# Brian's Ridiculous Customizations For Kinesis Advantage 2

I got a Kinesis Advantage 2 recently! It's great! But the stock layout (see appendix) has some problems:

- I don't like cmd and ctrl being on the tiny buttons. I have to move my hands too much.
- I don't like escape being in the function row. Needs to be somewhere easier to reach.
- There are no media or volume keys bound by default.
- Let's be honest, I never use home, end, page up, or page down. Almost everywhere I need to do those, I use cmd-left, cmd-right, space, and shift-space or readline shortcuts like `c-e` and `c-a`. They're easier to reach for me on most keyboards.
- I really really really want a hyper key. It's easy to get to on most layouts (since the modifiers are all together) but not here. We also don't have a special switch, so we'll have to modify the software. Easy enough, right? (wrong.)

I've ended up with the following layout, which you can load onto your Advantage 2 by opening the v-drive and putting `b_qwerty.txt` in there. Activate it at hotkey layer "b" (for Brian!)

```
┌───────┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐          ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───────┐
│  + =  │ │ 1 │ │ 2 │ │ 3 │ │ 4 │ │ 5 │          │ 6 │ │ 7 │ │ 8 │ │ 9 │ │ 0 │ │  _ -  │
└───────┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘          └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───────┘
┌───────┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐          ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───────┐
│  tab  │ │ q │ │ w │ │ e │ │ r │ │ t │          │ y │ │ u │ │ i │ │ o │ │ p │ │  | \  │
└───────┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘          └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───────┘
┌ ─ ─ ─ ┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐          ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───────┐
   cmd    │ a │ │ s │ │ d │ │ f │ │ g │          │ h │ │ j │ │ k │ │ l │ │ ; │ │  ' "  │
└ ─ ─ ─ ┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘          └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───────┘
┌───────┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐          ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───────┐
│ shift │ │ z │ │ x │ │ c │ │ v │ │ b │          │ n │ │ m │ │ , │ │ . │ │ / │ │ shift │
└───────┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘          └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───────┘
          ┌───┐ ┌ ─ ┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐                      ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐
          │ ` │  emo  │ ◁ │ │ ▷ │                      │ △ │ │ ▽ │ │ [ │ │ ] │
          └───┘ └ ─ ┘ └───┘ └───┘                      └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘

                               ┌ ─ ┐ ┌ ─ ┐    ┌ ─ ┐ ┌ ─ ┐
                                crl   hyp            esc
                               └ ─ ┘ └ ─ ┘    └ ─ ┘ └ ─ ┘
                         ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌ ─ ┐    ┌ ─ ┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐
                         │   │ │   │  alt      a-`  │   │ │   │
                         │bs │ │del│ └ ─ ┘    └ ─ ┘ │ret│ │spa│
                         │   │ │   │ ┌ ─ ┐    ┌ ─ ┐ │urn│ │ce │
                         │   │ │   │  c-d      c-c  │   │ │   │
                         └───┘ └───┘ └ ─ ┘    └ ─ ┘ └───┘ └───┘
```

Legend:

Dotted outlines are keys I've changed away from the QWERTY/Mac defaults.

 - `crl`: `ctrl`
 - `c-d`, `c-c`: `ctrl` plus that key
 - `a-backtick`: my system shortcut to bring the terminal into focus
 - `hyp`: hyper! This is cmd+shift+alt+ctrl plus a single keystroke. No software is ~~dumb~~ brave enough to use this key combo by default, so it's safe to put global hotkeys there. I have a bunch!
 - `emo`: `ctrl-cmd-space`, the macOS system emoji picker default shortcut.

In addition:

 - F9: `hyper-s`, which opens my quick music switcher in Alfred.
 - F10: pause/play
 - F11: previous track
 - F12: next track
 - F13: mute
 - F14: volume down
 - F15: volume up

 ## Updates

 - **2017-11-16:** Hey guess what? If you mess around with keys the firmware can get in an inconsistent state until you cycle power to the keyboard by unplugging it. When I created these, it apparently thought that `lalt` was `lctrl`. So I had to change `lalt` back. Odd.
 - **2017-11-17:** because of the *last* fix, rebinding `home` to `lalt` was triggering the hyper macros. Now it's `ralt`, which does what I want.

 ## Problems

 - I want the top left key in the left thumb cluster to be `c-g` (a handy Emacs companion to `esc`). But I can't make the keybinding stick! Something about it being a modifier key, maybe. I've noticed the firmware version I'm using seems to have some hangups about reassigning regular keys to modifier keys in macros and vice versa.

---

#### Appendix: Factory Layout (QWERTY/Mac mode)

```
┌───────┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐          ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───────┐
│  + =  │ │ 1 │ │ 2 │ │ 3 │ │ 4 │ │ 5 │          │ 6 │ │ 7 │ │ 8 │ │ 9 │ │ 0 │ │  _ -  │
└───────┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘          └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───────┘
┌───────┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐          ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───────┐
│  tab  │ │ q │ │ w │ │ e │ │ r │ │ t │          │ y │ │ u │ │ i │ │ o │ │ p │ │  | \  │
└───────┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘          └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───────┘
┌───────┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐          ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───────┐
│ caps  │ │ a │ │ s │ │ d │ │ f │ │ g │          │ h │ │ j │ │ k │ │ l │ │ ; │ │  ' "  │
└───────┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘          └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───────┘
┌───────┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐          ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───────┐
│ shift │ │ z │ │ x │ │ c │ │ v │ │ b │          │ n │ │ m │ │ , │ │ . │ │ / │ │ shift │
└───────┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘          └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───────┘
          ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐                      ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐
          │ ` │ │ § │ │ ◁ │ │ ▷ │                      │ △ │ │ ▽ │ │ [ │ │ ] │
          └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘                      └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘

                               ┌───┐ ┌───┐    ┌───┐ ┌───┐
                               │crl│ │alt│    │crl│ │cmd│
                               └───┘ └───┘    └───┘ └───┘
                         ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐    ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐
                         │   │ │   │ │hom│    │p-u│ │   │ │   │
                         │bs │ │del│ └───┘    └───┘ │ret│ │spa│
                         │   │ │   │ ┌───┐    ┌───┐ │urn│ │ce │
                         │   │ │   │ │end│    │p-d│ │   │ │   │
                         └───┘ └───┘ └───┘    └───┘ └───┘ └───┘
```