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Minidox

This design originated from Programmer Dvorak and evolved overtime on an Ergodox. The layout became more simplified and now is in a 36 key form factor. The original ErgoDox layout can be found here.

Dvorak aims to have keys pressed by alternate hands, this idea has spread throughout this layout. It is the reasoning for brackets being placed on opposite sides of the board and under dominant fingers on the home row.

The home row consists of modifier keys. Holding a key will activate a modifier, tapping will send the normal key. These modifiers are mirrored on both sides of the keyboard, with the exception of hyper being dedicated the the left side and meh being dedicated to the right. Use hyper and meh at the operating system level to open specific programs, this allows for fast application switching. The modifier ordeing is as follows:

shift, control, alt, super.

There are arguments to have these placed in a different order based on finger strength. However, this particular order is based off a traditional positioning that is found on a Mac based keyboard. It also allows for common ctrl based hotkeys to be conviently pressed on a dvorak layout.

Such as:

  • start of line (a)
  • end of line (e)
  • previous (p)
  • next (n)
  • inner jump list (i)
  • outer jump list (o)

These would be more difficult to press if the ctrl key was on the index finger.

Symbol placement is based on usages in Python and Typescript programming languages with respect to VIM key bindings. There has been intentional prevention of pressing sequential keys by the same finger (eg += is completed with a roll). This allows for the next finger in a sequence to be moved and ready to press the next key. Moving fingers in this way is more efficient, as moving one finger to press the next key is a major bottleneck.

Why 36 keys?

The idea is to restrict finger movement to only 1 unit away from the resting position. Creating a more lazy and effortless (physically) typing experience. Move the keys to the fingers, rather than the fingers to the keys.

Fingers are placed on the home (middle) row, with the thumb resting on the middle thumb cluster key.

Move less and be more accurate.

Why ortholinear?

Fingers naturally want to move up and down, not zig zag. Put your hand in the air and extend and contract your fingers, a keyboard should support this movement rather than requiring staggered movements to prevent typewriter jamming that is no longer an issue with electronic keyboards.

Why Dvorak?

An alternate layout to QWERTY that promotes using alternate hands, the home row and has a decent layout for VIM too. No longer are the days of finger gymnastics.

Is it slow?

It's more comfortable. Before changing layouts and moving to an ergonomic keyboard, I could regularly type at 150 wpm bursts. It felt strenuous.

Small form factor layouts are physically less demanding, Which is mostly achieved by switching away from QWERTY.

Using this keyboard, I can consistently can type content above 100 wpm and burst to 130.

There are plently of other avenues to approach first if improving typing speed is the goal, this is a journey of comfort.

What about the learning curve?

Create a layout that evolves with your workflow, that way the learning curve grows gradually with your needs.

What about going back to normal keyboards?

It's easy to switch back to a normal keyboard because a small split keyboard has a physical difference to a normal keyboard. This makes it easy for muscle memory to develop to both physical designs.

VIM

Go to begining of line is placed on the left side of the lefthome row: ^

Go to end of line is placed on the right side of the left home row: $

Easily repeat macros with dominant index finger: @

Go to next object under cursor with a strong index finger: *

Go to previous object under cursor with middle finger: #

  • Logical ordering would be to have # followed by *. The reasoning this is reversed is due to the original placement of the * in Programmer Dvorak and the desire to have this action driven by the index finger with the # placed immediately next to the * key. This can’t be achieved if the * is on the inner index finger column because then the same finger must be used to press the next column. Therefore, # appears after *.

Jump to closing bracket: %

Start searching: /

  • Placed towards the top right corner to maintain the desire to stretch to start this action

Dedicated escape key for the thumb.

Logical splits with - and | (horizontal and vertical)

Other symbols

Dedicated tmux leader key to prevent strange contorsions to press ctrl-b. This exists on the symbol layer to easily press consecutive common keys such as creating a split or moving to another session.

Dedicated up arrow key as this is widely used in various applications

  • For unix based programs, used ctrl-p and ctrl-n instead.

One handed operation

When using a dedicated navigation device such as a track pad or mouse, we can no longer can depend on the idea of alternating between halves of the keyboard. Common supplementary actions when using the input device are copy and paste. These keys can be accessed with a left hand chord via the Function layer.

Application switching behaviour can be achieved with the left side of keyboard via cmd-tab (home row mod for u and outer thumb key).

