Ah a search turned up some old threads such as this:
https://forum.colemak.com/topic/2166-al … keyboards/

Good point there. I agree that many words create uncomfortable situations with Shift.

The Sean Wrona approach to this problem is sticky shift! You hit the Shift key instead of holding it down, and then your hand can gravitate back to home position which would mitigate the problem of your two examples.

The Archlinux Wiki has some of the best answers about XKB.

According to that, you can edit your shift key's function (or make a new one, but that's trickier!):

replace

   key <LFSH> {         [         Shift_L ] };

with

   key <LFSH> {         [         ISO_Level2_Latch ] };

I don't remember which file has the Shift key definition, but poke around in xkb/symbols to start with.

One cool thing you can do (not for super-fast Wrona typing but still cool) is make modifiers two-level. So both Shift keys together could be Shift Latch or Shift Lock (or Caps Lock), for instance.

Unless you're into recompiling your OS, you can safely forget about that sticky delay ttbomk.

Looks to me like it should work; are you absolutely sure you haven't borked it in any way? All capitalizations and symbols correct? Have you tried making the LShift into Control_L as a test? Did you delete the .xkm server and restart (as per my install script – may not be necessary though)?

If you look in symbols/shift, you'll see some cool examples. For test purposes, try editing for instance Shift_Lock to ISO_Level2_Latch under "lshift_both_shiftlock", and then set that option (for instance with my setxkb script or the setxkbmap command. Now your LShift should be normal shift but with RShift held down first it should be sticky.

Sticky Keys is built-into Windows, no need for AHK

And I thought Wrona uses Capslock, not Sticky Shift

i agree, but in practice when i tried Sticky Keys, i found sometimes that i would be pressing shift once and then releasing it, as if i had made a mistake and not wanted to use shift, but because now it was 'stuck' down for the next character, i was screwed

ah i missed that, yes thats an excellent solution

Thanks, Aldo! I actually thought about that but then forgot it again. Silly me.

Do you actually need this:

modifier_map Shift  { Shift_L, Shift_R, ISO_Level2_Latch };

...or is it okay to add on just the last one?

Steve: You can do this in the symbols/pc file (affects all pc model keyboards) or in your layout definition, as suits you.

Nice one, aldo39, that works!

There does seem to be a limitation: It only allows you to have ISO_Level2_Latch defined for one of the shift keys only.  That's not really a problem for my case though, I am experimenting with using Sticky shift on my third shift key (which I have called <MDSH> and is mapped to the left half of my space bar). For anyone interested, it looks like this:

    key <LFSH> {	[ Shift_L		]	};
    key <RTSH> {	[ Shift_R		]	};
    key <MDSH> {	[ ISO_Level2_Latch	]	};

    modifier_map Shift  { Shift_L, Shift_R, ISO_Level2_Latch };

This seems to work quite well. Shame it's not possible to set a time-delay though.

So instead of using Alt, I'm experimenting using Sticky Shift and I like it very much (using the AHK script from stevep99)

One thing I'm realizing, is just how uncomfortable it is to press the Right Shift key. I'm a traditional typist, using the "proper" fingering of pressing the shift key with the opposite hand that I'm using. But this isn't very comfortable, nor is it fast.

Pressing the right shift causes me to rotate and displace my wrist, removing me from my homerow resting position. I'm quite certain this has resulted in numerous errors and slowdowns for me. Which probably means I could increase speed and comfort substantially by just using left shift for all letters except QAZ. This goes hand in hand with the observation I had in the original post

Could even go to the extreme of mapping Right Shift to an extend layer for keys other than QAZ

...must...resist...temptation...   

OK, I can't deny it, I *would* recommend thumb shift.

I'd say the whole concept of having to tap a key while holding down a modifier with an opposite-side pinky, is fundamentally flawed.
It's almost as silly as, say, having the J key in the best position on the keyboard. Who could possibly want a keyboard like that??  :-P

Yeah that was my original goal with this thread, and why I was considering Alt, since Alt is placed nicely under the thumbs

However

Thumb shift doesn't solve the inherent problem that still exists: CHORDING.

Even if you use a thumb key for Shift, you still have to press two keys at the same time, and you have to release them at the exact same time. When typing at fast speeds, it becomes extremely hard to time it correctly without making typos and having an extra letter CAptalized for example

Thats why Wrona uses Capslock instead. And I think that's why Sticky Shift may work better for me. I'm curious to see if the AHK script will keep up or if it will have errors at high speeds