[HN Gopher] Markov Keyboard: keyboard layout that changes by Mar...
___________________________________________________________________
Markov Keyboard: keyboard layout that changes by Markov frequency
(2019)
Author : dr_kiszonka
Score : 157 points
Date : 2024-12-19 05:12 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| willwade wrote:
| Nice. Some thoughts.
|
| Look at PPM. Your prediction model would work better with
| personalised data. PPM is efficient (nb. I see you are using
| python - look at this https://github.com/willwade/pylm - although
| be warned - i think my code is not quite right..)
|
| Layout shifting for finger movement - well its great if you didnt
| have to look. The time for visual processing the letters adds a
| significant lag (its why typical word prediction isnt used that
| much and when it is - not over 3 predictions (I have papers on
| this if you are interested). But its not all bad..
|
| Switch users who need next letter prediction this could
| dramatically support their rate of input. (view
| https://youtu.be/Bhj5vs9P5cw?si=VnytfH_vdEUWuLok&t=73 - now note
| how the keyboard blocks the scan up. But imagine if it just
| scanned each letter first by next most likely - or heck - like
| this repo - actually changes button position and kept the scan
| pattern the same. It would be a ton more efficient)
|
| (and a bit of a rabbit hole.. What if keys had word predictions
| on them? This is basically the end result of ACE-LP:
| https://discovery.dundee.ac.uk/en/publications/ace-lp-augmen...)
| jslezak wrote:
| Yes! I have been wanting this forever. Keys are in too
| predictable a position
| all2 wrote:
| There were, for awhile, some security systems had on-screen
| keyboards that would change layout on every key press.
| stoneman24 wrote:
| I think that this is an attempt to stop the "clean key"
| problem. Security system keypads (especially outdoor ones)
| tend not to be cleaned, so as time passes, it is easy to spot
| the dirty keys. Dirty keys are not being pressed and are
| therefore not in the passcode.
|
| So look for the clean keys and try combinations from there.
| In a 4 digit (0-9) keypad, knowing the clean numbers drops
| the possible codes from 9999 to 24 (if my early morning math
| holds up).
|
| Also helps the issue of someone looking over the shoulder of
| a valid person. Chances are they are just seeing the position
| and not the character pressed. So the keyboard changes and
| you actually need to know the character not just the old
| position.
| m463 wrote:
| Also spy robots with thermal imaging eyeballs.
| qrobit wrote:
| It would be 24 if all digits are distinct
|
| It actually drops from 10^4=10000 to 4^4=256 combinations
| twnettytwo wrote:
| If they aren't distinct, you wouldn't have 4 clean
| buttons, but just 3 - in which case we also know the
| repeating digit repeats exactly once and we get 12x3 (36)
| possible combinations. With two clean buttons, it's 6 (if
| both repeat) + 4 (if only one repeats) = 10 and if
| there's 1 that's just one, and a terrible password.
| penteract wrote:
| With 2 clean buttons, there are 4x2 ways for only 1 to
| repeat, giving 14 combinations in total.
| karencarits wrote:
| I guess you would be able to count the number of clean
| keys and thus know both the number of distinct digits and
| the digits (but not the order nor which digit that's
| repeated)
| bluGill wrote:
| The number that is repeated is likely to be dirtier than
| the numbers that are not so you get that information too.
| Modified3019 wrote:
| Interesting. This would also stop keypress extraction via
| analyzing audio.
| Terr_ wrote:
| Hmm... It may still be vulnerable if:
|
| 1. You have lots of spy-data samples that reveal which
| _physical_ key is pressed (perhaps they sound different)
| and the precise timing of those strikes, but you don 't
| know what scrambled numbers were actually being shown.
| (And it's always the same code.)
|
| 2. The trick is that users take _longer_ to press a
| number when it 's displayed far away from its "normal"
| position, because they had to seek longer to find it.
