Qwerty to _ ? - Colemak, Workman, Maltron and more ...

[Zenaan Harkness]

So those who've ever (or still) experience RSI, know that a keyboard layout which reduces RSI is A Good Thing™©®.

Physicaa (shape) as well as logical (char mapping) "layouts" are issues for those in need.

The primary physical ergonomic layout is the concave Maltron which begat the similar Kinesis.

Eventually the FLOSS ErgoDox appeared, and though a planar (flat) keyboard, it is

 - ortholinear - huge win

 - split, another huge win - custom per-hand split width and orientation

 - ultra customizable layouts courtesy the QMK firmware

There are many ErgoDox incarnations, one of which is the ErgoDox-EZ.


The Maltron logical layout, despite being one of the statistically "best" (most ergonomic, heat map, finger travel reduction etc) and around since the 70's, does not seem to exist in the ErgoDox community.

Here's logic: if you're going to bother (or need to) learn a new keyboard layout, why not cut to the chase and learn the best?  Why bother learning more than one beyond Qwerty?

In any case, here's one hopeful Soul's journey:

https://configure.ergodox-ez.com/ergodox-ez/layouts/nmR7W/latest/2

Click "Play layout tour" near the bottom left if you have JavaScript - the Oryx tour feature makes for a very nice visual experience, so recommended - use the LEFT and RIGHT arrow keys to go forwards and backwards through the (relatively short) layout tour.

There's also some non-JavaScript screenies over here:

https://github.com/zenaan/quick-fixes-ftfw/blob/master/keyboard/README-ZenTron.md