⌨️ crkbd

VIAL config for my Corne (foostan/crkbd) RGB keyboard.

My active layout emulates Ergo-L directly on the keyboard and can be found here.

Specs

These are the specs for my keyboard:

• Keyboard: Corne (foostan/crkbd) (v4.1)
• Total keys: 46 (2 x (3 × 6 + 3 + 2))
• Switches: Kailh Choc v1 Brown
• Keycaps: MBK Legend‡ Glow R2
• Firmware: VIAL (QMK fork)
• Vendor: Keebart (keyboard reference)
• RGB Lighting: yes
• QMK keyboard id: crkbd/rev4_1/standard
• QMK layout: LAYOUT_split_3x6_3_ex2

Layout

First, it's important to distinguish between these two:

• Firmware layout: How the keys are mapped in the keyboard firmware itself (most commonly QWERTY)
• Input method: OS emulation layer that remaps some keys (ex: QWERTY, AZERTY, Dvorak, Colemack, etc.)

Firmware Layout

Note

• Converted keymap.vil to keymap-generated.yaml with vial-to-keymap-drawer (see: v2kmd-settings.json)
• Manually edited keymap-generated.yaml and saved to keymap.yaml
• Generated keymap.svg by loading keymap.yaml into keymap-drawer

Notes on Ergo-L

Ergo-L is an ergonomic OS layout/input method. You may have heard of Dvorak, Colemack, or other ergonomic layouts. These layouts were created to fix known problems with the standard QWERTY layout.

The specificity of Ergo-L is that it was optimized for typing in French, English, and offering an easy access to programming symbols. (it was also made by/for Vim nerds)

The layout comes with four main "layers":

• Default layer for letters and other characters
• Shift modifier for uppercase letters and other alternate characters
• Alt Graph (Right Alt) modifier for symbols (with easy to reach programming symbols)
• Dead Key for diacritical marks (accents)

Take a look at their website to learn more (it's got some excellent advice when it comes to keyboard ergonomics!)

Website: https://ergol.org/

Input Method

I used to have Ergo-L as an input method, but I have now switched to emulating it directly on my keyboard firmware. This means that I can just plug my keyboard into any computer with QWERTY and work right away without having to install Ergo-L as an input method on that machine.

I work with a lot of computers and I cannot install Ergo-L as an input method on all of them for various reasons. Emulating Ergo-L directly on my keyboard allows me to have a keyboard that works everywhere without having to think about it.

Tip

If you are not interested in emulating Ergo-L and would rather use it as an input method, have a look into the keymap-old-not-emulated.* files.

Previous keyboard

The 46 keys corne was not my first ergo keyboard.

I started with a Sofle RGB: coko7/sofle