|
| 3. This means you can infer the true numbers based on how
| quickly or slowly presses happen versus which physical
| key is struck.
|
| For a simple example, assume a two-digit code where there
| are nine keys. If the fastest first press is always the
| top left corner, and the fastest second press is always
| the middle, we can guess the code is either 15 or a 75,
| depending on if the user is accustomed to phones or
| keyboard numpads.
| Terr_ wrote:
| P.S.: On reflection, I could probably have shortened all
| that by describing it as a "timing attack" [0] except in
| meat-space.
|
| One mitigation might be to get the user to enter digits
| at a consistent pace, by forcing a delay between showing
| the random layout versus accepting a button press. There
| would need to be some penalty for early presses, to keep
| lazy users from just tapping the desired button
| repeatedly until it became active.
| sen wrote:
| It's still a relatively common thing for pin-coded door/gate
| security.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| This would be an interesting one to integrate into password
| entry forms... although you'd need to show the randomised
| keyboard layout on screen.
|
| Or have a keyboard with oled or e-ink keys, like the Optimus
| Maximus [0] promised to deliver. It's kinda weird that nobody
| else seems to have picked up on this concept since then.
| Probably just impractical or too expensive.
|
| I read that its patents expired in 2016; around 2015 there
| was a concept for an e-ink button keyboard, but that site is
| now a plain gambling ad. There's also https://www.nemeio.com/
| that still works, but its buttons look like sunken screens
| under plastic domes.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimus_Maximus_keyboard
| hargup wrote:
| I have seen this with some of the card swiping machines in
| India.
| julian_t wrote:
| Had this at an ATM recently, and it took a couple of tries at
| my PIN before I looked at the keypad and realized what was
| going on. One more wrong PIN and I could have lost my card.
| pandemic_region wrote:
| I occasionally still get this in certain petrol stations.
| Always catches me off guard.
| MrJohz wrote:
| A number of countries use this when giving your pin for a
| credit card or similar (I've noticed it in both Greece and
| India).
|
| I can't help but feel like it's less secure than the default
| layout - I'm quite good at hiding my PIN and typing quickly,
| but when the positions of the numbers are randomised, I feel
| like I practically end up saying my PIN out loud as I try and
| remember it.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Exactly, a key should never be in the same place twice in a
| row- that's just wasted movement that could be better
| optimized. Letters the computer predicts you probably won't use
| should automatically disappear, and be replaced with numerous
| copies of others based on the things it thinks you will type.
|
| We should extend this concept of constant automatic
| optimization to all aspects of everyday life- for example your
| workplace location should physically relocate each day to an
| optimal location based on where each person coming in that day
| lives. An algorithm should tell you where to put away the
| dishes in your kitchen based on a constantly changing
| optimization algorithm, so that your dinner plates are in a
| different cabinet each day. Language itself should be radically
| redesigned daily to keep it optimal, with changelogs pushed out
| to be learned and memorized each morning before communicating
| with anyone.
| inetknght wrote:
| A good part is that it will do nothing to improve security
| and will actively harm peoples' ability to type things
| correctly, and the best part is when it makes its way into
| scientific literature and algorithms. Good luck reproducing
| that which was entered incorrectly!
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Presumably if something is sufficiently impossible to
| interact with in any capacity both for the intended
| audience and nefarious actors, it is also "secure." For
| example, if your computer keyboard layout is scrambled
| through a one time pad, where no copies exist except the
| internal one, inputting non-random data of any kind would
| be provably impossible.
|
| Air gapping is a legitimate security technique. However, in
| this case the air gap would be between the ears of whoever
| designed it.
| mungoman2 wrote:
| This is not a bad idea. It's not dissimilar from an autocomplete
| engine. If reset per word and using a static probability table it
| will work its way into muscle memory. In practice fingers will
| only need to leave the home row for some initial letters.
| shae wrote:
| What letter is a good start if you do a reset at every word
| boundary? Maybe whatever letter is most common?
