I’m thinking of switching my thumb keys (currently space and enter and two of them go to a symbols layer) to shift. I find that shift makes me anxious when typing because i have to partially leave the home row, and as a result my pinky placement when typing is bad, my ring finger tends to take over and my pinky has become a mod presser and not a typing finger.
I have tried to overload the home row keys as modifiers but that is a huge mistake as it causes misfires or takes TOO LONG to aviate, there is no middle ground with that one.
I am currently using thumb shift on all my keyboards as it feels very natural: no need to move the whole hand (unlike classical shift) and no priority conflicts (unlike HRM shift: with HRM, if hold is preferred then you shift letters by mistake, if tap is preferred you end up typing erroneous extra chars instead of shifting).
Actually I combine enter and shift on the same key, giving priority to hold/shift. Since I don’t need to roll enter, there is no conflict.
I’ve been using thumb shift since day one and I don’t see myself changing that.
On my Dactyl Manuform I have right thumb managing enter and space and left thumb managing shift and backspace. I also use the option to hold for shift with tap being tab and backspace is Ctrl if held.
it causes misfires or takes TOO LONG to aviate, there is no middle ground with that one.
A lot of people use Miryoku to type fast and accurately. There are settings to fix/alleviate this if you are interested in going down that path.
If you are using QMK setting the TAPPING_TERM low (200 or less?) and enabling IGNORE_MOD_TAP_INTERRUPT will help a lot I think.
I use miryoku and typing uppercase is annoying. You are either swapping shift keys as you type or you have to use caps lock (ewww). Let me know if there is a secret.
I just have the innermost thumbs set so it’s space and enter (left, right) when tapped, but the right is shift when held. Has been pretty easy to get used to and have been using for years at this point. Can recommend.
I use a left thumb for shift and prefer it to home row mods.
I use thumb keys with mod-tap (control and shift, combined with some other commonly used keys such as space and enter), so far it works great.
And in case you don’t know, for QMK, there is an option https://github.com/qmk/qmk_firmware/blob/master/docs/tap_hold.md#hold-on-other-key-press that allows faster hold when using mod-tap.
I use a dactyl manuform with all modifiers on the thumbs. Works great for me.
I have tried to overload the home row keys as modifiers but that is a huge mistake as it causes misfires or takes TOO LONG to aviate, there is no middle ground with that one.
Did you try bilateral combinations? They reduced accidental misfires to almost zero for me:
I’m not using the thumb cluster for shift and other mods, but rather homerow mods. It takes a bit to get used to, but I feel like it is very confortable. I have S/shift and L/shift (tap/hold), so if I need to shift a key from the left hand I use the opposed hand to shift and vice versa. Also pressing both S and L at the same time will toggle caps lock which I find very convenient.
Homerow mods allow me to keep my fingers on/near the homerow and reduce A LOT hand movements.
I primarily use one thumb key for shift. Unlike pinkie-shift, I can comfortable use the same thumb key for characters typed on either hand.
My layout: https://mark.stosberg.com/markstos-corne-3x5-1-keyboard-layout/
