A reduced matrix layout (for ergodox, kinesis, maltron, etc)

[jesse]

I've been prototyping a new multilayer layout on my ErgoDox. So far, it's actually feeling more comfortable than I'd expected. I'd love commentary and suggestions.

http://blog.fsck.com/2013/01/pinkies-an ... brain.html

[fossala]

Looks very good, but I would swap shift with blue shift.

[jesse]

@fossala - I'd actually started that way and found this a lot more comfortable.

[Piers Cawley]

And from this one observation, it becomes obvious that Jesse is a programmer, not an author

I'm tempted to pull some outer keycaps and wrestle this onto my Kinesis and see how it goes.

[mikekuehn]

Nice layout. I have been working on some reduced matrix layouts as well. A couple questions/thoughts:

1. There is a lot of redundancy (arrows on both hands, thumb keys). Is that by design? I can see how you could get around any bad thumb combos in this arrangement, by hitting two adjacent keys with each thumb. Combo of horror = Ctrl+Alt+Shift+ArrowKeys

2. Punctuation could be relocated for improved ergonomics on the blue shift layer? - , . / all used a lot.

3. I take it the hands are not supposed to 'float' in this kind of a layout (move left and right)? Why no outside keys for the pinkies? (caps lock, ' ) The matrixes I've been working with always have 6 columns per hand. Gonna have to read your blog post.

Thanks for sharing.

[jesse]

1. There is a lot of redundancy (arrows on both hands, thumb keys). Is that by design?

The thumb keys - most definitely. Just like on any other keyboard The arrow keys were more of an attempt to get a feel for whether I really prefer hjkl arrows or wasd arrows. Leaning (strongly) toward hjkl.

I can see how you could get around any bad thumb combos in this arrangement, by hitting two adjacent keys with each thumb. Combo of horror = Ctrl+Alt+Shift+ArrowKeys

What do you use control-alt-shift-arrow for?

2. Punctuation could be relocated for improved ergonomics on the blue shift layer? - , . / all used a lot.

Well, , . / are all in their "traditional" non-chorded locations.

3. I take it the hands are not supposed to 'float' in this kind of a layout (move left and right)? Why no outside keys for the pinkies? (caps lock, ' ) The matrixes I've been working with always have 6 columns per hand. Gonna have to read your blog post.

Right. Giving my pinkies a break was my main design criterion.

[mikekuehn]

Thanks for the info! I don't use ctrl-alt-shift arrows for anything but some do (managing workspaces etc). Because ctrl+alt+shift+win are usually in a cluster its implied that you can chord them together with the arrow keys.

, . / - ; perhaps can be relocated to a more ergo position in the WASD area (blue shift). I find all those very trying on the R hand ring/pinky for programming.

Shift+BlueShift could add another layer to relocate some special characters into more ergonomic positions. For instance < > to the top row with the other brackets. As you can tell I'm not a big fan of the downward reach on those fingers. But what should be the penalty for additional chording? With thumb keys it should be less than with pinky modifiers...

[TDub]

Mmmh how is the comfort level for {} and [] on this layout. Since I am a programmer, those are kinda the keys I worry about the most on the Ergo Dox since there isn't really space for them right of the letters.

[jesse]

Shift+BlueShift could add another layer to relocate some special characters into more ergonomic positions. For instance < > to the top row with the other brackets. As you can tell I'm not a big fan of the downward reach on those fingers. But what should be the penalty for additional chording? With thumb keys it should be less than with pinky modifiers...

It's certainly possible, but that starts to get closer to reimplementing The Bat than I'm going for.

(http://www.infogrip.com/bat-keyboard.html)

[jesse]

Mmmh how is the comfort level for {} and [] on this layout. Since I am a programmer, those are kinda the keys I worry about the most on the Ergo Dox since there isn't really space for them right of the letters.

They're more comfortable for me than they are on a traditional Sholes layout. Remap it and give it a try

[eviltobz]

This sort of blue shift layout looks pretty nice, and I'll be trying something similar with my Ergodox, but I'm not sure if there is any way to get it running on my Kinesis. It has the embedded keypad layer which would be a good contender, but I don't think that there is any way to move the keypad button. Any other Kinesis users who've managed such a thing? If it makes a difference it's an old classic model with the ps/2 connector so may have been superseded in programmability by the newer ones. I use it on my Windows 7 pc at work, so some hefty AltGr mapping in the microsoft keyboard layout tool may be an option I suppose, but I'd rather do it in the keyboard itself if at all possible.

