While messing around with some new layout ideas (R.Mouse and Gaming oriented) I found a quick little solution to something that has always bothered me. The quotation mark.

Now, you're probably wondering what on earth I am going on about. It is quite simple: whenever writing any dialog, the right pinkie gets hammered. How many times does a paragraph either begin or end with quotation marks? How many times does the dialog use a capital letter directly after the quotation mark?

Enter, L.Shift Quotation Mark, R.Shift F, a, r, Space, t, o, o, Space, o, f, t, e, n, R.Shift Bang, L.Shift Quotation Mark, Enter.

Characters typed: 18
R.Pinkie Same Finger count: 4

So, long story short, the quickest fix for this oversight: Key swap apostrophe and comma. Then swap comma and semi-colon to get comma out of the end zone.

Since I'm not doing anything too weird this time, simple, non-eye-destroying text art.

Colemak Vanilla
q  w  f  p  g    j  l  u  y  ;
A  R  S  T  d    h  N  E  I  O  '
z  x  c  v  b    k  m  ,  .  /


Colemak Main 31 Punctuation Fix
q  w  f  p  g    j  l  u  y  ,
A  R  S  T  d    h  N  E  I  O  ;
z  x  c  v  b    k  m  '  .  /


Colemak Main 31 Modified Punctuation Fix, (minus Row Jump)
q  w  f  p  g    j  l  u  y  /
A  R  S  T  d    h  N  E  I  O  ;
z  x  c  v  b    k  m  '  .  ,


Colemak Main 31 Optimized Lowercase Layer Punctuation
q  w  f  p  g    j  l  u  y  '
A  R  S  T  d    h  N  E  I  O  /
z  x  c  v  b    k  m  "  .  ,

Swap works on Colemak and and Qwerty style punctuation blocks, ex: Workman, Norman, Carpalx, etc. For Wide-Mod, don't use the modified version: leave comma on the top row. For Dvorak, just swap comma and apostrophe. For the current MTGAP, not sure yet. For Arensito... well, I'm just going to assume no one really uses Arensito and leave it at that.

The main goal here is to reduce same-finger on the pinkie. Comma and Enter are rarely used in sequence, so they are fine. Period and enter are used fairly frequently in sequence and should not be on the same finger. Shift layer optimization indicates that apostrophe and quotation marks should both be on the unshifted layer, and for command-line usability, / as well. Ideally, ... well, ideally Shift and Enter would be on thumb keys anyways, making this a moot point.

... or you could just use an autohotkey script to turn shift+space into Enter. Or use Dreymar's Bag o Tricks PKL file. Or give up on written language altogether for interpretive dance. Whatever.

For those curious about the gaming layouts: Keyboard optimized with the restriction that all keys left of the Qwerty TGB column must stay on the left. Or in other words, most shortcuts and gaming keys. WASD mostly maintained.

W-ASeD: Colemakian + Mod.Punctuation Fix (alpha)
q  W  f  r  y    j  l  p  u  /
A  S  e  D  g    h  N  T  I  O  ;
x  c  z  v  b    k  m  '  .  ,


W-ASeD Optimized around Mod. Punctuation Fix (alpha)
q  W  f  r  y    b  m  u  p  /
A  S  e  D  g    l  N  I  T  O  ;
x  v  z  c  j    k  h  '  .  ,

W-ASDe Optimized around Mod. Punctuation Fix (pre-alpha)
q  W  r  f  y    k  g  h  p  /
A  S  D  E  u    l  T  O  N  I  ;
x  v  z  c  j    b  m  '  .  ,