| lazide wrote:
| E I guess?
| dsamarin wrote:
| Fun concept. I had a thought about having it optimize in a way
| where left and right hands alternate for increased speed
| Lemaxoxo wrote:
| Nice! I wrote about something similar for rectangular layouts:
| https://maxhalford.github.io/blog/dynamic-on-screen-keyboard...
| willwade wrote:
| thats wonderful. id like that to not change the order of the
| letters - but change the highlight order. Do a round 1 of
| frequency order first (just do first say 6 letters) then do a
| round 2 which is standard order..
|
| i probably am not making much sense. Look at where I'm coming
| from in the world of Assistive Tech -
| https://docs.acecentre.org.uk/products/echo (go to around 5 min
| mark in the vide)
| flir wrote:
| How about a backlit keyboard, and if the next letter is
| probably a vowel, only the vowels are lit?
|
| I'd be quite interested in trying that. Maybe as a learning
| aid. But if you get your typing speed up, I can see it being
| visually very noisy.
| subversive-dev wrote:
| I switch between English and German a lot. I wonder what that
| does to the algorithm.
| thih9 wrote:
| There is an old joke that seems approproate:
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/2o4rkq/english_to_be...
|
| > (...) In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c".
| Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The
| hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up
| konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. (...)
| internet_points wrote:
| That joke is many decades older than the creation of the
| european union: http://www.i18nguy.com/twain.html (probably
| not written by Mark Twain, but seemingly first appeared when
| he was still around?)
| raister wrote:
| Too bad this github has latest changes 5 years ago, I wonder what
| they could update with LLMs, etc.
| zkry wrote:
| My guess would be not much. LLMs are pretty useless concerning
| anything novel. Maybe an LLM could update the docstrings?
| debugnik wrote:
| I'm assuming they meant replacing the markov model with a
| modern language model, not having an LLM magically improve
| the repo.
| whereismyacc wrote:
| That sounds like it'd give you no hope at all of ever
| learning muscle memory for it.
| mateus1 wrote:
| Very interesting, I wonder if you could incorporate text
| prediction so that you can write a sentence in just one key
| (aside from space).
| shae wrote:
| Repeatedly pressing the home row keys almost always turned into
| word end sequences like erere, I assume from words like
| there/were/here. I'm not sure how to go further with single
| character frequencies.
| jen729w wrote:
| I learned recently that there are way, way more alt-layouts than
| the ones you've heard of: Dvorak & Colemak.
|
| Not only that, people just change them to suit their needs! They
| use things like Hands Down [0] as a _guide_ , and make up their
| own layout.
|
| Wild.
|
| [0]: https://sites.google.com/alanreiser.com/handsdown
| fouronnes3 wrote:
| Thank you for the link! That looks fascinating. I have
| instantly added it to my "keyboard" bookmarks folder!
|
| I will promptly forget it exists and keep typing on the random
| layout I learned to touch type on 20 years ago, all the while
| suffering from terrible finger acrobatics and wishing for a
| better layout every single day.
| InDubioProRubio wrote:
| And there are modal editors, who switch keylaouts depending on
| the need of the minute.. debug/edit/search
| lawn wrote:
| I've made my own layouts[0][1] and I'd say the many variants of
| Hands Down are probably the best example of a layout that's
| been developed in a thoughtful manner.
|
| [0]: https://www.jonashietala.se/series/t-34/
|
| [1]:
| https://www.jonashietala.se/blog/2024/11/26/the_current_cybe...
| oniony wrote:
| Would you say they are hands down the best?
| lawn wrote:
| :)
|
| (I do believe that the best for you is a custom layout.)
| animal531 wrote:
| Yeah when I was a 20 or so and just started working I taught
| myself Dvorak for a while, but realized how bad it was for
| coding in C. So I made my own C language one as well.
