🧹🐑 Shweep – 34 keys QMK Layout

...for the Aurora Sweep using both Layers & Combos!

Keymap

Figma layout made thanks to @madhanparthasar's Ortholinear Keyboard Keybinding Layout Tool 🙌

Origins

This layout is organic and keeps evolving based on the following:

• real needs: reduce hand gestures, reduce frequently used keystrokes, etc.
• exploration need: custom keebs offer a brand new experience, and I love to explore what is possible out there

It's not a surprise that this keymap is a hybrid. Two opposite approaches inspired it:

• Miryoku – a full-layer COLMAK-DH keymap that has excellent principles:
  • Use layers instead of reaching.
  • Use both hands instead of contortions.
  • Use the home positions as much as possible.
  • Make full use of the thumbs.
  • Avoid unnecessary complications.
• Kombol – a combo-optimized keymapping. This extends Miryoku and removes some confusion for keys like [], {}, (), -=+, ' ", ; :, ... that I had some hard time mastering with Miryoku.

The QMK code is inspired by the sweep_keymap from flinguenheld.

Trackball / Trackpad mode

Using a trackball/trackpad feels excellent for many gestures. But when it's time to click, you'll find your pointer movement affected by the click action!

• With a trackpad, you must either bring your hand off the pad and click or you must add pressure to the pad, thus moving the cursor (you click and lose precision!).
• With a trackball: pressing the click while your hand is on the ball will make your cursor move slightly, reducing the precision of the click.

A good way to resolve these issues is to click with the left hand—i.e., control your cursor with two hands!

That's a Ploopy Adept in case you are wondering!

While holding Z with your pinky, you activate the momentary mouse layer:

• Tap D for a left-click
• Hold D and move the cursor with the other hand for Drag&Drop
• Tap C for a right-click
• Tap X for the "Smart zoom" (or any command mapped to your mouse BTN_4)
• Hold X to enable the Scroll mode (moving the cursor will act as scrolling)

Smart Zoom and Scroll mode are possible with Mac Mouse Fix on Mac OS. On Windows, I use X-Mouse Button Control, but it only works for Scroll mode (let me know if you find a way to get a Smart Zoom 🙏🏼)

The key A has the home-row modifier for CMD (default layer) or CTL (Windows layer). This is super handy as you can use your pinky to enable the mouse layer WITH these modifiers. I often use that to open links in new tabs (CMD + left-click).

Tap Dance

Apps shortcuts doubled with long-tap

You'll find some tap-dance actions on the _MOUSE layer. For example: TD(TD_BROWSER). This allows the keyboard to respond to 2 different events: normal tap and long tap (down until the tapping term, then up).

I use that for:

• Browser: short tap is working/codding (Chrome) / long tap is personal browser (Brave).
• GitHub App / Figma App: as Figma is less used, it is mapped to the long tap.
• Rectangle (windows management for Mac): a normal tap moves the windows on another screen, and a long tap makes the window full-screen.

See features/tap_dance.c for the implementation.

Refinements

• #define QUICK_TAP_TERM 0 disable the QUICK_TAP_TERM. This allows double-tapping a modifier key (and holding it on the second tap) to trigger the hold action. In the context of this keyboard, a simple example is "you tipped a wrong number; correct it with tap BCKSP then hold BCKSP (NUM LAYER), then your number. The double BACKSP requires activating the layer, not switching to QUICK_TAP_TERM and repeating your backspace.
• This layout CANNOT use #define HOLD_ON_OTHER_KEY_PRESS due to the home-row modifier: This feature allows modifiers to trigger faster but prevents the home-row keys from rolling.

Arbitrations

The backspace key cannot be pressed long to remove a chain of characters until it's released. I'm pleased about this "limitation" because it forced me to learn better ways to remove text:

• use CMD + backspace to delete characters until the start of the line
• use OPT + backspace to delete characters until the start of the word
• use SHIFT + arrows to select the part of the text to remove (arrows allow for being triggered many times when kept pressed). This allows me to ensure the expected characters are selected before I press the backspace key – it's easier to fix a bad text selection than to undo a chain backspace with precision (generally, the whole chain removal will be undone when you expect only to undo 1 or 2 characters)

Install

Add this repos as a git submodule inside the qmk_firmware/keyboards/splitkb/aurora/sweep/keymaps/ folder:

cd qmk_firmware/keyboards/splitkb/aurora/sweep/keymaps
git submodule add https://github.com/malparty/shweep.git
cd ../../../../../
make git-submodule
cd keyboards/splitkb/aurora/sweep/keymaps/shweep

Compile and flash

Navigate into the keymap folder keyboards/splitkb/aurora/sweep/keymaps/shweep.

Compile with qmk compile -c -kb splitkb/aurora/sweep -km shweep. Flash both sides with qmk flash -c -kb splitkb/aurora/sweep -km shweep.