Not All Linears Are The Same!
Figure 1: Not even all of these (mostly) KTT-made linears are the same! After all of my years of collecting, reviewing, and obsessing over switches, I can say with certainty that linear switches are the most misunderstood of all of the switch types. No, I’m not talking about mechanically either, as all of the claims of them “just going straight up and down” are somewhat kind of true. (Not too much though, don’t get that excited.) The part that is often misunderstood, though, is usually in what is being implied when people say that these switches just go straight up and down – “All linears might as well be the same.” If the title of this article didn’t make that obvious enough to you, I find that sort of idea to be completely and utterly wrong. The people who make these implications wouldn’t say that a Cherry MX Black is the same as a Novelkeys Cream switch? They also certainly wouldn’t ever claim that every Gateron-made linear is the same as every fancy TTC one out there...
May 29, 2024
***edit: ijkl and hjkl are not usable because existing bindings cannot be overwritten. full email copied below:
"Thank you for contacting us. The customisation that you are trying to do is not yet possible unfortunately. The reason is that you can transfer FN layer functions only to keys without any FN layer function, in this case, you can easily transfer left, down and right arrows to j,k,l but Up arrow won’t be able to be moved to the “i” key because this key has the FN layer function ‘ins’ already programmed. When you move the arrows to other keys, you duplicate them, they will always remain usable via WASD keys when you press the FN key. However if you still want to move the arrows to j,k,l and maybe ‘O’ for example, please follow the below step by step explanation: First, choose between the layers 1,2,3 by pressing FN + R SHIFT, the left LED under the space bar will light up to indicate which layer you are using (the default layer has no LED on) Second step: Enter the programming mode by pressing FN + R Ctrl. Then to duplicate the right arrow onto the “l” key, press FN + L, then press FN + D, then press PN to save the change. Then to duplicate the bottom arrow onto the “k” key press FN + K, then press FN + S, then press PN to save the change. Then to duplicate the left arrow onto the “j” key, press FN + J, then press FN + A, then press PN to save the change. Then to duplicate the up arrow onto the “o” key, press FN + O, then press FN + W, then press PN to save the change. Exit the programming mode by pressing FN + R Ctrl. Let us know if you have any questions."
Oh man... this might be a deal breaker for me especially considering the manual and the description on the ikbc website seem to indicated that fn + key programming is supposed to be possible.
Thanks for the info though!