months now.

 
https://github.com/graemeg/qmk_firmware/tree/gg_dvorak/keyboards/ergodox/keymaps/gg_dvorak


A few days ago I stumbled across the following YouTube video. That guy 
talks about using the Ergodox for programming purposes, and also mouse 
functionality via the keyboard (something I haven't mastered yet). He 
also uses layers of course (so do I), and shows very well how fast one 
can code even with layers - some non-Ergodox people think you can't be 
fast with layers. I disagree, and this guy proves it well.

I also like his idea of a Shortcuts layer, using the "Hyper" or "Meh"
key plus one other key.

   Hyper = Alt + Ctrl + Shift + Cmd/Win
   Meh = Alt + Ctrl + Shift

all that via a single keypress.

   * A Hyper key, as described by Brett Terpstra.
     http://brettterpstra.com/2012/12/08/a-useful-caps-lock-key/
   * A Meh key, which is a less-hyper version of the Hyper key (sends
     Alt+Ctrl+Shift, without Cmd/Win).

Here is the video. They keyboard layout is discussed at 3m 40s into the 
video.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78RtO38wOwI&feature=youtu.be

Here is his actual layout.

   http://configure.ergodox-ez.com/keyboard_layouts/qgmgej/edit



There is another guy that also has some very cool ideas. I really
like the Shift, Ctrl and Alt keys on the home row. I quickly tried
it last night, and it works surprising well and very comfortable to
type.

   https://implementsblog.com/2016/10/16/my-ergodox-ezs-custom-layout/


Possibilities are endless. Needless to say, I've been tweaking my 
keyboard layout again, with even less finger movement or stretching than 
before. I'll give it a couple more days, and then post a link to the new 
layout.

Regards,
   Graeme

-- 
fpGUI Toolkit - a cross-platform GUI toolkit using Free Pascal
http://fpgui.sourceforge.net/

My public PGP key:  http://tinyurl.com/graeme-pgp