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.

  • Gumshoe@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    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.
  • Form and function are inextricably linked: one will inform the other. A lot of the ergo-split community focuses on the use case where you move your hands as little as possible, and the designs tend to revolve around maximizing that ideal. And they are damn good at it. The drawback, as you note, is that it’s a design that expects you not to move your hands around: it encourages keyboard navigation and shortcuts in place of using the mouse as much as possible.

    That said, you can get around it. You can use layers to move common shortcuts to the left hand, so you don’t have to do the whole “Stretch my hand across two units” dance. Or, you can look into something like a macro pad.

    Me, I just deal. The comfort when typing is well worth the tradeoff, to me. I’ll favor avoiding the mouse when possible, and just dance my one hand across both halves when needed. It’s not a huge deal to me, but the whole point is personalization: find what works best for you!

    • dbug@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      +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.

  • pca006132@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    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.

  • Wimads@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    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: https://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.
  • Grass@geddit.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    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.

  • bleppy@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    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.

    • obosob@feddit.ukM
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      No need to do it in AHK (platform specific) when it can be achieved in QMK.

  • ink_black_night@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    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