Carpalx optimizes keyboard layouts to create ones that require less effort and significantly reduced carpal strain!
Have ideas? Tell me.
the best layout
Partially optimized QWKRFY and fully optimized QGMLWY layouts are the last word in easier typing.
the worst layout
A fully anti-optimized TNWMLC layout is a joke and a nightmare. It's also the only keyboard layout that has its own fashion line.
download and explore
Download keyboard layouts, or run the code yourself to explore new layouts. Carpalx is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
layouts
Download and install the layouts.
README
___ __ | \ \ / / ___ __ _ _ __ _ __ __ _| |\ V / / __/ _` | '__| '_ \ / _` | | > < | (_| (_| | | | |_) | (_| | |/ . \ \___\__,_|_| | .__/ \__,_|_/_/ \_\ | | |_| v0.12 carpalX - keyboard layout optimizer - save your carpals http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx Martin KrzywinskiORIENTATION Lots of typing for 10 years can leave your hands looking like cranky twigs. Moving that pinky over and over again and rotating the wrist. Ouch. Your fingers deserve better. carpalx is a keyboard layout optimizer. Given a training corpus (e.g. English text) and parameters that describe typing effort, carpalx uses simulated annealing to find a keyboard layout to minimize typing effort. Typing effort is modeled using three contributions - base effort derived from finger travel distance - row, hand and finger penalties to limit use of weaker fingers/hands and distinguish harder-to-reach keys - stroke path effort, a complex figure of merit that rates the effort based on finger, row and hand alternation (e.g. asd is much easier to type than sad - this is captured by the stroke path effort) INSTALLATION To install, untar the distribution > tar xcvf carpalx-x.xx.tgz > cd carpax-x.xx Binaries are in bin/ and the first line of each script should be adjusted to reflect the location of your perl binary. For example, if you are using /usr/bin/perl, then change #!/home/martink/bin/perl to #!/usr/bin/perl Each script has a manpage that can be accessed using -man. For example, bin/generatetriads -man For brief usage, bin/generatetriads -h CONFIGURATION Optimization is performed by the carpalx script and all others in bin/ are utility scripts that are not necessary for carpalx. However, they are helpful in generated useful data files (e.g. triad lists). carpalx uses an Apache-like configuration file which defines variable-value pairs that control the script. Several configuration files are found in etc/ and these are discussed in the online tutorials (etc/tutorial-xx.conf). Documentation for carpalx is available in the form of tutorials, e.g. http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?keyboard_statistics EXPERIMENTATION carpalx is a sandbox keyboard simulator - experiment, have fun and drop me a line if you find anything interesting!