from Hacker News

Extend Extra Extreme: keyboard extend layer mappings

by lnyan on 2/9/25, 2:01 PM with 14 comments

• by tagfowufe on 2/11/25, 1:25 PM

  Colemak is great, I recommend it.

  The Extend Layer is layout agnostic, and a total game changer.

  Give it a try, and enjoy enhanced, comfortable and fluid text editing and navigation at your fingertips.

• by widforss on 2/11/25, 1:20 PM

  I started using Svorak A5 (https://svorak.ahall.se/) the summer before I started college in 2016 (with the standard bindings on the numerical keys as well, so it's redundant). Since I have started using more alphabets I have modified the layout quite a lot over the years. I now have Norwegian, Icelandic and Sami characters as well. I currently bind up to four characters per key.

  It's really true that the extra layers doesn't disturb at all. Some characters I don't even know where they are, but most I use daily. There are also some that are placed strategically, so that I can find them when i need them (ŋ is Ctrl+Shift+AltGr+N, the ◌̌ dead key is Ctrl+Shift+AltGr+^ and ° is Ctrl+Shift+AltGr+0).

  I even created a left-handed version once (https://gist.github.com/widforss/f980baa66d4c99f94adc41b17bd...), though I never bothered to learn that one.

• by speps on 2/11/25, 12:45 PM

  I’m hoping the title is a reference to this excellent game from Xbox Live Arcade days: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Every_Extend_Extra_Extreme

• by mathfailure on 2/11/25, 1:03 PM

  Do I get it right that they have 0 (zero, nada) visualization of what the keys of the current layout would do?

  If so - then it sounds even worse than learning vim arcane spells / motions and bindings.

  Or are there any h/w alternatives to Optimus Maximus [0]?

  [0] - https://www.artlebedev.com/optimus/maximus/

• by BadCoder44 on 2/11/25, 5:04 PM

  If I did not switch to chording with plover, I would try this out. I prefer chording now, but colemak was my layout of choice when I still typed a lot. Layers are more confusing for me than chords, and I find chords + phonetics to be more flexible in most cases.

• by kohlerm on 2/11/25, 11:59 AM

  I am using a slightly modified Extend layout since a couple of years, and it was really a game changer for me.