Split Keyboards Are Superior And The Reason I’m The Writer I Am Today.
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You will encounter this man at work.
They will ask for your help with something on their workstation, and it would be faster for you to drive with them watching over your shoulder, but this cryptic thing is their keyboard.
Instead, you will be forced to sit behind them like Patrick Swayze guiding Demi Moore at a throwing wheel. You will eventually take your shirt off, launch Unchained Melody in Spotify, then slowly guide them through a system setting panel.
You will notice how soft their hands feel. The hyper-ergonomic keyboard has allowed their fingers to move with minimal effort, allowing the skin to remain as supple, smooth - almost unused.
You will ask yourself, “Is he right?” How could a keyboard be so aggressive and wrong, and yet, support something so gentile.
You try to deny the feeling. Your friends and family will mock you like your uncle Dvorak. Maybe you start with a trackball and see if being naughty feels right.
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I'm going through this currently trying to find a privacy respecting Android keyboard.
Latest effort is Futo, recommended by a coworker. So far, I don't like it.
As a fellow Futo user: it's not great out of the box. My biggest recommendations are:
- under Languages and models, download all the voice models (if you use those), transformers, and wordlists you can for your languages
- if you use multiple languages, set the check on "multilingual typing" for ALL of those languages
- this is probably the biggest one: in text prediction -> Advanced Parameters, DRASTICALLY change the values. The original ones are 3.4 and 4.0 for LLM strength and autocorrect threshold, mine are currently set at 28.5 and 0.8, respectively. This takes the autocorrect from "occasionally working" to "as good as SwiftKey" for me.
- Keyboard and Typing -> Long Press -> Show hints. Could not find that for ages so thought I'd add it here.
Also, two super useful shortcuts: you can press the space-bar and move your finger around to move the pointer; and the same for backspace to fine-control what to delete.
Hope this helps, but if not... What additional gripes do you habe with it?
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My favorite has always been the Kensington Orbit. Probably a lot of people - even those who like Trackballs - would disagree, but I've been happily using these for around 25 years. Except in Minecraft.
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As a fellow Futo user: it's not great out of the box. My biggest recommendations are:
- under Languages and models, download all the voice models (if you use those), transformers, and wordlists you can for your languages
- if you use multiple languages, set the check on "multilingual typing" for ALL of those languages
- this is probably the biggest one: in text prediction -> Advanced Parameters, DRASTICALLY change the values. The original ones are 3.4 and 4.0 for LLM strength and autocorrect threshold, mine are currently set at 28.5 and 0.8, respectively. This takes the autocorrect from "occasionally working" to "as good as SwiftKey" for me.
- Keyboard and Typing -> Long Press -> Show hints. Could not find that for ages so thought I'd add it here.
Also, two super useful shortcuts: you can press the space-bar and move your finger around to move the pointer; and the same for backspace to fine-control what to delete.
Hope this helps, but if not... What additional gripes do you habe with it?
This seems like a good starting point. Thank you for the recommendations; I'll reach out with potential future gripes.
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I think one of my favorite keyboards ever was a Microsoft “Natural” keyboard. I think they were available in the mid ’90s or so. Not quite a real split keyboard, but the ergonomics were great. I think I gave it away…it was great for typing, but I wanted a simpler keyboard for gaming.
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My favorite has always been the Kensington Orbit. Probably a lot of people - even those who like Trackballs - would disagree, but I've been happily using these for around 25 years. Except in Minecraft.
Why are you so vehemently opposed to the use of trackballs in minecraft?
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Why are you so vehemently opposed to the use of trackballs in minecraft?
I wouldn't characterize it as vehemence, but rather a combination of consistency and honesty. People are fairly consistently surprised at my enthusiasm for gaming with trackballs, as though it's automatically a detriment; I don't find it to be so, except in Minecraft, so I don't want to represent it as other than it is.
