splitRest Keyboard Layout Mod Method

What is splitRest?

• splitRest is a method for modifying a keyboard layout to achieve
  • split hand positioning
    • increased distance between hands of two key-widths
  • increased "at-rest" hand positioning
    • remove vast majority of contexts when hands need to move away from "home" position
  • improved locations of modifier keys
    • through key overloading

Why splitRest?

• improved typing ergonomics
  • more nature hand positioning
  • fewer and shorter hand movements
  • less straining key-chords
• bring wider range of symbols within muscle memory
• faster typing
• can be based on an existing layout (qwerty, colemak)
  • reduced need to retrain muscle memory
• implemented at the software level with no specific hardware requirements

Current Limitations and Issues

• assumes certain modifiers are currently unused (hyper), may be an issue for some programs/contexts (emacs?)
• some software interferes with non-standard modifier key implementation (e.g. firefox, keepass)
• currently implemented for colemak-base only
• limited testing
• works on x windowing system only
• extremely limited testing
  • 6 months' single system usage (arch linux, i3wm, urxvt, vim)

splitRest(colemak) Example

• currently splitRest has only been implemented for Colemak
• below are examples of how the different layers work for Colemak

Base Layer

Key press-and-release effects when no modifiers are held

1. return and tab centrally located for thumbs
   • especially makes tab-completion much faster and more comfortable
2. increased spacing of two keys between home position of left and right hand
   • improved ergonomics through more straight wrists
   • makes modifier keys close to space bar easier to reach and better candidates for frequent use
3. alphabetic symbols match those of Colemak, as do comma and period
   • limits need to retrain from Colemak
4. apostrophe and colon avaiable without modifier
   • for VIM: colon to enter command-line mode, and apostrophe can be set to enter insert mode
   • escape avaiable on either hand without moving hands out of home-position
5. function keys brought one row down

Numeric Layer

Numerical digits and symbols often used in numerical contexts

• location of numerical digit optimised based on frequency of usage (typically 0 > 1 > ... > 9)

• numerical digits are located in a left-hand cluster

• middle row contains most frequenty used numbers

• bottom row has only odd digits, top only even ones

• modifier key for numerical layer is dedicated

• some non-numerical symbols also included to avoid unnecessary modifier-key switching

Brackets Layer

brackets of various types extensively used in programming and science

• left- and right brackets paired for each type
• frequency of use determine location
  1. parentheses ()
  2. curly {}
  3. angle <>
  4. square []

Modifiers Layer

modifiers controlled by thumbs to maximum extent (strong fingers)

• spacebar acts as shift if held down

  • frees up left and right shift keys to be used as control keys

• Hyper_R is used for a dedicated numeric layer

• Meta_L is used as a dedicated brackets layer

• both ISO_Level_3_Shift and ISO_Level_5_Shift are used fort he primary mod layer

• both Super_L and Super_R are used fort the secondary mod layer