Minimak 11

[Pit]

Hi Ted and all,
I have been looking into alternative layouts and find the thoughts behind Minimak a good idea. I have looked at the most common letters and bigraphs in English, German and some other languages (Dutch...) and think that the Minimak 6 (jn) will give the most bang for the buck. 
But when one also wants to optimize a bit further I think it would make sense to change 11 keys:

1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  0  -  =
q  w  d  f  k  y  u  o  l  p  [  ]
a  s  t  r  g  h  n  e  i  ;  '
z  x  c  v  b  j  m  ,  .  /

The i is too important not to put it on the home-row IMO. With those additions over Minimak 6 the finger usage and same finger bi-gramms can be reduced quite a bit, while still staying relatively close to qwerty. I think that this Minimak 11 approach could be very interesting, when one wants to get close to a totally optimized layout, especially considering, that a layout can always be only optimized for a given condition. When one uses multiple languages like I do, the optimization for a specific language might introduce trade-offs for another language. I have found that this suggested layout has pretty good numbers in the Colemak optimizer: https://colemakmods.github.io/mod-dh/analyze.html
I have tested the layout a bit on several typical words in the three mentioned languages and I think I will switch to this variant. Colemak might be a tad better overall, but changes many more keys and also kicks off the ö-character from the German keyboard, thus needing to change even more keys for a German layout and increasing the learning efforts further. 

I think besides the characters it is as vital or even more so to include navigation keys into the home-row. I have done that now for 14 years and can not image to live without that. I use the CapsLock-key as a modifier, which gives me many additional free keys on the right hand. I have assigned hjkl (Vim-style) to arrows and i, to Page-up and -down and n/ to Pos1/End and Space to ESC. This leaves more key combinations free, for example for Ctrl-x -c -v -z or for Backspace and Del. Even without changing the characters the navigation layer is a real time saver in my daily keyboard usage and in the rare cases I have to use someone else's computer I always wonder how people can live without this convenience! :-)

P.S. Minimak 12 does not work for me, because I think putting o on the middle finger is a benefit and also the p does not need a better place on the home-row. It is not used that often in the mentioned languages, so why bother. 

[Pit]

Haha, too fast.

I played more with the analyzer and tried to minimize same-finger-use and came up with a layout which is likely only a tiny bit worse than Colemak for English, but is better than Colemak for German -- while using less changes from qwerty than Colemak. This looks quite promising IMO, when one would want to go further than Minimak 11. Maybe that could be called Minimax :-)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - =

q w d f k y l o u p [ ]
a s t r g m n e i h '
z x c v b j ; , . /

-------------
What do you think? Progression: Minimak 6 nj → Minimak 11 → Minimax

Cheers, Pit

Op dinsdag 30 augustus 2022 om 19:46:03 UTC+2 schreef Pit:

[Pit]

oops, typo

should be:

1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  0  -  =
q  w  d  f  k  y  l  o  u  p  [  ]

a  s  t  r  g  ;  n  e  i  h  '
z  x  c  v  b  j  m  ,  .  /

Op dinsdag 30 augustus 2022 om 21:49:47 UTC+2 schreef Pit:

[Pit]

Hello Paper,

(do you have a name as well? ;-)

Maybe you accidentally answered via PM instead into the group? I will answer to the group, so someone else can also chime in. Maybe Ted is still "alive" or others have thoughts on my attempt?!? :-)

My aim was the following:

* be able to learn the layout stepwise

* not to move "too many" keys from qwerty, of course if possible on the same finger, if not possible on the same hand

* come close to a fully optimized layout, but not only for one language, but for several languages at the same time (my focus is on English, German and Dutch -- but works quite well for Swedish, French and others as well)

To achieve that goal of course one has to spent more, means more key changes than with Minimak 8 (which is a good first optimization step for sure). Yes, than more than 3 keys will change. I tried with fewer, but than the layout would be much less good and I do not find it too hard to rearrange uilo in that way -- all stay on the same hand and except l they stay in the same region (which I think also helps already).

I just compared my layout to other contenders like Colemak, APT 3, Asset (improved), poqtea, k-u_tea, Neo 2 and my layout fares very well in

KLA: http://klanext.keyboard-design.com/#/config

Colemak-Analyzer: https://colemakmods.github.io/mod-dh/analyze.html?freq=de

For German it's on par with the best (k-u_tea) and for English it is a tad behind Colemak and other good "mid-class" layouts. 

