keyboard-config/chocofi

• Chocofi 36 with QMK
  • The keyboard
  • The Keymap
  • Setup
  • Missing stuff
  • Ideas for improvement

Chocofi 36 with QMK

The keyboard

https://github.com/pashutk/chocofi/

I got a prebuilt one with hotswap and seapi picro presoldered and added my choc v1 brown switches.

The Keymap

Alpha layer is Colemak-DH mod.

Since a lot of time is spent navigating code I use a locked NAV layer, which makes it easy to move the cursor/screen. Most of my time coding is spent in VSCode. Therefore, often used combos like Ctrl+f, Ctrl+h (find an replace) and their shifted variants (find/replace in project) are available in the NAV layer with single keystrokes.

Visualize with Keymap-drawer:

  pipx install keymap-drawer
  cd ~/git/qmk_firmware
  qmk c2json --no-cpp ~/git/qmk_firmware/keyboards/crkbd/rev1/keymaps/choc_colemak_36/keymap.c | keymap -c ~/git/keyboard-config/atreus/drawer-config.yaml parse -c 10 -q - >~/git/keyboard-config/chocofi/keymap.yaml
  keymap -c ~/git/qmk_firmware/keyboards/keyboardio/atreus/drawer-config.yaml draw ~/git/keyboard-config/chocofi/keymap.yaml >~/git/keyboard-config/chocofi/keymap.svg

Setup

Because my board uses a sea Pi Micro (RPi2040 type), I have to mount the controller as a file system and copy the firmware file to that. Most other microcontrollers want to be directly connected and flashed via USB.

1. follow QMK initial setup (python venv with pip)
2. link this directory into qmk_firmware/keyboards/crkbd/rev1/keymaps/choc_colemak_36
3. compile and flash assumes usb-c of the right-hand half is connected
4. both sides need to be flashed separately with config.h set to MASTER_LEFT and MASTER_RIGHT respectively

  cd ~/src/qmk_firmware/ && source env/bin/activate
  qmk compile --keyboard=crkbd/rev1 --keymap=choc_colemak_36 -e CONVERT_TO=promicro_rp2040
  sudo mount /dev/sdb? /mnt/
  sudo cp crkbd_rev1_choc_colemak_36_promicro_rp2040.uf2 /mnt/
  sudo umount /mnt

TODO Missing stuff

• activate number layer with a left-hand key

• additional to FUN_NAV layer, create a pure nav layer

  • remove HomeRowMods from FUN_NAV layer
  • add useful shortcuts to the new PURE_NAV layer (e.g. WM_keys)
• backtick key
• smart shift on a thumb key, to avoid weird situations with home-row-shift
• smart num, to avoid weird taps for the num layer when typing commas and dots

https://github.com/urob/zmk-config

Ideas for improvement

• for nav layer, maybe add combined keys for Ctrl+Shift, Ctrl+Alt and Shift+Alt
• add OLED screen to show current layer, I see this as a prerequisite to add gaming layer(s)
• this seems like a great example of composed layers and support for different environments https://github.com/0x64746b/qmk_firmware/blob/chocofi/keyboards/chocofi/keymaps/dtk35/keymap.c
• https://github.com/manna-harbour/miryoku_qmk/blob/miryoku/users/manna-harbour_miryoku/readme.org

• HomeRowMods/BottomRowMods and other ideas: https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMechKeyboards/comments/tiejpp/home_row_mods_what_works_for_you/

  • https://precondition.github.io/home-row-mods#implementation

• split up SYM_NUM layer, move missing symbols (from NAV layer to SYMBOLS layer)

  • hints for better symbols layers: https://getreuer.info/posts/keyboards/symbol-layer/index.html
  • make . and , available in new NUM layer for easier number input

• build a dedicated GUI Nav layer for sway

  • and probably Windows/KDE window actions
• make select words work (by emulating Ctrl+Shift+Left/Right)