I wasted an hour last night trying to install QMK firmware on my work computer’s mechanical keyboard, a Durgod Taurus K320. I have a love/hate relationship with it. I love that it has the best build quality, rigidity, stabilization, keycaps, and typing feel and sound of any of the many (many!) keyboards I have owned over the years. I hate that its software is buggy: so buggy that sometimes the keyboard hangs and I have to unplug it to fix it; so buggy that I have to plug it in directly to my laptop rather than through a USB hub; so buggy that that I cannot program its layers the way I want to.

Very recently, someone figured out how to run QMK firmware on it, which could resolve the stability and customizability problems I have with the board. Unfortunately, I was not able to figure out how to flash the firmware to the keyboard. The main problem I faced was that the keyboard was not recognized by the QMK Toolkit software (on Windows) even after I put the keyboard into bootloader mode, and even after I started messing with the bootloader firmware using Zadig.

After lots of tries, I couldn’t figure out. I think I dodged a bullet, though, because I’m not sure QMK can control the RGB backlighting, which, on this keyboard, is necessary to see the key legends. Fortunately, despite me trying to mess with it, my keyboard still works as well as it did before. It’s not perfect, and I really would like to create a more robust Fn (function key) layer, but I will live with it for now.

I was thinking about creating a training presentation to help my coworkers with keyboards shortcuts, but was dismayed to see that our Lenovo laptop keyboards (which I never use, because I work from home and use external peripherals) don’t even have a menu key. Someone decided that Print Screen was more important, which may even be true, but it doesn’t help me make a good presentation for my coworkers. The menu key alternative, Shift+F10 is going to be a very hard sell, especially because F10 on the laptop requires the Fn key to be pressed, too.

I have gone from someone who did not use the menu key on my keyboard for 20+ years (since it was invented in the 1990s) to someone who can’t live without it (on my Windows at least). I made it a point to start using it a few months ago, and now I use it constantly. I recommend that all Windows users with an ANSI or ISO keyboard layout check it out. That key is positioned right underneath your thumb when you use the arrow keys.

⌨️ Oh, cool, my new Anne Pro 2 keyboard supports Bluetooth, and here I am, clicking away, wirelessly, on my Mac. 😀

One cool thing about the Anne Pro 2 ⌨️ is its tap layer. It does not have arrow keys, but the cluster at the lower right of the board (right shift, FN, FN2, and Ctrl) act as arrow keys when you tap them, and as normal modifier keys when you hold them. It works perfectly.

Replacing “Keyboard-” with the keyboard emoji (⌨️) solves a minor problem I have in the Drafts 5 beta: You can’t sort or hide action groups, and the keyboard-related groups, while useful, are not ones I open from the action groups menu. The ⌨️ emoji sorts them below normal letters.