What is SpaceFN and why you should give it a try
The SpaceFN concept - setting up your space key as a layer switch when held - is probably one of the most useful tweaks in the keyboard hobby. Let me explain how it works. My SpaceFN article on kbd.news made some rounds recently - quite surprisingly given the age of this concept. This piece you're reading is a condensed version of the full post. If you're left with unanswered questions, you'll most likely find the info you're looking for in the original write-up. On my imaginary top list of the most useful keyboard features, tweaks and hacks, SpaceFN would deserve a podium finish for sure. But what makes it so special? In short: SpaceFN is easy to implement, easy to learn, costs nothing, can be used with any keyboard, and can improve your productivity instantly. I will list its benefits below, but can state right at this point that the SpaceFN concept, setting up your space key as a layer switch when held, is clearly one of the most useful tweaks in the keyboard hobby....
Apr 30, 2024
So, if you have the keyboard configured as qwerty and you have two computers, one configured with qwerty and the other configured to remap that into dvorak, you'll get qwerty on one computer and dvorak on the other. But if you flash a dvorak layout onto the keyboard itself, using the same two computers, you'll get dvorak on one computer and something bizarre on the other. Whatever double-dvorak is.
If two computers map scancodes to letters in different ways, you'll get different layouts depending on which computer you plug into.