Firmware layout installation

[ozon2]

Hi, I'm interested in trying this layout, but I see the only installation option is to install some software to change the layout. That's not always possible, for instance on my computer at work I don't have admin rights.

I believe it would be easier to flash the layout on the keyboard so I don't have to redo the setup when I switch OS or computer. Do you have a QMK keymap? If not I could try to create it when I have some time.

[johnr14]

I was thinking the same. But it would require to do every keyboard model in the qmk repository.

Use qmk configurator.

So, we could upload our json file here and contribute little by little. Add a qmk subdirectory in ergol project ?

The other way would be to generate .json of every keyboard in qwerty and script a parser to remap the keys.

If I have time, I'll upload a keychron q1 map when done.

Qmk has lots of advantages, I am thinking of using caplock as a layer key and use double shifts as caplock, caps+dead would permanently switch layer and caps would revert, add insecable space (caps+space), double tap on a key for variation (like change < to ≤) without releasing altgr, altgr+space to erase, add some more unicode characters on a 4 layer?Use RGB per key light to show active layer enabled keys, light Fxx key to show layer #.

Any other idea for qmk ?

My rant : I don't understand that some symbols are available in a multitude of ways. Maybe it's to provide easier migration path, but I think I'll keep only one, the easier to use. Removing dups could free some space for more exotic characters that require Unicode.

Also I'll probably have to make stickers for my keys (as I am new to this)... Keycaps etching once finalized ?

Edit: Got back home and tried the online configurator, it can't configure the ergol layout with the online tool. As special caracters are not available. Qmk could be used to add layers and do some special things, but would require hard coding most keys in keymap.c.

[Nuclear-Squid]

Hi ! I’m really sorry for making you guys wait for this long for a response. I really need to check issues more often. I’ll respond separately for both comments, as I have different things to say.

For both of you : no, I don’t have a QMK keymap good to go, since most of keyboard shapes require another kind of keymap. It would be a lot of work for something that will ultimately be immediately modified. I believe it is a lot simpler for users to directly implement Ergo-L on their custom layout, though that would probably require a little guide somewhere on my end, to explain how to implement it cleanly.

For @ozon2, it’s more of a question : What system are you on ? I don’t really know the ins and outs of kalamine (the installation program I’m using), but I know there are methods to install the layout at user-space on Windows and Linux Wayland using pkl and a newly released version of kalamine respectively.

For @johnr14 I have a couple (maybe simpler things) to note :

• I know first hand that QMK Configurator is awful to reimplement Ergo-L on your keyboard (it works but it sucks). The qmk c framework is a lot simpler if you understand how it works, but the docs can be a bit intimidating when you don’t know your way around.
• The reason a lot of symbols are doubled is that some applications don’t handle keyboard shortcuts well. For instance, if you type ctrl + - (with - inputted with altgr), some applications may read that as ctrl + alt + something, instead of ctrl + -, so mechanical users probably want to rewrite their altgr layer using far away keys from the alpha-num layer under the hood, to prevent that problem. The other reason is that I do not f-ing want fancy Unicode characters. There are way too many, and nobody want the same. If you want weird, extra and fancy symbols, I’d advise you on building a .Xcompose file (or equivalent) on your system.

In any case, we have a dedicated Discord server to talk about the development of Ergo-L, and we are getting really close to a stable release. It’s probably going to be a month away from now since we need to fix a few things at a firmware level before publishing.

Happy holidays !

[Nuclear-Squid]

I’m gonna close this issue, because Kalamine is able to generate "mobile" drivers that you can launch without admin rights. Implementing Ergo-L using QMK is a valley of tears, made up with a surprising amount of confusing code and edge cases. I really don’t think it’s a good idea, especially since we have mobile drivers now. You can find all of the drivers here