|
| Of course you still have to type text and at the time you
| couldn't easily switch between different layouts, so after a
| time I got bored of it and gave up.
| smartmic wrote:
| For those who type on German keyboards or in German, there are
| a number of layouts that have evolved around the Neo 2 layout
| [1]. The main driving force is ergonomics, but since not
| everyone works the same way, many variants have emerged (and
| still do) [2]. Interesting is the craftsmanship, including
| customized programs to optimize the layouts [3].
|
| [1] https://www.neo-layout.org/Layouts/
|
| [2] https://maximilian-schillinger.de/keyboard-layouts-neo-
| adnw-...
|
| [3] https://hg.sr.ht/~arnebab/evolve-keyboard-layout
| tugu77 wrote:
| German layouts with [ ] { } in such horrible positions are
| killing all joy when programming, especially in curly brace
| heavy languages.
|
| Changed to US qwerty 30 years ago, never looking back.
| f1shy wrote:
| I always changed to ANSI layout, independent of the layout
| of the actual keys. Now I carry a HHKB with me, and connect
| through BT to whatever computer I want to work on. No
| matter what human language I write in (I do some) I prefer
| using accidents like tildes and umlauts with modifier keys.
| gsich wrote:
| You don't save much. {} still requires a modifier key. You
| get [] for "free".
| tugu77 wrote:
| There is a whole usability universe between shift and
| AltGr, the former being accesible with the other hand.
| eviks wrote:
| Very nice website with many solid principles! Though one big
| flaw in all the designs I've seen is that they rely on bad data
| - text corpus that is the output of human editing efforts, not
| the input.
|
| So all those "0.00001%" stats aren't as precise as they seem,
| and you still see the frequently used backspace/enter in the
| awful pinky position despite the official philosophy of "Hands
| Down is easy on the pinkies"
|
| Have you seen any design that is based on actual human input?
| loriverkutya wrote:
| As far as I'm aware hands down layouts were primarily
| designed to be used on a split ergonomic keyboard with thumb
| cluster, the space and enter lives on the thumb cluster.
| eviks wrote:
| Even those better thumb variants don't seem to
| statistically take that into account (judging from the
| description/heatmaps/data sources), but then it also
| presents the "slab" variant...
| shae wrote:
| I wrote a second blog post about this project weeks after the
| first release: https://www.scannedinavian.com/markov-keyboard-
| the-rabbit-ho...
| solomonb wrote:
| Hi shae!
| internet_points wrote:
| ah, I have been looking for this all my life, thank you! ;-)
|
| (though really what I want is dabbrev/pabbrev to sort predictions
| by markov order at least 2 or even a tiny recurrent network)
| atomer wrote:
| Took me 1 year to rewire my brain to switch from Qwerty to Dvorak
| (I struggled with from RSI for nearly 6 years) and nearly 2 years
| to gain full speed. It is hard, very hard for the brain. It is
| mentally tiring to rewire your brain like this and you will do
| your job at a much worse efficiency (forget pair programming for
| a while). You need new keyboard stickers also. Great job at
| making this idea but it is not practical.
| lawn wrote:
| > You need new keyboard stickers also.
|
| You absolutely do not and it even hampers your ability to
| quickly learn to type efficiently if you rely on key legends or
| layout references.
| encom wrote:
| And there's also the problem of using computers that aren't
| yours. I haven't tried (and I will never), but I imagine
| switching between layouts is at least very inconvenient.
| niek_pas wrote:
| I switched to Dvorak +-8 years ago, and I can still type
| qwerty almost as well as I could back then. I could imagine
| it being a problem if you're using other people's machines on
| a daily basis though.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| Dvorak is supported by almost every computing device under
| the sun today. Old Apple models (I want to say the IIc?) even
| had a hardware button to switch layouts. Switching between
| Dvorak and Qwerty is usually an easy to find User setting.
| (If doing it on someone else's user account, you just have to
| remember to be kind and switch it back when done.)
|
| As a Colemak touch typer I envy that some days. Colemak is
| available easily everywhere but Windows. macOS, iOS, Android,
| and Linux all have it similarly out of the box with Dvorak,
| but Windows it still requires an install and that install
| still requires Admin approval because keyboard layouts are
| needed by kernel-level drivers. But I knew that when I
| switched, took a few years to realize there's no shame in
| hunt-and-pecking on QWERTY when using someone else's machine.
|
| (I was also privileged when I switched to know that I didn't
| _need_ to use shared machines. I was far enough along in grad
| school where I was allowed /encouraged to do everything on a
| personal laptop, and the few remaining "lab classes" with
| shared machines all allowed Remote Desktop. That took
| advantage of things like if you remote desktop back to one of
| your own machines, your remote machine still responds to your
| chosen layout once you've logged in. Just have to hunt and
| peck long enough to type your machine's address, username,
| and password.)
| abecedarius wrote:
| Yeah, this is why I picked Dvorak: it seems there are
| better layouts but Dvorak picks up the greater part of
| available improvement, and it's more generally available.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| I switched when I was a teenager and have Thoughts (TM)
| about typing Dvorak, though I'm locked in at this point.
| The most painful experiences typing with it are:
|
| 1. Using a shared machine for something important. I've had
| to hand write and then hunt-and-peck essays on shared
| machines when I was still in college.
|
| 2. Typing something on a friend's computer when I'm
| inebriated. Not a huge problem nowadays with phones and
| being older, but in college trying to change the playlist
| when I was inebriated on a friend's QWERTY layout was...
| tough to put it mildly.
|
| 3. Piloting the Media PC with my partner. She types QWERTY
| and I don't. I keep Dvorak around as a second layout and
| switch if I need to do a lot of typing on the Media PC.
|
| There's lots of both pros and cons of using Dvorak in my
| experience but at this point I'm so locked in that I'm not
| going to switch. But in my adult life, I never have to use
| a shared machine either so I'm always a few feet away from
| a Dvorak keyboard.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| It's also interesting how #2 is shifting in recent years.
| These days it is more likely to be someone handing you
| their phone to change a Spotify playlist and while I
| touch type Colemak, I tend to swipe type QWERTY on phone
| keyboards, so it's not as tough now than when it was
| someone's laptop/desktop running the playlist.
|
| Also, Apple Music's SharePlay is such an interesting
| modern approach too, where multiple people can control
| the same playlist from multiple devices.
| Kuraj wrote:
| This entire discussion reads like perfect satire because I
| still can't decide whether we are being serious or not
| natlight wrote:
| I switched to Dvorak 20 years ago and I love it. It only took
| me about 2 weeks to learn and to pass my qwerty typing speed. I
| could actually touch type on either keyboard for the first year
| or two after I switched. I recommend not using stickers or
| dvorak keyboards at all, it helps you learn faster and your
| family won't get pissy because they can't use your computer
| anymore.
|
| Also, it is not difficult to use other peoples computers. You
| can switch keyboards pretty easy these days on windows and mac.
| In fact, my very first computer (Apple IIc) had a mechanical
| switch to flip between qwerty and dvorak.
| leshokunin wrote:
| This project brilliantly points out that we are limited and
| shaped by how keys and layouts are presented to us.
|
| What I don't understand is why not go all the way. Why not also
| change the concept of what's needed to enter a character? It
| would make sense that keys aren't the ideal affordance to express
| a key every time.
|
| Use a volume slider for a letter, use radio buttons, on/off
| toggles. What if I could draw the letter on my trackpad?
|
| I hope this opens the door for a thriving ecosystem of
| expansions.
| shae wrote:
| We're also limited and shaped by keyboards. Why only one letter
| per finger? The datahand does five!
|
| Why are key switches only press?
|
| What about analog partial key press? There are Hall effect
| keyboard switches that do that, I want to try some.
|
| What about finger twist for input? I don't think anything
| exists? Would that be a volume knob on a key switch?
| Guekka wrote:
| The CharaChorder [1] is one attempt to give a completely
| different shape to input methods
|
| [1] : https://www.charachorder.com
| cudder wrote:
| > What about analog partial key press? There are Hall effect
| keyboard switches that do that, I want to try some.
|
| That sounds fun, now I really want to try out a keyboard
| where half press is lowercase and full press is UPPERCASE! No
| more pinky strain from shift presses.
| bluGill wrote:
| Some pipe organs have keyboards that support that. I can't
| figure out when it started, but my guess is the 1920s. No
| hall effect, they had mechanical contacts. (I've never got
| to play one and always wondered if you could feel when the
| two positions were hit or if you had to guess and rely on
| sound - organ pipes often have a long delays between when
| you press the key and when the speak)
| Otek wrote:
| A simple solution that would work on any keyboard (but will
| be much easier to do on a keyboard that supports custom
| layout and layers, e.g Ergodox) would be to send small
| letter of key is pressed under 0.5s (to be tested what
| value feels best) and capitalized if over this value. After
| a while it might feel natural to press quickly for a small
| letter and slightly longer for capitalized
| shae wrote:
| The ZSA firmware fork of QMK does this! I don't have it
| enabled on my moonlander, but many of my friends do.
| leshokunin wrote:
| This is true. We've been so formatted by big keyboard that I
| never considered just the tip of my fingers. I hope you'll
| make good use of our opposable thumbs in this new keyboard
| paradigm
| shae wrote:
| I agree. I blew out my left arm for a year from too much
| typing, so I switched to kinesis style keyboards so I could
| put modifier keys under my thumbs. I dunno if your
| suggestion was meant to be serious, but it's still great.
| leshokunin wrote:
| It wasn't, but the reason I like to explore absurd
| looking ideas is because of the serendipity that lateral
| thinking opens up. Thanks for exploring that!
|
| What would be a cool use case for thumb controls here? Is
| this something you could do with those gamer keypads?
| shae wrote:
| I was pressing control and alt and shift with my pinky
| fingers, and that's how I blew out my arm.
|
| I switched to a Kinesis Advantage keyboard and now I have
| control, alt, hyper, super, backspace, and shift under my
| left thumb. My right thumb has control, alt, hyper,
| super, enter, and space.
|
| I don't know anything about gamer keypads, is there one
| you suggest I investigate?
| CaptainFever wrote:
| > What if I could draw the letter on my trackpad?
|
| The Apple Newton did that!
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Newton#Notes
| leshokunin wrote:
| That feels like Siri dictation, minus Siri, and minus the
| dictation
| bux93 wrote:
| Also the palm, they called it graffiti.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffiti_%28Palm_OS%29
|
| (Google's gboard offers a handwriting keyboard, but it's on
| the touch screen and doesn't count. Also, it's not graffiti,
| so a bit more error prone. It does recognize joined-up
| handwriting though.)
|
| There's also some keyboards on f-droid for braille text input
| and morse code input.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| The Apple Watch can do it today.
|
| (In iMessage, as one easy example app, there's an entry box
| to send a new message. If you tap into that and get a
| keyboard click the keyboard icon in the bottom corner and
| there's a "moving finger" icon you can tap to get a trackpad
| to draw letters on. Older and smaller Watches won't even have
| the keyboard and will just have the trackpad.)
| Shorel wrote:
| > What if I could draw the letter on my trackpad?
|
| I have been proposing to adapt Shorthand* to computer tactile
| input many times. Touchpads and touchscreens can use it. It
| seems faster and easier for both the computer and the person
| than having to recognize slow handwriting.
|
| Secretaries used this for many decades, because it allowed them
| to record speech in real-time.
|
| There is always a dismissive comment about how this is not a
| good idea for one reason or another, but I still think it would
| be a great feature to have.
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorthand
| mihaaly wrote:
| I'd put some random keys on the bottom of my seat or wired into
| the TV remote or the doorbell button of my neighbours. The
| ordered shape and regular size, position of keys is too much of
| a burden to mee, constricts my wondering creative mind too
| much.
| willwade wrote:
| Heard of dasher ? https://www.inference.org.uk/dasher/
| xerox13ster wrote:
| I had the idea this week to use the Rocksmith USB adapter to
| develop a stenography system that allows me to control my
| computer using my guitars with chords, notes, and riffs.
| amelius wrote:
| I'm still looking for a way to produce quality keycaps at home.
| bluGill wrote:
| I too am looking. I started drawing on a napkin how it would
| work. Basically injection mold the letter and stem only in one
| color, then put that in a different mold and injection mold the
| rest of the key around that. Seem like it should work, but I
| haven't done enough injection molding to know how feasible it
| might be (letters don't seem to bad, but 5/% probably needs a 4
| part mold or something and I can't imagine keeping all the
| parts together). Worse, there is a lot of tiny machining
| operations needed and so for a one off my cost per key gets to
| be $15 each (mostly on tiny bits needed that will thus break
| often).
|
| 3d resin printers might be a good option, my background leans
| to injection molding so I didn't think of it until now. Here
| you would print two pieces and then snap them together.
|
| Both of the above have the letter molded through the key and so
| whatever chemicals are in my fingers won't destroy the
| lettering after a year of use. Though plastic selection is also
| important otherwise my fingernails will destroy the key anyway
| in a short time. Not everyone has fingers/skin chemistry like
| mine and so some won't understand why I care while others are
| all in with me.
| red_admiral wrote:
| Keyboards aside, I find it really frustrating when something I
| use frequently - such as the toolbars in excel - changes without
| warning and breaks my muscle memory.
| Shorel wrote:
| This mixed with LED keycaps that change to reflect the current
| assigned letter would be awesome.
|
| For hunt and peck typists.
| bluGill wrote:
| Seems like eink would be better, but the smallest I can find is
| about 3cm so much too big. If you can get them smaller
| though...
| samch wrote:
| I've backed this product, the Flux Keyboard, on Kickstarter - it
| allows for the type of dynamic changes that the author is
| describing in case others are interested:
|
| https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fluxkeyboard/flux-keybo...
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Similar setup to the Optimus Popularis around 2011
|
| https://www.tomshardware.com/news/Optimus-Keyboard-LCD-Scree...
|
| Before that they had some designs with little displays in each
| key, instead of a big display behind all of them
| Mithriil wrote:
| This is close to an idea I had in the past.
|
| I bought a keyboard last year that has a small embedded CPU that
| I can reprogram with QMK [1]. I designed an objective/score
| function for key placement, based on frequency of letters (and
| groups of 2 and 3 letters) and finger movement (in the case of
| strings of letters). Each finger was weighted by how much I
| didn't want to move it haha. I used this function to optimize my
| "perfect" keyboard and reprogramed the keyboard to match it. I'm
| still sometimes trying to learn it to this day, I don't use it
| often enough. My biggest problem with it is that it is an
| ortholinear keyboard... Not confortable enough. Anyways.
|
| I had plans in the future to make a small keylogger on my PC to
| follow my ACTUAL usage of keys, and run the optimization again
| automatically. Then the software could message me what would be
| changed and upload the layout on the keyboard every X month (not
| too often, y'know).
|
| I'm waiting to get another keyboard for this, probably a split
| keyboard.
|
| [1] https://docs.qmk.fm/
| lxgr wrote:
| A real shame this doesn't seem to remap arrow keys, or it could
| come in handy for my next HATETRIS [1] run!
|
| [1] https://qntm.org/files/hatetris/hatetris.html
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-12-19 23:01 UTC)