Hold your breath

Hi |FNAME|,

I once read that you shouldn't keep a list of features to work on: Your customers will just remind you again and again when they want something. Well, this month I'm excited to announce something you've been asking about forever: You can now quickly duplicate (copy) keys in Oryx! Details below.

Speaking of how we decide what to work on, we tend to make that decision internally and then only share something when it's fully ready. This month is an exception — I'm sharing a project that's in progress and we've still got lots to do on, because I really want your feedback. See the nice keycaps below.

Our featured interview is with Simon Lowenstein, and I just love how he casually mentioned typing over 150wpm. My favorite "Things We Liked" link is without a doubt Shader Park — so much fun to play with and just browse.

Oh, and this month's ZSA Loves is all about something I literally can't live without.

As always, thank you for reading — and thank you to everyone who writes back with love and feedback on the newsletter! My email is ez@zsa.io. Have a lovely July! ❤️

All the best,
Erez

Introducing Copy Keys

One click to copy

We've added a handy little feature to Oryx: Every key's popover now includes Copy and Link icons. This makes it trivially easy to take one key and duplicate it all over your layout, or to share a link to a specific key you want to discuss.

Keycaps for creatives

Tell us what you think

We've been working on several sets of custom keycaps for creative apps and wanted to share our work and hear your feedback. If you're a creative, I'd love it if you could look at these keycaps and fill out the feedback form. Feel free to share with other creatives even if they don't use a ZSA keyboard.

All about EurKEY

An excellent layout for Euro languages

If you type any European language, you're going to want to know about EurKEY. This deep dive from Robin introduces this excellent layout and shows you how to set it up — layer templates included.

Featured User Interview

Simon Lowenstein

Vice President of Planning and Development

Simon's educational background covers science, social science, and the arts, so it’s no surprise that he needs a versatile setup—two of them, in fact. Between them, Simon’s sit/stand desk and mobile setup help him do everything from creating CAD models to composing music. Plus, there's a cute dog. :)

"Home row mods are interesting, but they seem to glitch out when typing above 150-170 wpm."

Layout of the month

PC Design & Obsidian

I am a designer working in After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator and Blender. I rely heavily on keyboard shortcuts. I was not a touch typer and found myself constantly looking down at my keyboard for all of the modifier shortcuts I needed. It took about two months to fully switch and get comfortable touch typing — during which I found a layout that feels like magic every time I sit down to use it. My efficiency and enjoyment level has never been better.

Things we liked

Starring the Computer →

Computers in movies and television

What a labor of love: This is a meticulous list of movie scenes with computers in them, with each computer identified. This link goes to the list “by computer” but you can also sort it “by movie”. Each entry has scores for “importance”, “realism” and “visibility” as well as a screen grab showing the computer in the movie. Did you know there’s a Compaq Prolinea 3/4 in The Fast and the Furious (the OG, from 2001)?

ShaderPark →

A visual playground

This works on mobile, but it’s better on desktop: It is a visual playground full of animations and art all generated by code. You get to see the code that makes the images, and edit it right on the site. Your changes show up in real time. There are some gorgeous creations here. The framework and site are both open-source. Clean, beautiful, and free.

Can’t Sleep Reads →

Edgar Allen Poe included

This is an ad-free and clean site that features classic short stories for when you can’t sleep. There are four color themes, two of which are dark. You'll get a different story every time. I wish these were available as audio stories, too.

Sandvox →

A volumetric sandbox

You start out with a tree, some water, and some sand. Then you get to set things on fire! Or pour lava, or snow, or glass. This is all done with Minecraft-style “voxels” but directly in your browser. Quite addictive and fun to play with. I recommend using a desktop computer for this.

American Diary Project →

A home for unpublished diaries

If you write a diary, what happens to it once you’re gone? This project aims to preserve everyday diaries for future generations, even if whoever wrote the diary wasn't famous. I’m linking to a “1980s diary from charismatic 17-year-old”. There’s a transcript, too.