I created a one-hand layout, similar to the FrogPad, for my Ergodox, and then wound up never bothering to use it seriously, at which point the muscle memory I spent a few weeks training up fell away
An accessible one-handed keyboard, inspired by FrogPad
11–20 of 61 posts
Re: An accessible one-handed keyboard, inspired by FrogPad
#12I have experience with both the FrogPad and the Matias Half Keyboard (I paid $95; now $595). The Frogpad never caught on with me. https://matias.store/products/half-keyboard The Matias Half Keyboard is based on a theory that our minds mirror each hand, so by holding the space bar to access the missing half keyboard, we already know what to do. I was skeptical. Recognizing that we're modal (do we even recognize that t…
There’s a trick with phantom limb pain and mirrors as well.
Re: An accessible one-handed keyboard, inspired by FrogPad
#13I can't imagine another cocktail party where my own one handed keyboard would be relevant, so here it is:
https://github.com/trevorjay/Handler
It's chorded, (based on the https://ardux.io/ layout), but I don't think chorded is really that hard to learn if you're actually willing to give it a week or two (which you have in any situation where you need a one hander).
The key (ha) I've found is that you want the keys to be as easy to press as possible while providing feedback. The Twiddler, https://twiddler.tekgear.com/ , is great for this as it uses light tact switches, but it has reliability issues.
This is a great project. Of all my one-handed experience, I never got to try a FrogPad because of the expense. Having a software implementation of the FrogPad is awesome.
Re: An accessible one-handed keyboard, inspired by FrogPad
#14I have experience with both the FrogPad and the Matias Half Keyboard (I paid $95; now $595). The Frogpad never caught on with me. https://matias.store/products/half-keyboard The Matias Half Keyboard is based on a theory that our minds mirror each hand, so by holding the space bar to access the missing half keyboard, we already know what to do. I was skeptical. Recognizing that we're modal (do we even recognize that t…
I've also tested out a mirror layout on a standard keyboard, it's shockingly easy to pick up
Re: An accessible one-handed keyboard, inspired by FrogPad
#15I can't imagine another cocktail party where my own one handed keyboard would be relevant, so here it is: https://github.com/trevorjay/Handler It's chorded, (based on the https://ardux.io/ layout), but I don't think chorded is really that hard to learn if you're actually willing to give it a week or two (which you have in any situation where you need a one hander). The key (ha) I've found is that you want the keys to…
Here's mine:
https://www.stavros.io/posts/keyyyyyyyys/
Wildly impractical, but super easy to build.
Re: An accessible one-handed keyboard, inspired by FrogPad
#16This is excellent. I had a frogpad and got reasonably comfortable with it, my use case was mostly messaging so not a heavy use of special characters like {}/|Etc. Given my experience with it, I agree that using it as a model for this project was a good choice. An acquaintance, Steve Roberts, had a really clever keyboard that attached to the handlebars of his recumbent bicycle so that he could type while riding.
Out of curiosity, how fast did you type on the frogpad ?
I really don't know, I didn't measure it. It wasn't as fast as a QWERTY keyboard but it was fast enough. It was definitely way faster than typing using a 10 key numpad on a phone. Based on Steve's recommendation I had also tried a one-hand keyboard that was basically a half sphere with buttons for your four fingers and a number of 'shift' buttons for your thumb (basically all chord all the time) and I never got comfortable enough with it to use it for any length of time.
Re: An accessible one-handed keyboard, inspired by FrogPad
#17There is no better keyboard and mouse than no keyboard and mouse. Does anyone knows a solution that allows to provide input without the need to move your arms and/or fingers? I have heard about brainwave detection but apparently it's hard to learn, slow and have a high latency. Any ideas?
Re: An accessible one-handed keyboard, inspired by FrogPad
#18A nice hack for building a small keyboard/macro pad that is 80% of the way there is to buy one of those cherry mx key testers, a microcontroller dev board of your choice, and a small lipo. All together it might cost you something like $40 depending on how many keys your key tester has and you should only need a soldering iron and some wire to put it together.
I second this as a great way to get started. If you look on Amazon there are a bunch of cheap eight key macros (Lichifit makes one) that are built via layers of acrylic: a base layer, a layer that houses the microcontroller, and a layer for the keyboard. It's easy enough to sub your own micro and 3D print a replacement layer.
Re: An accessible one-handed keyboard, inspired by FrogPad
#19I can't imagine another cocktail party where my own one handed keyboard would be relevant, so here it is: https://github.com/trevorjay/Handler It's chorded, (based on the https://ardux.io/ layout), but I don't think chorded is really that hard to learn if you're actually willing to give it a week or two (which you have in any situation where you need a one hander). The key (ha) I've found is that you want the keys to…
> I am a heavy user of a proprietary one-handed keyboard system. Recent maintenance issues and the lack of user serviceability have turned my attention to creating a more reliable solution.
Oh no! That's so sad to hear.
I was overjoyed when the new BT model came out; I was finally going to get to do the thing & get good at this. A couple years latter I actually made an effort to really learn it & get a little competent. For whatever reason (allegedly more coder friendly) I almost immediately adopted TabSpace layout & printed up a half dozen key map graphics so one would always be at hand.
It was a fun time but I never committed hard enough. I'm also just shocked how effective & capable I am at writing on a touchscreen. I'd tried some more code-oriented keyboards for coding, and this was a while ago but they lacked most of the intelligence/helpfulness of a mainstream touch-keyboard & weren't something I could hard adopt. In the meantime, the mainstream touch-keyboards forever annoy me; I really wish long presses could offer a lot more options but we seem forever consigned to be flipping between screens to get a special character or two.
I'm super excited to hear of Twiddler / one handed users in the wild. That's crazy awesome that you build your own! That it only takes 8 keys is a feat!
Re: An accessible one-handed keyboard, inspired by FrogPad
#20There is no better keyboard and mouse than no keyboard and mouse. Does anyone knows a solution that allows to provide input without the need to move your arms and/or fingers? I have heard about brainwave detection but apparently it's hard to learn, slow and have a high latency. Any ideas?
I really wish I had the capacity & skills to take on some hobbyist eye tracking efforts. I think a huge amount of work could be done by looking, or looking with some modifiers.
At some point I need to start doing some machine learning stuff. I'm intimidated to get started, and it feels like there's better tooling emerging. Also, I don't want to go Nvidia so it feels like I'm starting out in Hard mode. But some day I need to pick something like Keras and do some basic ML image processing or what not with my Radeon rx580, if it can.