Still not used to splits after a year…how do you type one-handed?

I’ve been using a Sofle split for almost a year, probably in about 30-40% of my typing. Despite tweaking my setup as best I can, I still find the experience difficult.

One issue that seems to have a big effect is that I still think of the position of mouse in my dominant hand and keyboard with my other hand as useful.

I use it often for everything from casual surfing to editing. For example during editing you’re often selecting text with the mouse and doing some minor editing with your other hand. Split keyboards seem to really remove this efficient option since both your hands need to be used most times.

A lot of people who extol the benefits of split keyboards are comparing to traditional keyboards when your tasks are static.

AxZxP,

Ok so I use a split since two months and the switch is certainly not automatic but the solutions are fairly simple. I’m a good exemple of a user scenario that requires a lot of one-handed operations because I mainly edit text and not writing it and I use a lot of GUI related to graphic work (illustrator mainly but also photoshop). For the following process, I should make clear that I’m on a Mac and it’s clearly a big plus since this platform promotes consistent patterns of shortcuts.

Text edition :

  • I have a ⇧ and a ⌘ key on my thumbs and arrows on a layer triggered by a thumb. Lateral arrows are set to trigger ⎇+arrow when long press and ⌘+arrow when double presses. With the ⇧ on the right thumb and the arrows (and the layer switch key) on my left hand. Give it a try, I can really quickly select words, lines, etc. For a quick word selection/replacement I have also a simple macro that trigger : “⎇+⬅️, ⇧+⎇+➡️, ⌘-c” (the copy part is just in case I want this bit of text in my pasteboard.
  • I use vim whenever I can. It makes the use of a mouse irrelevant, don’t worry the main selection operation are easy to learn.

GUI

  • It’s more tricky but I really advise to take a note of every friction in your workflow and find a solution when mandatory. I could give some of my settings but it’s very specific to the app I use. The only advice that could match any situation is a “esc” signal that is always accessible as a combo with the W+E combination, in every layer, I also have a space and I try to get the maximum access of elementary keys but when it replicates a primary action on my right hand, I hide it on my left hand (combo, double-tap)

I should mention that I use Colemak and that it certainly help compared to layout leaning toward hand switch (Dvorak, Bepo…). But if you’re on QWERTY it should be good.

Wimads, (edited )

Single handed operation is usefull for my use case as well (mainly CAD and graphic work). I’ve tried various approaches:

  • Swap hands feature from QMK: it works, but has some limitations. I also just made a layer with swapped layout to work around some of the limitations, but ultimately I just didn’t find it very convenient.
  • I then proceeded to write my own “autoswap” feature, inspired by autoshift. Basically it is swap hands by holding any alpha key. So tap Q is Q, hold Q results in P. That worked brilliantly, but the compromise is that you can’t use any tap-hold functions on your alphas (like layer taps or homerow mods). Since I don’t like homerow mods anyway, I could manage with my 36 key layout, but it was definitely a compromise to fit all mods and layer taps on thumbs or combos. Going up to 40 keys would probably have made this a pretty decent solution though.
  • Then I added a trackball to my keyboard. Having the trackball integrated still required me to move my right hand slightly away from the home row, but its much less of an issue than before, and it made any swap hands feature redundant. I definitely recommend looking into something like a Charybdis, probably the best straight out of box solution (out of box solution being relative ofc in this mad world of DIY ergo boards).
  • Right now I’m experimenting with a layout inspired by TAIPO; its a chording layout, that is intended for use with 2 hands on a 20 key layout, but left and right are mirrored, so it is fully functional in one handed operation as well. Its definitely a learning curve, but I’m surprised by how natural it feels. Its like a 10 key macropad, which is somehow magically equally functional as a full keyboard, without feeling like a compromise! I definitely recommend at least reading up on it: inkeys.wiki/en/keymaps/taipo ; it may be a bit much to get into if you are new to ergo keyboards and small layouts though, so I would suggest first getting familiar with something like a 36-40 key split and toying around in QMK.
LauraLangdon,

I have a Moonlander, and use the keyboard itself for most of my “mouse” needs. You can do the same on the Sofle: https://github.com/qmk/qmk_firmware/blob/master/docs/feature_mouse_keys.md

I also have trackpad between the keyboard halves for scrolling while eating or when I need to make ultra-fine selections. For gaming I use the left half of the board and a mouse in my right hand.

ink_black_night,

When I started using home row mods I also experienced issues with shortcuts requiring ctrl (copy, paste, cut, dave, select all, close window, new tab, erc)

The solution I found was to map Ctrl in multiple positions only on the left hand so I do not need any contortions

michael_jaeger,
@michael_jaeger@mastodon.social avatar

@ink_black_night
I would also recommend considering combos.
@phario

pca006132,

I am a vim user (and use vim keybinding for web browsing), so I rarely need to use both my mouse and keyboard at the same time.

boris,

I moved my mouse between the two splits.

martinb,

Sounds like you could benefit from a trackball

demibyte,

You could try out QMKs swap hands feature. I’ve not tried using myself but have considered doing so for this use case exactly.

dbug,

+1 for swap hands feature, I have one pinky key on each side with momentary hold and one-shot for hand swapping, I use it mostly in CAD or image editor while using the mouse with my right hand.

bleppy,

I’ve been using a Corne for over a year. The halves are close enough that I can move my non-mousing hand to the other half. I like the split primarily for a more comfortable typing angle rather than a wider stance.

Gumshoe,

There are a few different options, though none of them are without trade-offs.

  1. You could try getting a pointing device integrated into your keyboard, like a trackpad, trackpoint, or trackball that could be used with a single finger while the rest of the fingers are more or less still in the home position. For example, a tractyl.
  2. You configure your left hand side (assuming you mouse with the right) to have extra layers which give access to a full keyboard from just that hand. The first thing I would do here is figure out how much you really need to access… Do you just need copy/paste/cut? Do you just need alpha keys? Do you really need a full keyboard including symbols and alt, F-keys, etc? For an extreme version of this, this keyboard using a Taipo layout gives either hand access to a FULL keyboard with only 11 keys per hand, and you have almost 3 times as many keys to work with. You can type entirely with just the left side or entirely with just the right side with that keyboard, though going that small will have a steep learning curve.
  3. Get something with even more keys than a sofle, but for just the left split, and you’d only use those extra keys while one handed typing, so each one of those keys is a duplicate function that can be achieved in a different way when you’re using both hands. You could even use a 60% keyboard as your left split, as it would mostly just invade the space between the keyboards which you might have free due to the split.
Aldoo,

It could be interesting to develop a project from idea (3).

What shape should have the left hand side for instance, assuming it should have ~40 keys under a single hand?

Gumshoe,

It could take a lot of shapes. It could look like www.beeraider.com/one-handed-keyboard/ or tipykeyboard.com/en/?v=fa868488740a or you could check out the split keyboards here with 80+ keys jhelvy.shinyapps.io/splitkbcompare/

martinb,

Here I was thinking that my ergodox ez3000 was cool…

Aldoo,

A split, 2 hands, keyboard that sometimes can be used one-handedly should not be the same as a one hand keyboard.

Somehow, it should include all the uncompromising layout of a typical split keyboard, plus a set of keys on the left side, replicating the right side keys, but maybe with some adaptations. It could also be just another layer on the left side, but I don’t believe this would cover the need expressed by op.

Grass,

If I need to type with one hand I just push them back together. Or just use the second one piece keyboard that I have for gaming use.

GSVCargoCult,

Love this simple solution 😂

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