Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An accessible one-handed keyboard, inspired by FrogPad

kianryan.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 61 posts

Re: An accessible one-handed keyboard, inspired by FrogPad

#41

Post by gtrevorjay »

patrickkidger wrote: post #37
gtrevorjay wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. Unless I'm thinking of a different device, those were much more expensive the last time I took a look. That's super tempting. Just giving a preliminary skim of the website, it looks like their alphabet doesn't include meta characters like CTRL, ALT, and WINDOWS? Is there a more advanced mode? When you customize things, is that done on device (just sending keystrokes as a Bluetooth keyboard) or do you need specia…

I have a Tap Strap 2. (Although only as of a couple of weeks ago, so still pretty new to it.) Answering your questions, split into pros and cons: ## Pros You can customise the layout, including meta keys like control/alt/windows. I think the "more advanced mode" is basically just designing your own layout. It's honestly very accurate for a keyboard that is basically just tapping your figures against a table. It defin…

Thanks for the details!

The insertion of backspaces is interesting. One of the drawbacks of--say--Ardux is that some layers are accessed by holding down one key and then pressing others. It's adjustable but it means there's a delay when you want to enter characters on such layers as the keyboard has to wait and make sure you're actually holding. Conflicts aside, committing early and then correcting is interesting.

The Twiddler eventually got third party tools, maybe the Tap Strap can.. as well. Being at the mercy of an app service for what is for a large portion of users a medical device is insane.

Re: An accessible one-handed keyboard, inspired by FrogPad

#42

Post by ako »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #36
Syzygies wrote: post #10

I 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…

Another anecdata. I had a bike accident which took my left hand out of commission for a while. It was after the Matias keyboard became so expensive, and I was broke. But I was motivated enough to try the concept that I hacked together a software implementation that behaved more or less the same way on a standard full size keyboard by swapping to a mirrored system keyboard layout while holding the spacebar for a short…

Sounds like something you could also do with half of a keychron Q11 and some reprogramming via QMK?

Re: An accessible one-handed keyboard, inspired by FrogPad

#43

Post by tiltowait »

Syzygies wrote: post #10

I 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 always been curious about that half keyboard, but nowhere near to the point of spending $600. I'm glad to have read some impressions, at least!

Re: An accessible one-handed keyboard, inspired by FrogPad

#45

Post by heads »

stavros wrote: post #15
gtrevorjay wrote: post #13

I 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.

What a fun read! Your “how to get shot in the airport” caption nearly made me spit out my coffee.

Re: An accessible one-handed keyboard, inspired by FrogPad

#46

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

stavros wrote: post #15
gtrevorjay wrote: post #13

I 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.

Having seen this but not yet having gotten to building it - is it wildly impractical? It looks a little slow (and obviously there's a learning curve) but it seems like it would work nicely in a number of cases where a normal keyboard wouldn't. (Ex. I bet I could use it on an exercise bike)

Re: An accessible one-handed keyboard, inspired by FrogPad

#47

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

gtrevorjay wrote: post #32
throwup238 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s your max WPM with the one handed setup?

I won't lie, straight-up prose is much slower. I can just about break 120 wpm with a full QWERTY whereas I can only do roughly 40-45 single-handed. Typing passwords sucks. The big 'however' here is coding. I also have a one-handed mouse from Elecom. Not switching between mouse and keyboard to navigate, combined with macros being less strain (basically no hand travel and sticky meta keys) means I'm faster editing code…

> Not switching between mouse and keyboard to navigate,

I found the opposite solution also works:D A combination of keynav, a tiling window manager, and ex. vimium[0] make reaching for the mouse pretty much optional:)

[0] The key feature is a hotkey to quickly select links with the keyboard.

Re: An accessible one-handed keyboard, inspired by FrogPad

#48

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

sobkas wrote: post #17

There 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?

There's eviacam, though it's code rotting:(

Re: An accessible one-handed keyboard, inspired by FrogPad

#49

Post by stavros »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #46
stavros wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's mine: https://www.stavros.io/posts/keyyyyyyyys/ Wildly impractical, but super easy to build.

Having seen this but not yet having gotten to building it - is it wildly impractical? It looks a little slow (and obviously there's a learning curve) but it seems like it would work nicely in a number of cases where a normal keyboard wouldn't. (Ex. I bet I could use it on an exercise bike)

To be honest, I've only used it twice. It was fine, really, there's just a big learning curve and it can only do 32 characters. I imagine that, with some good autocorrect, it might be fairly usable.

Re: An accessible one-handed keyboard, inspired by FrogPad

#50

Post by stavros »

heads wrote: post #45
stavros wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's mine: https://www.stavros.io/posts/keyyyyyyyys/ Wildly impractical, but super easy to build.

What a fun read! Your “how to get shot in the airport” caption nearly made me spit out my coffee.

Thanks, I'm glad you liked it!
Post reply on HN