Ask HN: Options for One-Handed Typing

An alternative is voice. I'm not trying to shill AI here; STT has been around for decades and it was one of my productivity hacks ten years ago.

But with all the AI around these days, the error correction is a lot better, and I'd expect more OSes can be fully voice operated within 5 years.

The tech also exists to move things around with a hand e.g. https://youtube.com/watch?v=shnW3VerkiM

I'll second the steep learning curve for the twiddler. I never got up to a typing speed on it that was not horribly, frustratingly, slow. But, I only needed it for a couple months.

Like OP's relative, I also could not use my dominant arm, nor have my arm in a position that would allow typing one handed on a regular keyboard. The twiddler was the only commercially available option that I was able to find that would allow me to type in this state. So, another recommendation of twiddler, but with the caveat that the original had several warts, and while they appear to be redesigned, they may still suffer from some of them.

The velcro strap to hold it to the hand, combined with the shape of the keyboard, allowed it to shift position while typing making it harder to use. Photos of the current models show they have a different shape now. Maybe this is less of a problem now? They are also wireless now, so there isn't a wire constantly pulling it out of position whenever you move.

The keyboard markings rubbed off completely after only a few weeks of use on my OG twiddler. Hopefully they have worked that manufacturing issue out for the current models.

I stopped using a mouse when I moved from desktop to laptop computer because I found the touchpad is so much more convenient for keeping my hand near the keyboard. However, doing this for over 20 years means I'm now very stuck in my habit of needing touchpads with real buttons. All my attempts to get used to the awful buttonless modern touchpads have been an absolute nightmare so far :-(

Even though the parent comment is useless and off-topic, I am vouching and unflagging it, so my response is visible. Please give MyPasswordSucks a chance to respond and attempt to redeem himself by trying to post something useful and interesting instead of whining. (Although I don't expect he's capable of doing that, so I feel sorry for him, but he deserves a chance to try to do better, or prove he can't by not responding.)

̀However aaron695's sister comment is so comically wrong and off base that it's not worth vouching for, since it adds nothing to the discussion, and only goes to show what kind of a horrible person they are. It's amusing just how wrong they are, but insulting and offensive to most people, so please set showdead=true if you want to see it. We all know very well by now how Team MAGA sees empathy as a weakness, and has a sick fetish with mocking and abusing people with disabilities.

Trump mocks reporter with disability:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX9reO3QnUA

>Donald Trump is under fire again, this time for mocking a New York Times reporter that suffers from a chronic condition. CNN's John Berman reports

Here's a low-effort ChatGPT generated TL;DR summary, to satisfy MyPasswordSucks who had trouble reading my other post:

Here’s the straight-up rundown of the Dasher thread:

DonHopkins jumped in to rave about Dasher—calling it a miracle for people who can’t type. He dropped links to videos, papers, GitHub, and even shared his personal emails with Ada Majorek, who uses Dasher because ALS stole her voice and hands. He made it clear he’d dug deep—watched hours of videos, pored over source code, talked to experts. He went all in to explain why Dasher deserves more love: it’s based on solid info theory, it learns your patterns, it’s openly extensible, and it works across languages and platforms—even VR.

Someone named novosel chimed in asking why Don’s comment was downvoted, saying Dasher really is worth knowing. But then MyPasswordSucks blasted it as “barely-parsable copy-paste diarrhea” and declared Dasher awful, claiming the whole thing was off-topic. He sneered at Don’s effort, calling it useless. aaron695 piled on, arguing Dasher isn’t the answer for someone with a short-term injury and criticizing Don’s wall of text even more harshly.

DonHopkins didn’t back down. He defended his post, pointed out how much final work he put in—no copying or pasting. He reminded people Ada had replied personally, highlighting how essential Dasher is for her. He got indignant about people whining instead of appreciating the depth of his write-up. In short, DonHopkins delivered a massive, heartfelt case for Dasher. Critics flamed him for style and focus. The result: a messy, heated debate between someone who’s poured years into accessibility work and anonymous commenters who can’t be bothered to look beyond a giant block of text.

Many years ago I has some pretty good experience with a FrogPad. See http://www.frogpad.com/

Maybe it is possible to find one sold used. I think they are not available new anymore.

There different versions for left and right hand use.