Auto shift keys

Hold ; to get :

Hold ' to get "

Layers

  1. Dvorak
 
 ,----------------------------------.           ,----------------------------------.
 |   ;  |   ,  |   .  |   P  |   Y  |           |   F  |   G  |   C  |   R  |   L  |
 |------+------+------+------+------|           |------+------+------+------+------|
 |   A  |   O  |   E  |   U  |   I  |           |   D  |   H  |   T  |   N  |   S  |
 | SHIFT| CTRL |  ALT | SUPER| HYPER|           | MEH  |SUPER | ALT  | CTRL |SHIFT |
 |------+------+------+------+------|           |------+------+------+------+------|
 |   '  |   Q  |   J  |   K  |   X  |           |   B  |   M  |   W  |   V  |   Z  |
 `----------------------------------'           `----------------------------------'
                ,-----------------------.    ,------,---------------.
                | Esc  | Space   |      |    |      | Enter  | Up   |
                |      |->SYMBOL |      |    |      |->MOUSE |      |
                `----------------| Tab  |    |BkSpc |--------+------.
                                 |      |    |      |
                                 `------'    `------'
  1. Mouse
 ,----------------------------------.           ,----------------------------------.
 |WhlClk|L Clk | M /\ |R Clk |      |           |      |      |WhlClk|      |      |
 |------+------+------+------+------|           |------+------+------+------+------|
 |Whl /\| M <  | M \/ | M >  |      |           |      |L Clk |Acc 1 |Acc 0 |R Clk |
 |------+------+------+------+------|           |------+------+------+------+------|
 |Whl \/|      |      |      |      |           |      |      |      |      |      |
 `----------------------------------'           `----------------------------------'
                  ,--------------------.    ,------,-------------.
                  |      | PLAY |      |    |      | ENTRY|      |
                  `-------------| NEXT |    |      |------+------.
                                |      |    |      |
                                `------'    `------'
  1. Symbol
 ,----------------------------------.           ,----------------------------------.
 |   `  |   &  |   +  |   =  |   @  |           |   !  |   *  |   #  |   /  |   |  |
 |------+------+------+------+------|           |------+------+------+------+------|
 |   ^  |   [  |   {  |   (  |   $  |           |   _  |   )  |   }  |   ]  |   -  |
 |------+------+------+------+------|           |------+------+------+------+------|
 |   ~  |   \  |   %  |   @  |PASTE |           | Tmux |   !  |L ARW |R ARW |   ?  |
 `----------------------------------'           `----------------------------------'
                  ,--------------------.    ,------,-------------.
                  |->FUNC|ENTRY |      |    |      | ->NUM| Down |
                  `-------------|      |    | Del  |------+------.
                                |      |    |      |
                                `------'    `------'
  1. Number
 ,----------------------------------.           ,----------------------------------.
 |      |      |      |      |      |           |      |   7  |   8  |   9  |      |
 |------+------+------+------+------|           |------+------+------+------+------|
 |      |      |      |      |      |           |      |   4  |   5  |   6  |      |
 |------+------+------+------+------|           |------+------+------+------+------|
 |      |      |      |      |      |           |      |   1  |   2  |   3  |      |
 `----------------------------------'           `----------------------------------'
                  ,--------------------.    ,------,-------------.
                  |      |      |      |    |      | ENTRY|   0  |
                  `-------------|      |    |      |------+------.
                                |      |    |      |
                                `------'    `------'
  1. Function
 ,----------------------------------.           ,----------------------------------.
 |RESET |      |      |      |      |           |      | F7   | F8   | F9   | F10  |
 |------+------+------+------+------|           |------+------+------+------+------|
 |      |      |      |      |      |           |      | F4   | F5   | F6   | F11  |
 |------+------+------+------+------|           |------+------+------+------+------|
 |      |      |      |COPY  |PASTE |           |      | F1   | F2   | F3   | F12  |
 `----------------------------------'           `----------------------------------'
                  ,--------------------.    ,------,-------------.
                  |ENTRY |      |      |    |      |      |      |
                  `-------------|      |    |      |------+------.
                                |      |    |      |
                                `------'    `------'

Improvement Considerations

Trigger the symbol layer directly from the right side of the keyboard (middle thumb cluster key). This will provide access to the space bar but will disrupt other configurations such as the mouse layer which also manages media controls. cmd + backtick needs to be accounted for as a gesture that can be achieved with just one hand.

Trigger the number layer directly from the left side of the keyboard (middle thumb cluster key), without needing to traverse via the symbol layer. This would result in both hands being engaged on the keyboard to engage the number layer. Likely can be solved with some smart layering approach.