arsenik

Arsenik

A basic Miryoku-like approach to minimize finger movements:

• 3 home-row mods per hand for Ctrl, Alt, Super
• 3 layer-tap keys under the thumbs: Shift/Backspace, Navigation/Space, Symbol/Return

Bring the keys to your fingers, rather than moving your fingers to the keys!

• A long press on the Return key brings up the Symbol layer, where all programming symbols are arranged for comfort and efficiency, Dvorak-like.
• A long press on the Space bar brings up the Navigation layer, with easy one-hand shortcuts (Ctrl-WASZXCV), Vim-like navigation (HJKL) and more…

This is how modern ergonomic keyboards work — e.g. Planck, Atreus, Corne, Ferris… The goal here is to propose an approach that works with any keyboard, including your laptop’s.

Main Benefits

• Shift, Backspace, Return under the thumbs!
• all programming symbols in the comfortable 3×10 zone
• symmetrical modifiers on the home row
• Vim-like navigation in all apps
• easier left-hand shortcuts
• works with any keyboard

Using Arsenik

Unlike Miryoku which requires 6 thumb keys, Arsenik has been designed to work with standard ANSI/ISO/laptop keyboards, leveraging the spacebar and the two Alt/Cmd keys.

Non-programmable keyboards are supported through kanata.

Programmable keyboards should be trivial to configure with QMK, ZMK, Kaleidoscope, etc.

No numbers? No problem.

If your keyboard has no number row, we got you covered! In Symbol mode, pressing the left thumb key brings up the NumRow layer:

• all digits are on the home row, in the order you already know
• the upper row helps with Shift-digit shortcuts
• the lower row has dash, comma, dot and slash signs to help with number / date inputs

Even on keyboards that do have a number row, this NumRow layer can be interesting to use in order to minimize finger movements a bit more.

Related Projects

Inspiration

• Miryoku for the main idea of using modifiers on the homerow and layer shifters under the thumbs;
• Lafayette and Ergo-L for the Symbol layer, which has been blatantly taken as is.

Alternatives

• Extend for the Navigation layer
• Neo for the Navigation and Symbol layers
• Pascal Getreuer for the Symbol layer

Non-Goals

• being the most efficient 3×5 layout — Miryoku is probably the most advanced approach for that, at least on custom 36-key keyboards;
• being the most intuitive 3×5 layout — Neo’s navigation-and-numpad layer would be an easier alternative, but a more Vim-like approach has been preferred;
• fitting any OS layout — Arsenik works best if your OS layout has either no AltGr layer at all (e.g. QWERTY, Colemak, Workman…), or an optimized AltGr layer (Lafayette, Ergo-L…).

TODO

• NumPad layer?
• angle mods!
• KMonad / Karabiner support
• sample QMK / ZMK implementations for common keyboards
• variants for specific OS layouts