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
Over the course of the last year or so of writing switch reviews of my own, I’ve been integrating more and more data into my descriptions and comparisons of switches. This is seen no more clearly than in the dozens of wiggly-lined graphs, known as ‘Force Curves’, that now sprout up in the dozens on each of my latest reviews. While I’ve managed to avoid dragging the discussion of force curves into any of my short articles on Drop thus far, the increasing use of them throughout my work means I should probably get around to discussing them sometime soon. After all, while I live and die by this kind of information for switches, I fully well understand that I am more obsessed about switches than the vast majority of (admittedly kind of already weird) mechanical keyboard enthusiasts. However, I think that knowing a thing or two about force curves could make a big difference in the hunt for your perfect, endgame switches. So, here’s the quickest and easiest introduction to force curves and how to read them so you can make the most informed switch purchasing decisions. At the absolute most basic level, a ‘force curve’ is a graph that shows you how heavy a switch is at every single stage of it being pressed in and released. Or, rather, it’s simply an objective, graphical representation of how the switch feels in your hand! More specifically, a force curve depiction and what you actually feel when pressing in a switch are the exact same thing - the complex interaction of the spring, the stem, and the leaves of the switch that complete a circuit to register a keystroke in your keyboard. While these force curve diagrams were once upon a time pretty rare to see on vendor’s and manufacturer’s sales pages, they are becoming increasingly more common with new switch manufacturer marketing techniques and a couple of enthusiasts collecting force curves of their own. (See the work from enthusiasts like HaaTa, Pylon, and even my own Force Curve Repository!) Regardless of who made the force curves that you encounter on a sales page or in a data repository, they almost always are displayed in the form of an x vs. y style of graph which plots force or weight (vertical) against displacement or stem travel distance (horizontal) and feature two curves - one for the downstroke of a switch (pushing it in) and one for the upstroke (releasing it). In the event that they aren’t labeled or color coded, the downstroke curve will almost always be the one that is higher up on the graph and can be read as if you were pushing in the switch by looking from the left end of the curve at 0 grams of force (gf) to the right end where it bottoms out, or reaches its maximum force. Here’s an example force curve with some labels to help digest all of that new information: