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For the past three years I've used the Moonlander[1] as my work keyboard whenever I'm sat at my desk. It's a wonderful keyboard and I can't recommend it enough; its pretty pricey but as someone whose profession relies on them sitting a desk all day it's easily worth it. It's a split columnar keyboard meaning that there are two pieces that can be positioned so that the shoulders, elbows, and wrists are all in a comfortable angle and not twisted at all. The columnar layout, meaning that there is no stagger like normal keyboards, means that each finger mostly moves up and down rather than shifting a little left and a little right to hit the right keys. In other words, its how a keyboard ought to be designed.
Here's a diagram of the Moonlander keyboard, with its columnar layout (shown as ortholinear here) and thumb clusters. The resting position of the index fingers are shown with periods.
╭─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─╮ ╭─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─╮ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┤ ├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┤ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┤ ├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┤ │ │ │ │ │.│ │ │ │ │ │.│ │ │ │ │ ├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─╯ ╰─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┤ │ │ │ │ │ │ │╭───╮ ╭───╮│ │ │ │ │ │ │ ├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─╯├─┬─┼─╮ ╭─┼─┬─┤╰─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┤ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ╰─┴─┴─┴─┴─╯ ╰─┴─┴─╯ ╰─┴─┴─╯ ╰─┴─┴─┴─┴─╯
I use colemak-dh as my keyboard layout which minimises the awkward horizontal movement of fingers, as the less common letters of b, g, v, j, m, and k are located there. I've then gone even further and chosen not to use the other keys that require horizonal movement. I use to use the outer most columns for modifiers, but I don't anymore.
On the thumb clusters I have a few other common keys, but that's it. I simply don't use the majority of the keys that the keyboard has. I have wondered whether a smaller keyboard would suit me even better.
╭─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─╮ ╭─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─╮
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┤ ├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┤
│ │q│w│f│p│b│ │ │ │j│l│u│y│;│ │
├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┤ ├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┤
│ │a│r│s│t│g│ │ │ │m│n│e│i│o│ │
├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─╯ ╰─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┤
│ │z│x│c│d│v│╭───╮ ╭───╮│k│h│,│.│/│ │
├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─╯┢━┳━╈━┓ ┏━╈━┱─┤╰─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┤
│ │ │ │ │ │ ┃ ┃ ┃ ┃ ┃ ┃ ┃ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
╰─┴─┴─┴─┴─╯ ┗┳┻┳┻┳┛ ┗┳┻┳┹─╯ ╰─┴─┴─┴─┴─╯
Space ━┛ ┃ ┃ ┃ ┗━ Enter
Backspace ━━━┛ ┃ ┗━━━ Tab
Escape ━━━━━┛
So how do I enter numbers, symbols, upper case letters, etc? Well, I use chords. I hold multiple keys at once, like playing a piano. The home row on each side are the modifiers that when held with other keys cause a different key to be entered.
- The index finger is shift
- The middle finger is ctrl
- The ring finger is command/meta
- The pinky is for numbers and symbols
- And to reach the arrow keys, I move the index finger towards the middle
On the left side, that looks like this:
├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┤ │ │#│⌘│^│⇧│→│ │ ├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─╯ ┃ ┃ ┃ ┗ index finger ┃ ┃ ┗━━ middle finger ┃ ┗━━━━ ring finger ┗━━━━━━ pinky finger
When tapped they enter their letter key, but when tapped with other keys they act as modifiers. They're always underneath my fingers so they're quick to tap and require no movement. I find this much better than having to move my fingers to hold a shift or ctrl key. This alone, however is not enough as it would be impossible to tell whether a tap with both index fingers is for a capital T or a capital N.
To distinguish between whether the home-row key being pressed is for a modifier or its normal action, one of the outer-most keys on the thumb-clusters is also held to denote which side of the board is being used for modifiers. Again, if tapped they perform the designated key (in this case space or nothing), but when tapped with other keys they denote which side the modifiers are on.
