I recently got the Velocifire TKL71WS Wireless Keyboard for my daily use. I like it a lot thus far – although battery life could be a little bit better, still under testing with different illumination profiles -, but it overall does the job for me.
The only caveat that I had with it is that it is missing a dedicate tilde/accent key (~/`). To use them, you have to hold the Function key (2nd key to the right side of space bar) and press Escape. That is quite a finger-twister and I found myself struggling with it a lot. Also, that is the method to write the Arabic character “ذ” which is also inconvenient.
Karabiner-Elements:
As tagged on their website, it’s a powerful keyboard customizer for macOS. I’m still exploring it for what seems to unlock a huge potential of my quirks and customizations, and it does the job of fixing my Escape key issue just perfectly.
Although the application UI allows you to do a lot of simple customization, ~/.config/karabiner/karabiner.json file allows you to do much more. For my use-case, I added a custom complex modification rule that changes the Escape key to press as a normal tilde ~ / ` accent key when pressed once, but run as an Escape key if held down for a tiny bit, as follows:
"rules": [
{
"description": "Change Escape to Tilde (Post Escape if Held Down)",
"manipulators": [
{
"from": {
"key_code": "escape",
"modifiers": {
"optional": [
"any"
]
}
},
"parameters": {
"basic.to_if_alone_timeout_milliseconds": 250,
"basic.to_if_held_down_threshold_milliseconds": 250
},
"to_if_alone": [
{
"key_code": "grave_accent_and_tilde"
}
],
"to_if_held_down": [
{
"key_code": "escape"
}
],
"type": "basic"
}
]
}
]
My current karabiner.json file is here.
I’m exploring what other people are doing with these complex rules, so share any if you do have some!