With the style of trackball I use - ball in the middle, left and right click on their respective sides of the ball - and the way I use it - thumb on left click, index and middle finger on the ball, ring and pinky on right click - right clicking can be a stressor. This isn't a problem when tapping once or holding, such as when engaging a scope; but when repeatedly right clicking, it tires whatever muscles and tendons run between the outside of my hand and my shoulder, which already has its own problems.
Minecraft is the only game I play that requires me to repeatedly right click. (I know that now you can right click and drag to place lots of blocks, but that hasn't always been true and doesn't really allow for precision in my experience.) Therefore, it is the only game to which I feel my trackball is not well suited.
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Fun fact: that's Elijah Wood and it's his first film role
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I think one of my favorite keyboards ever was a Microsoft “Natural” keyboard. I think they were available in the mid ’90s or so. Not quite a real split keyboard, but the ergonomics were great. I think I gave it away…it was great for typing, but I wanted a simpler keyboard for gaming.
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I've used plenty of ergo keyboards and fancy layouts, but as soon as I try to use a regular keyboard I have to re-learn how to type and it really halts any productivity.
This sort of thing may be nice if you only ever use one computer or you're willing to pack around your keyboard.
Even still, I never liked ergo boards enough to think it's worth the effort, especially considering being useless on other keyboards once I'm used to ergo.
Now I just stick to a 75% or TKL. Keeps me versatile.
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Split keyboard + a tiling window manager made my life better
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You will encounter this man at work.
They will ask for your help with something on their workstation, and it would be faster for you to drive with them watching over your shoulder, but this cryptic thing is their keyboard.
Instead, you will be forced to sit behind them like Patrick Swayze guiding Demi Moore at a throwing wheel. You will eventually take your shirt off, launch Unchained Melody in Spotify, then slowly guide them through a system setting panel.
You will notice how soft their hands feel. The hyper-ergonomic keyboard has allowed their fingers to move with minimal effort, allowing the skin to remain as supple, smooth - almost unused.
You will ask yourself, “Is he right?” How could a keyboard be so aggressive and wrong, and yet, support something so gentile.
You try to deny the feeling. Your friends and family will mock you like your uncle Dvorak. Maybe you start with a trackball and see if being naughty feels right.
I used to know a person who used this line to describe one thing about themselves: “I use Dvorak layout..”
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I wouldn't characterize it as vehemence, but rather a combination of consistency and honesty. People are fairly consistently surprised at my enthusiasm for gaming with trackballs, as though it's automatically a detriment; I don't find it to be so, except in Minecraft, so I don't want to represent it as other than it is.
With the style of trackball I use - ball in the middle, left and right click on their respective sides of the ball - and the way I use it - thumb on left click, index and middle finger on the ball, ring and pinky on right click - right clicking can be a stressor. This isn't a problem when tapping once or holding, such as when engaging a scope; but when repeatedly right clicking, it tires whatever muscles and tendons run between the outside of my hand and my shoulder, which already has its own problems.
Minecraft is the only game I play that requires me to repeatedly right click. (I know that now you can right click and drag to place lots of blocks, but that hasn't always been true and doesn't really allow for precision in my experience.) Therefore, it is the only game to which I feel my trackball is not well suited.
Have you considered remapping that control away from right click?
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Sawme here! Honmestly I dom"t thinkl I coukd ever go vack tp a mormal keyboard ¶¶¶¶
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I think one of my favorite keyboards ever was a Microsoft “Natural” keyboard. I think they were available in the mid ’90s or so. Not quite a real split keyboard, but the ergonomics were great. I think I gave it away…it was great for typing, but I wanted a simpler keyboard for gaming.
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You don't use a spilt keyboard set to colemak exclusively running Emacs weird
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So is this the new trend after 60% mechanical keyboards, ultrawide monitors or immutable distros ?
Maybe it would improve my typing speed, but I've been using a conventional keyboard layout for so long now, I'm fine with where I'm at. Almost thirty years of muscular memory made it "hard coded" in my hands.
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