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How to find the optimal layout and be sure about it?

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timw4mail:

--- Quote from: KnowArt on Thu, 16 September 2021, 10:48:15 ---Thanks for the recommendation. Interesting site! I'll have a look if his program is of any use for me :)

One of the problems recurring in most different layouts is that they almost always use a regular keyboard design. Horizontally staggered and 6 keys per index finger, while leaving all the real estate that's occupied with ,.;'/[ alone. Especially the 6 key index finger problem is a tough one... everyone seems to be doing it and for the keyboard design I have in mind it's not applicable. But maybe his program is customizable. I'll have a look

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Are you saying the index fingers should handle more than 6 keys, and/or be ortholinear?

KnowArt:


Are you saying the index fingers should handle more than 6 keys, and/or be ortholinear?

[/quote]

no! yes! ideally we'd get rid of two letters in the alphabet (Q and C) and give all fingers 3 keys. But as that's maybe somewhat too radical, so we have to compromise and give the index fingers 4 keys. Ortholinear? definitely not staggered horizontally, but this 4th key might be best placed to the side.

timw4mail:

--- Quote from: KnowArt on Thu, 16 September 2021, 15:26:04 ---no! yes! ideally we'd get rid of two letters in the alphabet (Q and C) and give all fingers 3 keys. But as that's maybe somewhat too radical, so we have to compromise and give the index fingers 4 keys. Ortholinear? definitely not staggered horizontally, but this 4th key might be best placed to the side.

--- End quote ---

By my count, on a standard ANSI keyboard, the right pinky has 13 keys (10 character keys), and the left 8 (5 character keys and tab), not counting the bottom row of modifiers. The middle and ring fingers each have 4 keys, counting the number row, and the index fingers 8.

I wonder why the thumbs only have the space bar. Perhaps a row under the space bar with the most common punctuation would be a good way to take some of the load off of the more overused fingers.

iandoug:
Bit of a delayed reply, but anyway ...

You are not going to brute-force it. Especially in Python.

Take a look at the Engram layout for some ideas.
https://engram.dev/

I actually did what you want to do last year, I need to write the paper. One of the results was the Poqtea keyboards.
https://www.keyboard-design.com/letterlayout.html?layout=poqtea.en.ansi
https://www.keyboard-design.com/letterlayout.html?layout=poqtea-qp.en.ansi

These kept ZXCV. Still need to evaluate the rest.

Most attempts at this have 2 steps: 1) generate layouts using some clever algorithm, 2) evaluate, repeat.

They screw up the second step and get bad results. The problem is they try to do a fast evaluation, typically based on bigrams only, because doing a proper evaluation is too slow.

Cheers, Ian

fortissim2:
Putting only 4 keys on the index finger isn't a great idea IMO. Indexes are pretty strong overall, so maybe let pinkies have 2 keys and indexes have 5 keys instead.

However, I did make a random layout that may fit your needs. Feel free to do whatever you want with it.


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