One of the nice things about QMK is the ability to get secondary functions on double / triple tap and press and hold combinations. I also couldn't get comfortable with big chording combos, so for example a lot of the keys in my thumb cluster do double duty.
1) My space key is right CTRL when held down.
2) I have two keys for "<RET>", one on each thumb cluster, one is Alt when held down, the other is left CTRL.
3) Page up and down have their own keys on one of those clusters because I no longer needed them for the modifiers, and so page up and down are also home and end if they're held down.
4) Auto shift is on, and I've tuned to to eliminate most of the accidental shifts while keeping it relatively quick to type CONSTANT_VALUES (I actually still have shift keys in the usual positions but on the ergodox I have it feels like a big stretch to hit them and type so I use the auto-shift most of the time, but I do admit this is the convenience function I have the most love/hate relationship with)
5) The shift keys themselves give me open parentheses (left shift) and close parentheses (right shift) when double tapped.
The only chording I have to do these days (that isn't normal keyboard shortcuts) is I have a dedicated key to switch to a layer for FN keys when held down. And the reality is I could (and should) probably map the number keys to be FN keys when double tapped since I don't think I ever hold an FN key down.
This[1] isn't my most current layout (missing the home/end on the pageup/down buttons) but it's pretty much what I've landed on after about a year of using one of these. And realistically there are unused keys there I could remap still. The CTRL where the capslock key would be is never used in favor of the thumb cluster versions, the left and right CTRL keys on the tops of the two thumb clusters are leftovers from older layouts and unused right now. I've never used the "Meh" key or the "'" and "Capslock" keys in the lower left. The "Command-enter" and "[" and "]" keys in the lower right are another leftover from an older layout that are also unused now. So lots of room to play around still.
Not saying you should definitely switch, there are still some things that I'm not 100% happy with (those inner symbol keys are a stretch sometimes and depending on what code I'm writing feel like I could move them around) and getting used to the ortholinear layout is a whole thing on its own. But if it's something that interests you, maybe that layout can help you find a good starting point.
1) My space key is right CTRL when held down.
2) I have two keys for "<RET>", one on each thumb cluster, one is Alt when held down, the other is left CTRL.
3) Page up and down have their own keys on one of those clusters because I no longer needed them for the modifiers, and so page up and down are also home and end if they're held down.
4) Auto shift is on, and I've tuned to to eliminate most of the accidental shifts while keeping it relatively quick to type CONSTANT_VALUES (I actually still have shift keys in the usual positions but on the ergodox I have it feels like a big stretch to hit them and type so I use the auto-shift most of the time, but I do admit this is the convenience function I have the most love/hate relationship with)
5) The shift keys themselves give me open parentheses (left shift) and close parentheses (right shift) when double tapped.
The only chording I have to do these days (that isn't normal keyboard shortcuts) is I have a dedicated key to switch to a layer for FN keys when held down. And the reality is I could (and should) probably map the number keys to be FN keys when double tapped since I don't think I ever hold an FN key down.
This[1] isn't my most current layout (missing the home/end on the pageup/down buttons) but it's pretty much what I've landed on after about a year of using one of these. And realistically there are unused keys there I could remap still. The CTRL where the capslock key would be is never used in favor of the thumb cluster versions, the left and right CTRL keys on the tops of the two thumb clusters are leftovers from older layouts and unused right now. I've never used the "Meh" key or the "'" and "Capslock" keys in the lower left. The "Command-enter" and "[" and "]" keys in the lower right are another leftover from an older layout that are also unused now. So lots of room to play around still.
Not saying you should definitely switch, there are still some things that I'm not 100% happy with (those inner symbol keys are a stretch sometimes and depending on what code I'm writing feel like I could move them around) and getting used to the ortholinear layout is a whole thing on its own. But if it's something that interests you, maybe that layout can help you find a good starting point.
[1]: https://configure.zsa.io/ergodox-ez-st/layouts/wzKWq/latest/...