[Piers Cawley]

I've done it, but with KeyRemap4MacBook, and not in a way that distinguishes the blue shifts (whch is a shame because I'd like BLUE_L and BLUE_R to be distinguished so I could have them act as <TAB> and <Return> when used as if they weren't shifts. I think that's going to take a teensy though.

[kozikow]

Good job overall, it's the best layout I've seen so far and I looked at all from: http://deskthority.net/wiki/Keyboard_layouts . Essentially the bigger bottleneck during programming is awkward placement of special characters and numbers instead of arrangement of letters. This one have the highest ratio of switching cost (and configuration/remapping) to potential benefits so far.

Some things that come to my mind:
- I don't like how far away the numbers are. To press 5, %, 6 or ^ my finger needs to travel about 2,23 size of button. If you get rid of wsad arrows, home (you can use cmd+left), end (cmd+right), pg up, pg down, insert, then you would have 10 empty positions that could be suited for numbers (say for example blue shift + qwerty row would be remapped to arrows)
- As vim user I would prefer to have esc unshifted given how often I use it
- As someone mentioned mirroring thumbs doesn't seem to be a good idea. Thumbs placement in ergodox do not restrict movement of other fingers as much as other keyboards, so there is no longer a requirement that left/right characters have to be pressed with right/left modifier.

[dragon788]

This sort of blue shift layout looks pretty nice, and I'll be trying something similar with my Ergodox, but I'm not sure if there is any way to get it running on my Kinesis. It has the embedded keypad layer which would be a good contender, but I don't think that there is any way to move the keypad button. Any other Kinesis users who've managed such a thing? If it makes a difference it's an old classic model with the ps/2 connector so may have been superseded in programmability by the newer ones. I use it on my Windows 7 pc at work, so some hefty AltGr mapping in the microsoft keyboard layout tool may be an option I suppose, but I'd rather do it in the keyboard itself if at all possible.

I'm using a Soarer's Mod Convertor ($40 for a premade one on eBay) to adapt my PS/2 Kinesis to USB and my goal is to remap all the keys using it instead of the Kinesis' built in remapping as I noticed there are noticeable delays when typing once I've remapped any characters using the built in "Reprogram" button. Since the PS/2 Kinesis also supports NKRO and the Soarer's happily passes that through I can use some chording as well without worrying about hitting a 6 key limit.

[arg0]

@jesse
Your layout inspired me: I recently got an ErgoDox EZ and I'm now at the stage of designing my first layout. It will be a variation of Colemak with two layers and most if not all modifier keys in the thumbs clusters via "hybrid" keys (e.g. send tab if pressed or shift if pressed and held): I hope that won't be too difficult to code. "Blue-shifts" aka temporary layer toggles in the thumbs clusters is a great idea.

This sort of blue shift layout looks pretty nice, and I'll be trying something similar with my Ergodox, but I'm not sure if there is any way to get it running on my Kinesis. It has the embedded keypad layer which would be a good contender, but I don't think that there is any way to move the keypad button. Any other Kinesis users who've managed such a thing? If it makes a difference it's an old classic model with the ps/2 connector so may have been superseded in programmability by the newer ones. I use it on my Windows 7 pc at work, so some hefty AltGr mapping in the microsoft keyboard layout tool may be an option I suppose, but I'd rather do it in the keyboard itself if at all possible.

I'm using a Soarer's Mod Convertor ($40 for a premade one on eBay) to adapt my PS/2 Kinesis to USB and my goal is to remap all the keys using it instead of the Kinesis' built in remapping as I noticed there are noticeable delays when typing once I've remapped any characters using the built in "Reprogram" button. Since the PS/2 Kinesis also supports NKRO and the Soarer's happily passes that through I can use some chording as well without worrying about hitting a 6 key limit.

I also own an old PS/2 Kinesis. I read in two places that also PS/2 models are "just" 6-KRO and in one place that they are NKRO. Anyone can confirm? Anyway 6-KRO is largely sufficient for most needs, I suppose. Unfortunately, on my Kinesis, the right section of rubber switches died, including the Program key, so that it's now basically stuck to the default QERTY layout. I'd be interested to hear about any experience with the Soarer's Mod Convertor, as it would allow me to revive the keyboard. I had tried remapping the whole keyboard layout with AutoHotkey, but trying to make it work as I wanted was a pain and at some point I gave up. BTW, if the forum rules allow, could someone post a link to a ready-made Soarer's Mod Converter?
Thanks.