Keyboard Layouts Galore

This site tries to encompas notes on how to choose and design keyboard layouts. A large part of modern layouts is doing layers, combos, macros, tap, tap-hold etc.

Contributions welcome :-)

Why should you learn a new keyboard layout

• It will be an opportunity to finally learn proper typing technique, which will improve your speed and accuracy significantly. But also typing comfort.
• Learning a new layout will not automatically give you a speed increase. It will require a lot of hard work.
• Consider learning a new layout the same as people learning to play an instrument. It is fun to set onself a goal.
• Consider learning a layout the same challenge as playing mind games. It is a mental exercise and opportunity to expand your mind.

How to learn a new layout

See How To Best Learn A New Layout

How to install keyboard layouts with simple software

See Create A Keyboard Layout With Software

Layouts are more alike thank you think!

When first being to different keyboard layouts one is quickly overwhelmed by the great variety. However, upon further scruitiny, the similarities of the homerow is surprising! Let's have a look at some keyboards layouts (no particular priority other than the most known QWERTY, DVORAK, COLEMAK).

Sorted homerow of selected layouts

Name
Qwerty	'	;	A			D		F	G	H		J	K	L					S
Dvorak	-		A			D	E			H	I				N	O			S	T	U
Colemak	'		A			D	E			H	I				N	O		R	S	T
Three Layout			A			D	E			H	I				N	O		R	S	T
Hands Down Neu	,		A	B			E			H	I	J			N			R	S	T
Engram	,	.	A		C		E			H	I				N		Q		S	T
Workman	'		A				E		G	H	I				N	O			S	T		Y
Canary	'		A		C		E	F	G		I				N			R	S	T

Notice a great similarity among them - of course with QWERTY being the most different to the rest.

Also notice the choice of infrequent letters:

• Dvorak prioritizing U, -
• Colemak prioritizing '
• Workman prioritizing Y, '
• HandsDown prioritizing B, J
• Engram prioritizing Q, C
• Canary prioritizing C, F

Actual homerow of selected layouts

Name
Qwerty	A	S	D	F	G	H	J	K	L	;	'
Dvorak	A	O	E	U	I	D	H	T	N	S	-
Colemak	A	R	S	T	D	H	N	E	I	O	'
Workman	A	S	H	T	G	Y	N	E	O	I	'
Canary	C	R	S	T	G	F	N	E	I	A	'
Hands Down Neu	R	S	N	T	B	,	A	E	I	H	J
Engram	C	I	E	A	,	.	H	T	S	N	Q
Three Layout	O	H	E	A	I	D	R	T	N	S

Visualisations

qwerty

dvorak

Colemak

hands down

Engram

canary

English Letter frequencies

Since the real estate of the home row is king, we should expect the most frequently used keys here. Of course there are considerations such as finger travel, same finger usage etc never the less it is interesting to compare with the letter frequencies of english. (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_frequency).

Letter	Frequency
E	12.7%
T	9.1%
A	8.2%
O	7.5%
I	7.0%
N	6.7%
S	6.3%
H	6.1%
R	6.0%
D	4.3%
L	4.0%
C	2.8%
U	2.8%
M	2.4%

Letter Frequency in the English Language

e t a o i n s r h l d c u m f p g w y b v k x j q z

Letter Frequency in the Oxford Dictionary

e a r i o t n s l c u d p m h g b f y w k v x z j q

Pitfalls of letter frequencies

A note on frequencies. There are a number of issues when turning to letter frequences during keyboard layout design

First, frequences reveals a lot about the language we read, but nothing about the language we edit. Editing is a big part of writing, so in order to design and choose a keyboard, one must understand how we interact with the keyboard while editing. E.g. backspace is probably one of the most used keys along with cursor keys! Use a keylogger! On windows a free privacy centered logger is https://github.com/kbilsted/KeyboordUsage

Second, there are differences between frequencies used in texts/books, and just ploving through dictionaries. Frequencies are also very language dependent E.g. the letter E is used more often in english than in german.

Third, the majority of people who are interested in tweaking their keyboard do programming activities, where frequencies of symbols such as ( { [ < , $ " \ : ; > ] } ) should be taken into consideration.

C# symbol and number frequencies

These frequencies are from a smallish personal collection. They are very scewed. For example, in the editor pressing /// will type out 9 slashes! When typing an open parenthesis such as ( the editor will auto complete ).

Finally AI models auto complete more and more code these days.. We must advice to use a keylogger to get real editing experiences

symbol	Count	Frequnecy
	477098	23,43%
\n	278341	13,67%
/	190978	9,38%
.	133025	6,53%
)	104010	5,11%
(	104005	5,11%
;	76137	3,74%
"	70453	3,46%
,	67650	3,32%
|	63009	3,09%
>	61351	3,01%
<	56574	2,78%
-	39304	1,93%
_	36189	1,78%
}	35930	1,76%
{	35887	1,76%
2	25278	1,24%
0	24924	1,22%
1	18393	0,90%
3	13470	0,66%
[	13393	0,66%
]	13387	0,66%
4	8573	0,42%
+	8555	0,42%

For an actual case stydy see CSharp code analysis vs keyloging.md

Layouts notes

a list of notes on keyboard layouts very limited keyboard layouts notes

Keyboard visualisation tools

• design keyboard layouts with layers
  • https://keymap-drawer.streamlit.app/
  • https://jaroslaw-weber.github.io/keyfab/
• design keyboard layouts with nice graphics http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/

other links

• search keyboard layouts https://www.keyboard-design.com/homerow-explorer.html

Keyboard layering

A very easy to understand and "low tech" approach is to remap the ALT keys as shown in the "Red-BLUE" layout. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92pRAQeRIak&ab_channel=RomanStrakhov

Appendix

Inspiring videos

• Gentle introduction to keyboard layout design principles (frequency, rolls, etc) and then how he designed a one-handed keyboard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDQXokCON-w&ab_channel=sandsquare
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McHurKmk-rQ&t=22s

Inspiring articles

• https://www.jonashietala.se/blog/2023/11/02/i_designed_my_own_keyboard_layout_was_it_worth_it/
• https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_a5Nzbkwyk1o0bvTctZrtgsee9jSP-6I0q3A0_9Mzm0/edit Go to document for understanding keyboard metrics

tooling

Keyboard Layout Files Creator https://github.com/39aldo39/klfc

Designing a programmers keyboard layout for programmers

from: http://xahlee.info/kbd/semicolon_vs_apostrophe_frequency_in_computer_languages.html

Here is a table of their frequency.

Semicolon and Apostrophe Frequency in Computer Languages

lang	semicolon ;	  apostrophe '
Java	      8.0%	  0.5%
C	          6.9%	  0.8%
C++	        3.5%	  0.2%
Python	    0.2%    10.6%
Ruby	      0.3%    4.4%
Bash	      1.1%    6.9%
PHP	        5.1%	   .5%
Perl	     4.9%     6.1%
JavaScript	5.2%	  6.8%

If you code {C, C++, Java}, then semicolon is far more frequent.

• If you code in {Python, Ruby, Bash}, apostrophe is ar more frequent.
• If you code in {PHP, Perl, JavaScript}, apostrophe s still more frequent.
• in English, the semicolon is almost never used, apostrophe is used often. (e.g. it's, that's, 'single quotes')

Various keyboard tricks

Keyboards Tips.md

Notes on short cuts

Various short cuts for programs and operating systems

Windows

• Jump-to or start application: Windows + <number>

• Outlook

  • Next item: Ctrl + .
  • Previous item: Ctrl + ,
  • Delete item: Ctrl + d