Okay, so I finally got around to messing with the key layout on my Anne Pro 2. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for a while, but, you know, life gets in the way.
First things first, I backed up the original layout. Gotta have that safety net, right? I’ve bricked keyboards before messing with firmware, so I wasn’t taking any chances. The Obinskit software makes this pretty straightforward, thankfully.
The Planning Stage
I spent some time thinking about what I actually wanted to change. I mean, the default layout is pretty decent, but I had a few gripes. Mainly, I missed having dedicated arrow keys, and I wanted easier access to some of the function keys without having to use the Fn layer all the time.
- Problem 1: Arrow keys. My fingers are just used to them.
- Problem 2: Function Keys. Always a pain to get them, right!
Getting My Hands Dirty
I opened up the Obinskit software and started playing around. It’s got this visual editor, so you can just drag and drop keys around. Super intuitive, which is great because I’m no coding wizard.
I decided to use the “Tap” layer for my arrow keys. I set it up so that tapping the right Shift, Fn1, Fn2, and Ctrl keys would act as up, down, left, and right, respectively. It took some trial and error to get the tap sensitivity just right. Too sensitive, and I’d accidentally trigger them all the time. Not sensitive enough, and it was like they weren’t even there. I used trail and error a lot to figure out the correct configuration.
Then I remapped some of the less-used keys on the top row to be my most-used function keys. Like, who really uses Scroll Lock, you know? So, I swapped some of those around to be F1, F2, F3, etc. Much more useful for my workflow.
Flashing and Testing
Once I was happy with the layout, I flashed it to the keyboard. This part always makes me a little nervous. Holding my breath, waiting for it to finish… and it worked! No bricked keyboard this time.
I spent a good hour just typing and testing everything out. It definitely took some getting used to, especially the tap layer for the arrow keys. My muscle memory was all messed up. But after a while, it started to feel natural. Actually, it felt better than the default layout.
It isn’t the perfect key layout, but it works way better now, hope to keep making it better in the future!