All this is to say, that if I want to enter a number I simultaneously press three keys:
- The left outer-most key on the thumb cluster to enable left-side modifiers
- The pinky on the home row for numbers
- And then also a key on the right side for the desired number
The number keys on the right side are laid out like a num pad. As an aside, I think this is a must for anyone with a keyboard that supports layers. Reaching up to the top to enter numbers is ridiculous. Being able to enter multiple numbers with one's right hand is clearly the better approach.
╭─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─╮ ╭─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─╮
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┤ ├─┼─╆━┿━┿━╅─┼─┤
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┃7│8│9┃ │ │
├─╆━╅─┼─┼─┼─┼─┤ ├─┼─╂─┼─┼─╂─┼─┤
┏━┿━┫ ┃ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┃4│5│6┃ │ │
┃ ├─╄━╃─┼─┼─┼─┼─╯ ╰─┼─╂─┼─┼─╂─┼─┤
┃ │ │ │ │ │ │ │╭───╮ ╭───╮│ ┃1│2│3┃ │ │
┃ ├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─╯┢━┱─┼─╮ ╭─┼─┬─┤╰─╄━┿━╅─╂─┼─┤
┃ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┃ ┃ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┃0┣┓│ │
┃ ╰─┴─┴─┴─┴─╯ ┗┳┹─┴─╯ ╰─┴─┴─╯ ╰─┴─┺━┹╂┴─╯
┃ ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━┻━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ ┃
┃ ┃1. means modifier is on the left┃ ┃
┃ ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛ ┃
┃ ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ ┃
┗━━┫2. set numbers mode on the right┃ ┃
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛ ┃
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ ┃
┃3. 3rd key selects a number┣━━━━━━━┛
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
If I want arrows, I do the same except use my left-index to tap the arrows modifier
╭─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─╮ ╭─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─╮
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┤ ├─┼─┼─╆━╅─┼─┼─┤
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┃↑┃ │ │ │
├─┼─┼─┼─┼─╆━╅─┤ ├─┼─╆━╃─╄━╅─┼─┤
┏━┿━┿━┿━┿━┿━┫ ┃ │ │ │ ┃←│↓│→┣┓│ │
┃ ├─┼─┼─┼─┼─╄━╃─╯ ╰─┼─╄━┿━┿━╃╂┼─┤
┃ │ │ │ │ │ │ │╭───╮ ╭───╮│ │ │ │ │┃│ │
┃ ├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─╯┢━┱─┼─╮ ╭─┼─┬─┤╰─┼─┼─┼─┼╂┼─┤
┃ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┃ ┃ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │┃│ │
┃ ╰─┴─┴─┴─┴─╯ ┗┳┹─┴─╯ ╰─┴─┴─╯ ╰─┴─┴─┴╂┴─╯
┃ ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━┻━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ ┃
┃ ┃1. means modifier is on the left┃ ┃
┃ ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛ ┃
┃ ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ ┃
┗━━┫2. set arrows mode on the right┃ ┃
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛ ┃
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ ┃
┃3. 3rd key selects a direction┣━━━━┛
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
Or if I want a capital letter from the right side of the board I tap my left index down as part fo the chord.
