Keyboards have stayed for a long time basically the same. I thought that it might be quite interesting to see how a more optimized keyboard would work, so I build a double action keyboard. It is quite unusual, since it has double action switches and a new layout.
The goal was to make especially typing of special characters a lot easier. Many keyboards use ALT + CTRL modifier combinations to generate special characters, this is in many cases quite impractical. For example when programming this is a problem.
I think that this kind of keyboard could be also very useful for such languages that have exceptionally many characters. The keyboard could be also used quite easily as a one handed keyboard, since it is possible to have six functions on one double action key when using it with a double action FN-key, but I haven't yet implemented this kind of functionality on the keyboard.
What is a double action keyboard?
A double action keyboard has double action switches that have two independent functions that can be used without pressing any modifier keys. The first action can be accessed by pressing the switch one step down and the other two steps down.
The keyboard that I build has a rather unusual layout, the arrow keys are replaced with a 5-dir navigation button. The fifth action of the navigation button is 'delete'. I also moved backspace, enter and shift to the middle of the keyboard to make their usage easier.
After having used this keyboard for a while it has proven to be a quite powerful tool, since typing special character is so much easier than before.
https://hackaday.io/project/20665-doubl ... n-keyboard
