Dang that's beautiful. I really want to try a split alice but I can't bring myself to spend the money right now.
Mechanical Keyboards
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Thank you! And that's fair. Keyboards spensive.
Mokulua kit from mechwild probably your cheapest option. It's a solder kit and all through hole, I built one myself and had fun. It's fr4 sandwich so on the cheaper end, though depends on what you're used to. Soldering is fun!
That looks pretty cool. Thanks for sharing the Mokulua with me.
I have a Keychron Q8. Oh, and a standalone mp3 player in 2023? There are dozens of us!
I also have a Shanling DAP (many files in FLAC, Opus, Ogg, AAC, not just MP3s). Just 9 more comments to a dozen.
Nice. I almost got a Shanling a while ago, but went with the Fiio M5 instead (the tiny one that they stopped making). The one in the photo is a Hidizs AP80.
Do you like Shanling's interface? I find it's kind of hard to get to a specific album on the Hidizs. All it gives you is one long, scrolling list.
The UI gets finicky at the edges of the screen where I think they want gestures. Trips makes scrolling a bit of a pain since you may accidentally switch views. I’ve gotten used to it. The price to performance/features is nice tho.
If I could change two things it would be: a) properly release their source modifications to the Linux kernel for GPL compliance, b) support some of the native Linux kernel file systems like ext4, f2fs as they would allow better performance & I wouldn’t need to install exFAT drivers.
The UI gets finicky at the edges of the screen where I think they want gestures.
Ah, dang. I found the same thing with the Fiio and Hidizs.
Apparently some of Hiby's devices have a search feature. That might be useful -- I'm hoping the Hiby R3 comes back in stock at some point.
Finicky isn’t the right word in hindsight. If you tap the edge it takes you immediately to the current player which is a fast shortcut one would like to have, but given the size of the small screen, it’s very easy to accidentally touch while scrolling, which if you have a large library can be very cumbersome to recover.
Other issues: certain files don’t seem to index correctly, but can be played via the file explorer instead of the main music part. Some of my Opus files don’t want to play despite the devices saying it has compatibility (tho I don’t know if my encoding was wrong or what).
JET SET RADIOOOOOOOOO
A soundtrack that will be stuck in people's heads forever, haha.
Short question about the Q8, if you don’t mind: Is it possible to map the two halves of the space bar to different functions/key presses (using VIA)? I’d like to use one half for space and the other as a return key, if possible. Thanks!
I would assume so. They can be mapped to separate functions in the QMK configurator (https://config.qmk.fm/#/keychron/q8/ansi_encoder/LAYOUT_ansi_69), so I'm guessing VIA allows the same.
I haven't tried VIA before. Looks like it allows you to do macros, which the QMK configurator can't. I'll check it out tomorrow and find out for sure if it works.
Thanks a lot! Looks promising!
I just tried it, and yes, it works. I now have the left spacebar as tab and the right spacebar as space. I'm using a Mac, although I'm sure that doesn't make a difference.
Keychron Q10 owner here, with glorious pandas resprung to 60g and lubed. And Dusk MT3 keycaps too. My endgame board, it's a joy to type on.
And I just got the new Keychron Q0 plus, which is great too.
I'd tried a bunch of different split layout keyboards but the Alice layout works best for me.
I think Alice is the best middle ground between normal staggered and split ergo. I tired an ergodox but didn't like it. I'm not an ortho guy. They look cool but I can't get used to it.
You’re not alone. I built my own Ergo Dox way back & while it was better than cheap keyboards, it never felt as good as others. I’ve been on the same rubber dome electrocapacitive switch NiZ plum keyboard for several years now. I’d love to try some of these newer, cheaper options of the past few years – especially for the ergonomics – but I really don’t want that downgrade feeling of going back to mechanical.
expired
I have the Feker Alice 80, and am pondering a second split keyboard. The double B key annoys me.
Not having the double b annoys me. Lol
Might as well go with an actual ergo board but if this gorgeous setup works for you, it works for you
Never tried one but would love to at some point