The Planck - An ortholinear keyboard

The Plank is an ortholinear 40% keyboard. Ortholinear means that the keys are arranged in a grid instead of on the staggered rows, which are just an historical artifact of typewriters having to avoid their levers smacking into each other. Most common keyboards are Full-Sized with 104 keys, so having a 40% keyboard means we have many less keys, 47 in this case.

Someone might think why you’d want such features, but I love both of them. I have been using it for at least a couple years and the ortholinear layout feels much more natural to me. It didn’t take too long to adjust and now every key feels at its right place, no more having to use a different finger or to do a weird move to reach some of the keys with the staggered layout. The staggered layout is not uncomfortable, but there are always a couple keys which really feel out of place for me. The 40% part is also great, it means that my fingers never have to reach after the only 4 available rows and thanks to multiple layers and the amazing QMK firmware I have more functionality than what I’d have on a full-size keyboard.

💸 Did I mention you also need to buy half Mechanical Switches and Keycaps?

My current Keymap

There are a lot of customizations you can do in the QMK Firmware, here are my main layers but there really is much more. The full code of my custom firmware can be seen on Github. This also serves to me as a reminder in case I forget where a specific key is located 😅

QWERTY Layer

 ,-----------------------------------------------------------------------.
 |ESC~ |  q  |  w  |  e  |  r  |  t  |  y  |  u  |  i  |  o  |  p  |Bksp |
 |-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----|
 |PTT  |  a  |  s  |  d  |  f  |  g  |  h  |  j  |  k  |  l  |  ;  |  -  |
 |-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----|
 |Sft  |  z  |  x  |  c  |  v  |  b  |  n  |  m  |  ,  |  .  |  ↑  |  /  |
 |-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----|
 |Ctl  | Fn  | GUI | Alt |  ▼  |   Space   |  ▲  |Rtrn |  ←  |  ↓  |  →  |
 `-----------------------------------------------------------------------'

This layer has all the letters in the QWERTY layout and some common symbols, it’s pretty similar to any standard keyboard.

GEsc acts like a normal Esc when pressed alone, it’s ~ when shifted and ` when combined with GUI. PTT is a Keycode that has no side effects which I use as a Push to Talk button, but if pressed with Alt I get Alt+Tab. If Raise is held it will act as a new layer like Lower, but if tapped it will send Enter.

LOWER Layer

,----------------------------------------------------------------------.
|  `  |  !  |  @  |  #  |  $  |  %  |  ^  |  &  |  *  |  () |  )  |Bksp |
|-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----|
|Tab  |  1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  |  6  |  7  |  8  |  9  |  0  |  +  |
|-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----|
|     |  {} |  }  |     |  =  |     |     |  |  |  [] |  ]  |     |  \  |
|-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----|
|     |     |     |     |     |           |     |     |     |     | =>  |
`-----------------------------------------------------------------------'

The numbers were missing on the main layer, so here they are! There is also a little macro to send =>, pretty useful for writing Javascript. Some symbols like { } = are pretty common in programming, so I placed those in a way where only one hand is required.

Brackets also have a special function, as an example: by tapping the {} key, a single opening bracket { will be made, if I instead hold the key, a macro will send both opening and closing brackets and place the cursor in the middle by automatically tapping the left arrow key.

RAISE Layer

,-----------------------------------------------------------------------.
|     |     |     |     |   € |   ° | PgUp| Home|   ↑ |  End|   ø | Del |
|-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----|
| Tab |     |     |     |     |     | PgDn|   ← |   ↓ |   → |     |   × |
|-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----|
|     |     |     |     |     |     |     |   ` |   ' |   " |     |   ÷ |
|-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----|
|     |     |     |     |     |           |     |     |     |     |     |
`----------------------------------------------------------------------'

Some extra symbols are on this layer, they aren’t frequently used and so they are placed in a way which is easy to remember. The reasoning is that keybodes with a similar function are on the same key on different layers, some examples are {$, €} {*, ×} {<, «} {>, »} {\, ÷} and so on…

FUNCTION Layer

,-----------------------------------------------------------------------.
|Tsk  | F1  | F2  | F3  | F4  | F5  | F6  | F7  | F8  | F9  | F10 | CAD |
|-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----|
|Caps | F11 | F12 | F13 |stack|     |     |     |     |.log |     | Prt |
|-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----|
|     |LDSK |RDSK |WSrc |@@@@ |Vol- |Vol+ |     |     |     |PgUp |     |
|-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----|
|     |     |     |     |     |    Mute   | Ret |     |Home |PgDn | End |
`-----------------------------------------------------------------------'

Function keys F1-F15, Print-Screen, Volume controls, Mute button, PageUp and PageDn, a macro for the Task Manager, one for writing my Email Address and a couple more to switch to the left/right Virtual Desktops.

If you don’t want an ortholinear keyboard, I’d still suggest checking out the QMK Firmware and what you can do with it by skimming through its documentation: https://docs.qmk.fm/#/ After using it once you won’t go back to anything else.