This is a concept design which I developed over a period of months. The backstory is on my blog.
However as a result of my work looking for a better key layout than Workman-P, it is unlikely to be built, as the design, while nicely balanced and
apparently convenient for programmers, has some flaws.
The first of these is the placement of the space bars. So I moved them, and one thing led to another, and we ended up with Version 2
However the design is still interesting, if only for showing off the capabilities of the
Keyboard Layout Editor.
A quick overview of some of the design features:
- Integrated Pomodoro timer (the red buttons next to Escape).
- All keys are marked without words, making it language-independent. I tried to use Unicode official symbols on the keys,
except for Escape, because I couldn't get a nice glyph. I fixed this in version 2. Likewise with the OS symbol.
- Hotkey functions accessed via the Control key are labelled in blue, as is Control.
- "Programmer"-style numrow layout.
- Brackets on the centre block, idea is to make it convenient to hit them without needing modifiers. Most common are close to Home row, if
you are doing HTML or PHP/Perl. You could rearrange the order if necessary.
- Comma and period placed close to Numpad, on Home row.
- Enter key (dual) hit with thumb. At that point I was still under the impression that we hit Enter a lot, but we actually don't.
- Home and End keys split into four keys, so that you don't need to hit Crtl-Home to go to start of document, etc. Also the layout
makes it possible to swap this cluster with the arrow keys, if you are left handed. Also, possible to use these keys instead of WASD in games.
Well that was the idea :-).
- A "Magic" key which was intended to access functions programmed into the board. Also a Function key f(x), was not sure exactly how these
would be used, but expected gamers would have ideas...
- Quote and DoubleQuote on separate keys, close to Home row.
- The bottom centre cluster has PageUp/PageDown, Insert/Overwrite, Delete, and one-key access to common functions normally accessed via
Cntrl: Cut, Copy, Paste, Undo, SelectAll, Redo.
- Dual Tab keys
- Dual Backspace AND Delete keys, where the shift state is flipped.
- No CapsLock, you can lock caps with Shift-Shift.
- Multimedia controls on Numpad, accessed with Magic key.
- Some extra currency symbols accessed via Ctrl: Pound, Yen, Euro, Bitcoin.
- Windows key replaced with OS-neutral symbol. This symbol was replaced in version 2 with Unicode symbol.
- QWERTY symbols printed on front of key in case OS thinks it is a QWERTY layout (eg before it loads required layout).
- Math symbols on numpad. The dash (used in text too) is close to Home row, as is / (for HTML-style languages).
- Layout is slightly modified Workman-P, at the time I thought it was the best available.
Download the KLE .json file
Open in KLE
