When I purchased my Ergodox, I also discovered that I cross-type the letter Y, and my muscle memory would lead me to hit a layer key instead, in the default layout, which would cause a bunch of the letter keys to do different things.
My solution was to reprogram the layer key to be a null key that doesn't do anything, so instead of "Y equals your keyboard is now broken" it was "Y means nothing happens". I kept it that way for a couple weeks, until my nervous system was rewired, and turned it back into a layer key.
These days, the remaining problem is that I've moved a few 'glyph' keys, so when I'm on the laptop my fingers go to the wrong place when I try to type e.g. "-". It's like I have two modes with substantial overlap, and sometimes it takes awhile to switch to the laptop mode.
Not the end of the world, and more than made up for by the convenience and ergonomics of the Ergodox.
Edit to add: from this and other reports, it's clear that for some people, the ortholinear layout requires substantial adjustment. I wasn't one of those people, it was a rapid accommodation and I don't consciously notice switching between ortholinear and staggered. It would be nice if there were a way for people to guess which category they're in, before shelling out $300 and change on a keyboard!
I found the exact opposite for ortholinears. It took zero time to adjust, and within a day I was actually touchtyping using the properly assigned keys for every letter, something I'd tried many times over the years, but always found super awkward on a normal keyboard. I realised that I'd always subconsciously known there was something wrong with the weird fingers-curling-under-each-other you're supposed to do and it felt like a weight had been lifted!
Of course, that was for prose. It took a month or so to arrive at a satisfactory layout for all the symbols, having suddenly dropped to 48 keys. Though thumbs are so useful! Using them only for spaces is criminal.
Still use a laptop on the couch at home for casual stuff. Still can't type properly on it.
Not much point to this comment, I guess, other than that I highly recommend anyone to borrow someone's plank/preonic/ergodox for a day or two if they'll let you, and bang out some prose. You might be very pleasantly surprised!
Yeah I got the Ergodox and just couldn’t get used to it. I think the ortholinear was a big part of that.
Especially painful as I’m in Australia. I think shipped it was about AU$500. Very not cheap indeed. I sold it on eBay and didn’t take too much of a haircut.
My other concern with the mega-custom layout is the fact that I often use ‘normal’ keyboards. I didn’t want to get used to some special situation and then not be able to use it. (Same reason I’m not putting time in to Colemak.)
Now I just use the Microsoft thing. It does the job.
Had the same issue, instead of no-op did "momentary layer toggle" - the key still switches the layer, but only while you holding it. That gives time to re-adjust.
My solution was to reprogram the layer key to be a null key that doesn't do anything, so instead of "Y equals your keyboard is now broken" it was "Y means nothing happens". I kept it that way for a couple weeks, until my nervous system was rewired, and turned it back into a layer key.
These days, the remaining problem is that I've moved a few 'glyph' keys, so when I'm on the laptop my fingers go to the wrong place when I try to type e.g. "-". It's like I have two modes with substantial overlap, and sometimes it takes awhile to switch to the laptop mode.
Not the end of the world, and more than made up for by the convenience and ergonomics of the Ergodox.
Edit to add: from this and other reports, it's clear that for some people, the ortholinear layout requires substantial adjustment. I wasn't one of those people, it was a rapid accommodation and I don't consciously notice switching between ortholinear and staggered. It would be nice if there were a way for people to guess which category they're in, before shelling out $300 and change on a keyboard!