I've finished running most of the layouts through code and English tests. The ANSI layout that came out on top in Den's KLATest version is this one, made by me from one of Den's, a long time ago:
https://www.keyboard-design.com/letterl … -3.en.ansi
Which not only has right thumb living on AltGr, but dual shift even further to the right under the hand.
So I'm considering "banning" layouts like that as "too painful to actually use". Which will kill quite a few layouts... there are many trying to use AltGr on ANSI with the thumb living on it. Ergo layouts are a different story.
Den also had a few that required one finger pressing two keys at once ... which may work in practice on a Kinesis, but think it's cheating the scoring in KLA...
Cheers, Ian
]]>I think the much trickier issue is how to handle things like modifier changes, the various thumb-key combination, etc. And even more complicatedly: home row modifiers, dual-role keys etc. These more advanced features are harder to model, so analyzers tend to conveniently ignore them for the most part. Most of the effort goes on thinking about finger usage, but thumbs are somewhat overlooked. It's certainly an area that needs more thinking about, especially now that ergo boards with lots of thumb keys are becoming more common.
I guess ideally we'd need some sort of generic model of the human hand which could be applied to all sorts of weird and wonderful layout ideas!
]]>Am busy retesting all layouts.
Am keen to compare apples with apples, in the interests of fairness.
So on one level, don't compare ergo layouts with ANSI.
On the other, there are different design decisions that people have taken with ANSI layouts.
I previously had these:
Keys just rearranged (eg Colemak, Workman, and only the "30 keys")
Keys + modifiers rearranged
Keys relabeled (eg MTGap)
Requires AltGr
Letter on thumb
Cases are split
But people do other things ...
top row altered
new shift pairs
rearranged non-chars
uses AltGr for standard chars
move enter key
and various combinations or subsets of these.
So, what is a fair way to group categories of layouts, without ending up with 20 categories?
Or do we need to tag a layout with assorted "characteristics"?
Feedback welcome, thanks ;-)
Thanks, Ian
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