I’m considering the Moonlander but I have small hands. I have an older Iris which is a good fit but doesn’t have hotswap and occasionally needs to be unplugged and replugged to work. I am looking for something that just works, not a new soldering project - especially since my office will cover the cost.
Which would you recommend? And is it the end of the world if I can’t reach the full thumb cluster on the Moonlander?
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I find the Moonlander thumb cluster not that easy to reach. I have medium/large hands but relatively inflexible thumbs and use only 2 of the thumb keys. (And one of the bottom row keys as a third thumb key. If you do it that way it is probably not much different than the Iris). Personally, I would like the thumb cluster to be closer to the other keys and/or splayed.
I think it’s pretty easy to assign rare operations to the more unreachable parts of the thumb cluster and be fine.
I find that even with my pretty large hands some of the bigger reaches, like left shift to the rightmost column of keys on the left side, can be a bit cumbersome.
Personally I could never find my groove with the moonlander. I used it for about three weeks and couldn’t overcome about a 30% reduction in my wpm. Worse though was that I could never get programming to feel really good on it. I acknowledge this has much more to do with me being an old dog that’s opposed to new tricks, so I was probably just doing it wrong.
My moonlander has been collecting dust in its box for about three months, which I find to be a shame. Maybe I’ll break it out and give it another try.
Thanks for sharing your perspective! It’s frustrating when a tool that is supposed to help doesn’t work for you.
Eh, I think it’s just a question of practicing more and practicing deliberately. I don’t blame moonlander really. It’s well constructed, and the split was really nice for opening up my posture vs a more conventional keyboard. I just have to carve out the time to practice more.
Have you tried: https://jhelvy.shinyapps.io/splitkbcompare/ to see if the size is right?
I use my moonlander with the thumb clusters pushed all the way up instead of down or ‘tented’. However this created some wobble so I bought an extra set of feet from ZSA and installed them on the outside of my board (there’s already a screw hole there from factory, just need to take the cover off). I love it! I have small women’s hands and no problems at all with my moonlander layout , cluster buttons set to my modifiers and space bar.
If you’ll forgive my filthy desk picture, here she is:
Thank you for sharing and what a great looking keyboard!
I took a couple pictures to show my hand size and also the feet on the outside of the board (I realized the first picture I showed didn’t have them installed!
That’s very helpful, thank you - also neat to see which angles you’ve used.
I ordered my Moonlander earlier today.
Yay, enjoy!
I have pretty small hands and found the moonlander way too big. Moved to a skeletyl fromm there. If you need more Keys, have a Look at the sofle v2, which has a more aggressive pinky stagger. Or the keyria.
I think it’s pretty easy to assign rare operations to the more unreachable parts of the thumb cluster and be fine.
I find that even with my pretty large hands some of the bigger reaches, like left shift to the rightmost column of keys on the left side, can be a bit cumbersome.
Personally I could never find my groove with the moonlander. I used it for about three weeks and couldn’t overcome about a 30% reduction in my wpm. Worse though was that I could never get programming to feel really good on it. I acknowledge this has much more to do with me being an old dog that’s opposed to new tricks, so I was probably just doing it wrong.
My moonlander has been collecting dust in its box for about three months, which I find to be a shame. Maybe I’ll break it out and give it another try.
I can say that not using the thumb cluster is totally fine. At this point I have the innermost button on the left side set to space. My thumb also normally rests there. Can’t even say I use the right side one at all.
Hotswap and their switch options are fairly nice; I’ve had no issue while doing it.
Works straight out of the box, but you will want to mess with the layout to find what works for you.
Their rebinding software is also super easy to use. Massive plus there.
Own the Moonlander and my hands aren’t particularly small (men’s size L gloves), and still found the thumb cluster keys too far to be regularly useful. I’m not even sure it’s just about size, but the way your hand naturally moves/stretches (or doesn’t) possibly plays a part, too.
That said, I still love the thing because Oryx is SO good, it was my perfect intro to fully programmable KBs, and allowed me to experiment SO much that I was able to gradually/quickly optimize layouts until I settled (a couple of months without modifying layout), on what now feels like the perfect fit for my needs.
With that knowledge/experience I was now able to move on to a Corne-ish Zen, but I’m keeping the Moonlander as back up, and for experimenting.
Attaching pictures of my latest Moonlander configuration, which I’ve kept for a while now and love.
Here’s my current layout: https://configure.zsa.io/moonlander/layouts/Wgay4/latest/0
I’ve got a moonlander, and pretty average-to-small hands, I guess. I can comfortably use 2 of the thumb keys on each side. I have to move my hands off of home row to hit the third keys, or the red keys comfortably. I’ve bound those to functionality that isn’t typing related, and that works well for me.