╭─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─╮ ╭─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─╮
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┤ ├─╆━┿━┿━┿━┿━╅─┤
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┃J│L│U│Y│:┃ │
├─┼─┼─┼─╆━╅─┼─┤ ├─╂─┼─┼─┼─┼─╂─┤
┏━┿━┿━┿━┿━┫ ┃ │ │ │ ┃M│N│E│I│O┃ │
┃ ├─┼─┼─┼─╄━╃─┼─╯ ╰─╂─┼─┼─┼─┼─╂─┤
┃ │ │ │ │ │ │ │╭───╮ ╭───╮┃K│H│<│>│?┃ │
┃ ├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─╯┢━┱─┼─╮ ╭─┼─┬─┤┗━┿━┿━┿━┿┳╃─┤
┃ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┃ ┃ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │┃│ │
┃ ╰─┴─┴─┴─┴─╯ ┗┳┹─┴─╯ ╰─┴─┴─╯ ╰─┴─┴─┴╂┴─╯
┃ ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━┻━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ ┃
┃ ┃1. means modifier is on the left┃ ┃
┃ ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛ ┃
┃ ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ ┃
┗━━┫2. set shift mode on the right┃ ┃
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛ ┃
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ ┃
┃3. 3rd key selects a character┣━━━━┛
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
If I want one of the symbols usually reached by pressing shift and a number key, I press four keys: the left thumb key, both the numbers and shift modifiers on the left, and the respective symbol key on the right.
╭─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─╮ ╭─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─╮ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┤ ├─┼─╆━┿━╅─┼─┼─┤ ┏━┿━┿━┿━┿━┿┓│ │ │ │ │ ┃&│*┃ │ │ │ ┃ ├─╆━╅─┼─╆┻╅─┼─┤ ├─┼─╂─┼─╄━╅─┼─┤ ┃┏┿━┫ ┃ │ ┃ ┃ │ │ │ │ ┃$│%│^┃ │ │ ┃┃├─╄━╃─┼─╄━╃─┼─╯ ╰─┼─╂─┼─┼─╂─┼─┤ ┃┃│ │ │ │ │ │ │╭───╮ ╭───╮│ ┃!│"│£┃ │ │ ┃┃├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─╯┢━┱─┼─╮ ╭─┼─┬─┤╰─╄━┿━┿┳╃─┼─┤ ┃┃│ │ │ │ │ │ ┃ ┃ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │┃│ │ │ ┃┃╰─┴─┴─┴─┴─╯ ┗┳┹─┴─╯ ╰─┴─┴─╯ ╰─┴─┴╂┴─┴─╯ ┃┃┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━┻━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ ┃ ┃┃┃1. means modifier is on the left┃ ┃ ┃┃┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛ ┃ ┃┃┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ ┃ ┃┗┫2. set numbers mode on the right┃ ┃ ┃ ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛ ┃ ┃ ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ ┃ ┗━┫3. set shift on the right too ┃ ┃ ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛ ┃ ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ ┃ ┃4. 4th key selects a symbol┣━━━━━━┛ ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
All of this is then mirrored on the other side.
For capital letters, I simultaneously tap the right thumb key, the right shift with my right index finger, and choose the character with a finger on my left hand.
╭─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─╮ ╭─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─╮
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
├─╆━┿━┿━┿━┿━╅─┤ ├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┤
│ ┃Q│W│F│P│B┃ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
├─╂─┼─┼─┼─┼─╂─┤ ├─┼─╆━╅─┼─┼─┼─┤
┏━┿━┫A│R│S│T│G┃ │ │ │ ┃ ┣━┿━┿┓│ │
┃ ├─╂─┼─┼─┼─┼─╂─╯ ╰─┼─╄━╃─┼─┼╂┼─┤
┃ │ ┃Z│X│C│D│V┃╭───╮ ╭───╮│ │ │ │ │┃│ │
┃ ├─╄━┿━┿━┿━┿━┛├─┬─┼─╮ ╭─┼─┲━┪╰─┼─┼─┼─┼╂┼─┤
┃ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┃ ┃ │ │ │ │┃│ │
┃ ╰─┴─┴─┴─┴─╯ └─┴─┴─╯ ╰─┴─┺┳┛ ╰─┴─┴─┴╂┴─╯
┃ ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┻━━━━━━━━┓ ┃
┃ ┃1. means modifier is on the right┃ ┃
┃ ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛ ┃
┃ ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ ┃
┃ ┃2. set shift mode on the right┣━━━━┛
┃ ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
┃ ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┗━━┫3. 3rd key selects a character┃
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
In place of numbers on my left hand, I have various symbols.