So I think my suggested layout can be interesting when one 

* wants to stay as close as possible to qwerty, but still have a high amount of optimization

* uses several latin-character languages

* wants to have the option to learn in steps (minimak 4, 6, 8, 10 and 14 would be the smallest possible steps making sense, so the first switch will be likely the hardest and the last one which changes uiol as well). I tried a cold-turkey switch, but that is hard I had to find out. I then tried a Minimak 4 or 6 layout (with nj), but because I already thought quite a bit about the optimal key positions and am well aware that r need to be on the home-row I sometimes typed r on the home-row, when it was not there yet. So I now will try to have to steps: Minimak 8 → and then the full Minimaks (which I decided to call it, with the pun of 'maks' sounding like max, which means I think this is the maximum you will get out of that variation. When someone finds another, better layout based on the Minimak 8 progression, I am of course very much interested! :)

You asked if I did look at other layouts as inspiration. I did not look at other layouts in that sense, but made a table with the most frequent characters in English, German and Dutch and also compared that to French and some other languages. I determined the characters which need to be in the home-position (ENAIRST) and found that OH and D are the next important and should be either on the home-row or on the middle-finger (top row), which I think is the next best place after the home-row. Then LGCU are also letters which should on the somewhat better positions (top-row or middle-row-center). The remaining chars do not contribute that much.

In addition to the frequency I also had a look at trying to avoid same-finger usage. That is the reason why UOL are in the position they are and had to move a bit more than my first attempt was. Those small rearrangement of those three chars achieve quite a serious improvement in avoiding same-finger usage, which IMO makes it worthwhile. In contrast moving even more characters (C could be changed with F for example, because it is used a tad more often) or other changes I tried where only very minor improvements (if at all). So I think the current suggestion with 14 keys moved, when I counted correctly, is a very reasonable and good working option to satisfy my outlined goals.

You mentioned that putting the arrow keys on the home-row has nothing to do with a layout. I agree in that sense that for a language optimization this is not relevant. But disagree in that sense that I think that taking care of putting the most used keys in a position to be able to touch-type "blind" is very important in the sense to achieve a relative maximum with a relative low amount of effort. BTW, Ted also had mentioned that he also has the arrow keys mapped to the home-row.

This is totally unrelated to gaming or other specific tasks, where you of course will use WASD-keys or the arrow-block on a keyboard.

A keyboard is used for the following tasks:

1) text input

2) text input with special chars (like in programming or using a single word in a foreign language or a single greek letter...)

3) text input in a foreign language

4) editing existing text (of cases 1 to 3)

5) special tasks like gaming, photo, video or sound-editing, using the PC as a controller for instruments or devices and so on

IMO an optimized layout should try to help especially with 1, 2 and 4 -- and if needed also allow for 3 in a sensible way.

5 will always benefit from application specific setups and optimizations IMO which are typically not related to 1 to 4.

Best regards

Peter

Op dinsdag 30 augustus 2022 om 22:01:53 UTC+2 schreef Pit:

[paper2222]

hi

oops

idk how google groups forums work

i don't get what you mean by "do you have a name as well?"
well, my name is paper

* come close to a fully optimized layout, but not only for one language, but for several languages

this is simply not possible, depending on what your definition of "fully optimized" is.

even colemak dh doesn't escape this

in english, the sfbs do quite well; 1.6%

however in german, it reaches a terrible almost 5% sfb, which i do not consider optimized.

in french, sfbs reach 3.6%.

while both of those languages may show good heatmap, there are issues. the languages have too different structures compared to english. trying to reach the middle ground will yield a layout that is only "ok" for all languages

you also mentioned about layout progression.

there's a "layout" made by dreymar called tarmak, or transition colemak

the layout splits colemak into 5 different layouts, one just a little different from another.

https://forum.colemak.com/topic/1858-learn-colemak-in-steps-with-the-tarmak-layouts/

[Pit]

Hi Paper,

I was not aware that "paper" is your name :-)

I agree that 5% sfb is not that great. qwertz has about 10% sfb for german and 6.6% for English. So this is what I want to improve on! That poor performance is a reason which is against Colemak for me personally. Also it changes even more keys, which -- if possible -- I try to avoid. I know about Tarmak, but that does not fix the two mentioned shortcomings for me. From a bunch of layouts I checked Minimaks has the lowest or close to lowest sfb-rate, even better than the AdNW which is optimized for German (plus some English). And yes, Minimaks is less optimized for English than Colemak and some others. But does better for German and "costs" less. There is always a trade-off. ;-)

Regards Peter