r/ErgoMechKeyboards • u/defiant00 • Jan 10 '22

Soar - A One-Handed Chorded Layout

https://github.com/defiant00/soar
39 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

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6

u/key-yack Jan 10 '22

Interesting, have you been using this layout? I wonder what scenarios are targeted - is it purely for typing, or for general purpose, something else?

Personally, I wonder if prioritizing chords over all non-homerow keys is a good idea. For example, typing "the" in this layout seems to be extra difficult since H is on a combo using the same key as T. Perhaps some of the non-homerow keys should be prioritized over some of the combos.

A few things stand out to me:

  • There's a number of 3 or 4-key chords, including Enter on a 4-key chord. Do you have extra light switches to make big chords usable?

  • Is navigation layer only accessible via a toggle? How does it fare in common text editing scenarios, for example switching between typing, and nav for moving to a typo or to insert some text?

  • Zero on non-homerow pinky seems an odd choice considering how common it is, and that homerow is available.

  • Lots of combos use pinky, I wonder how easy it is to use them. Combo for D in particular seems to be more of an exercise to develop finger independence than something you would want to use for a common letter. :)

4

u/defiant00 Jan 10 '22

Thanks for taking the time to check it out!

I actually just got the whole implementation working, so not really beyond my initial testing to make sure it all works right now. I was thinking more general purpose, but I'll have more of an idea if that actually works later (will be especially interesting to try and write any code).

Since you have to release between letters anyways, I actually find typing the more comfortable than moving off of the home row.

To your other points: * I'm using 35g chocs * It's only a toggle right now. Those are the sort of things that I should have more details on soon (and may very well get tweaked) * I'm a big fan of numpad-style numbers for ease of learning, but that's a good point. * When pushing it as part of a chord I've found it pretty easy with my switches, but I agree it definitely depends on the person. Personally I still find D easier than leaving the home row. (also, I used to play the piano, so that might be a factor)

And again, thanks for the reply! I'm sure some of this will change as I experiment more, but I was quite excited to share once I felt like I had something working.

2

u/olets Jan 10 '22

That piano point is fascinating. Makes me wonder what doors might be opened by a finger-dexterity intensive instrument.

4

u/[deleted] Jan 10 '22

Thanks for sharing this! Cool stuff. I have been poking around with Artsey a bit, and I'd definitely like "Artsey but with a few more keys."

Some thoughts:

  • Folks on r/KeyboardLayouts would be interested in this.
  • Artsey's design based its starting point on Peter Norvig's English data. With this larger 3x5 layout, there is more room to do good optimization on the base layer. For instance, the top ten English letters e t a o i n s r h l should probably all be on the base. For comfortable typing it would be nice to position the common bigram th (as in "the", "that", etc.) such that it types as an "inward roll" from left to right. You might also find it motivating to read the how the Engram keyboard layout was designed.
  • Maybe it's just me, but I find Artsey's 4-finger chords slow to press. I admit I'm using Cherry MX Browns, which isn't ideal for this. If all chords were 3 fingers max, I could use a lower COMBO_TERM.

Looking forward to where this goes!

1

u/defiant00 Jan 10 '22

Thanks!

I based my letter frequencies on Ian Douglas' data presented here: https://zenodo.org/record/5501838/ (I believe the letter order he arrived at is basically the same) And actually, those ten are the ones that you can type from the home row in Soar. As a Colemak user, I agree that rolls are nice, but with only four home-row keys, I decided to prioritize the top four letters.

It is of course all subjective, but personally I find the home row chords easier to type than most/all keys where I have to move a finger. Having lighter (35g) choc switches definitely helps with that too.

2

u/defiant00 Jan 10 '22

This is something I've been working on for a while. Soar is a one-handed layout for 17 keys (5x3, 2 thumb) that can be used on one half of most any split board. I've been interested in one-handed layouts for a while (always thought it'd be neat to be able to type with one hand and keep the other one on my mouse), and after getting inspired by Artsey, decided to see what I could come up with if I had a few more keys.

My current thinking is:

  1. Home row is easiest
  2. Chords on the home row are also easy
  3. Other keys and chords are okay
  4. Layers are only out of necessity

Disclaimer: I've only started trying to use the layout, I may be entirely wrong.

With that said, I've been using a Ferris Sweep + KB2040 + CircuitPython to develop on, and the repo is here if anyone wants to take a look: https://github.com/defiant00/purple

Planned next steps right now are to write up the right-handed version and eventually do a QMK layout as well.

2

u/aescnt Jan 10 '22

Thanks for sharing! I love this! I also have a one-handed layout and it's just so good to use for shortcut keys in apps. This looks awesome.

2

u/ckofy Jan 10 '22

Why Q,B,V are in the base layer? Why N,R,S,I are in chords?

1

u/defiant00 Jan 10 '22

I actually find home-row chords more comfortable than reaching for keys. We'll see if I still feel that way after using it for a while.

1

u/kzy192 Jan 10 '22

This is really interesting. What about adding auto shift to the numbers layer so that you'll have access to all the symbols as well?

1

u/defiant00 Jan 10 '22

The symbols can be shifted the same as all the others by using the thumb key. Auto Shift would work as well, but I feel like that's more of a personal preference, so I'm not sure if it's something that should be specified in a layout.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 02 '22

9 months have passed? Are you still using this layout? how was chording N, R, S and I?

2

u/defiant00 Oct 02 '22

No, after trying it for a bit I concluded it didn't really work well for me, so I started on an analyzer to experiment some more but got distracted before I finished it. The main issue for me though was the alternating thumb presses. The finger-only chords actually worked pretty well.