╭─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─╮ ╭─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─╮
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
├─╆━┿━┿━┿━╅─┼─┤ ├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┤
│ ┃`│#│{│}┃ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
├─╂─┼─┼─┼─╂─┼─┤ ├─┼─┼─┼─┼─╆━╅─┤
┏━┿━┫-│=│(│)┃ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┃ ┃ │
┃ ├─╂─┼─┼─┼─╂─┼─╯ ╰─┼─┼─┼─┼─╄┳╃─┤
┃ │ ┃\│'│[│]┃ │╭───╮ ╭───╮│ │ │ │ │┃│ │
┃ ├─╄━┿━┿━┿━╃─╯├─┬─┼─╮ ╭─┼─┲━┪╰─┼─┼─┼─┼╂┼─┤
┃ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┃ ┃ │ │ │ │┃│ │
┃ ╰─┴─┴─┴─┴─╯ ╰─┴─┴─╯ ╰─┴─┺┳┛ ╰─┴─┴─┴╂┴─╯
┃ ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┻━━━━━━━━┓ ┃
┃ ┃1. means modifier is on the right┃ ┃
┃ ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛ ┃
┃ ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ ┃
┗━━┫2. set symbols mode on the left┃ ┃
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛ ┃
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ ┃
┃3. 3rd key selects a number┣━━━━━━━┛
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
And the shifted form of those symbols if I also tap shift.
╭─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─╮ ╭─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─┬─╮ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ├─╆━┿━╅─┼─┼─┼─┤ ├─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┤ │ ┃¬│~┃ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ├─╂─┼─╂─┼─┼─┼─┤ ├─┼─╆━╅─┼─╆━╅─┤ ┏┿━┫_│+┃ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┃ ┃ │ ┃ ┃ │ ┃├─╂─┼─╂─┼─┼─┼─╯ ╰─┼─╄┳╃─┼─╄┳╃─┤ ┃│ ┃|│@┃ │ │ │╭───╮ ╭───╮│ │┗┿━┿┓│┃│ │ ┃├─╄━┿━╃─┼─┼─╯├─┬─┼─╮ ╭─┼─┲━┪╰─┼─┼─┼╂┼╂┼─┤ ┃│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┃ ┃ │ │ │┃│┃│ │ ┃╰─┴─┴─┴─┴─╯ ╰─┴─┴─╯ ╰─┴─┺┳┛ ╰─┴─┴╂┴╂┴─╯ ┃┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┻━━━━━━━┓┃ ┃ ┃┃1. means modifier is on the right┃┃ ┃ ┃┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛┃ ┃ ┃┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ ┃ ┃ ┃┃2. set shift ┣━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛ ┃ ┃┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛ ┃ ┃┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ ┃ ┃┃3. set symbols ┣━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛ ┃┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛ ┃┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ ┗┫4. 4th key selects a symbol┃ ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
Finally, the ctrl and command keys work just like the shifts, but with the effect being as if I held one of those modifiers whilst tapping a character key.
All of this means that my fingers move very little, and typing anything out but lowercase prose looks more like playing a piano then typing on a regular keyboard.
I'm not someone who cares too deeply how fast they type (no idea what my wpm is), and I couldn't tell you whether I'm faster because I'm doing less finger movement or slower because I have to get all three or four fingers into place before tapping them all at once.
I also couldn't say whether this weird setup is categorically more ergonomic or not. Maybe it is. It feels like it might be. If typewriters and teletypes had never existed, and early computers had taken strong inspiration from pianos I could totally see how this would have become the norm.
Either way, if you have a keyboard that can be so configured, then I'd hightly recommend giving it a go. Playing with stenography is what led me down this path, and whilst its not something that is really worth the effort becoming fluent in, it does open your mind to different ways of using a keyboard. In any case, it's just all good fun.
Last Updated: 2023-10-24
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