the keyboard layouts for the Splitography and the Planck on this site, applied certain personal thumb conventions – noticeably, the Shift modifier, the Space Enter Backspace Delete Tab Escape keys, and raising the various Symbol Number Fn Cursor layers.

The thumb’s strength invited such responsibilities whose benefits aligned nicely with the pinkie adverse fingering goals of the BEAKL layout variants. The most radical change along the way was moving the I to the thumb to further optimize fingering metrics. The Splitography with its four thumb keys – which I actually quite like and prefer – has undergone numerous thumb key mappings to accommodate this constraint, culminating in the BEAKL Ti.

Immediately after the last set of BEAKL Ti changes which saw several symbols Shift mapped to the base layer, a radical thought occurred, or more rather, an embarrassingly obvious one that has been available for quite some time since the implementation of the Home Row Modifiers, which is particularly applicable to the Splitography. Why not actually relegate Shift to its home row modifier?

This frees up two key mappings for the thumbs, moves the Shift to the more nimble index fingers, and allows the thumbs keys to be organized in such a fashion that there is now only one lateral thumb movement required during typing, and that, for the infrequently raised Number Layer.

The fluidity of this new layout, even with the new finger memory stumbles for the Shift key, is shockingly bettered across the board – and the firmware code is reduced too! Perhaps instead of naming this layout BEAKL Si for “simplified”, it should be named BEAKL Ni for “nirvana”..

base layer

Tap key actions for..

keycode	double tap	double tap (down)	triple tap
Colon	Colon Minus
Space		repeating Space
Backspace		repeating Backspace

thumb symbols and cursor

the fluidity of having all the symbols characters available from the former Shift thumb position cannot be overstated. Punctuation and coding are typed effortlessly..

Tap key actions for..

keycode	double tap	double tap (down)**	triple tap
Colon			“ :: ”
Less Than		repeating LessThan	“ <- ”
Percent		repeating Percent
Greater Than		repeating GreaterThan	“ -> ”
Asterisk	Dot Asterisk

**The down modifier state for the key necessitates a double tap (down) to distinguish a repeating character.

home row shift

the greatly simplified home row Shift obsoletes the previous rolling thumb firmware logic for floating the Enter key under the thumb. The thumbs now never need to move, promoting effortless touch typing..

Tap key actions for..

keycode	double tap	double tap (down)	triple tap
Tilde	Tilde Slash

dot chords

for smart capitalization and reduced keystrokes remains – oddly, feeling even more natural because of the static position of the thumbs..

Tap key actions with Dot* key down for..

keycode	single tap	double tap	triple tap
Space	Dot* Space Shift
Enter	Dot* Enter Shift	Dot* Enter Enter Shift

*Where “Dot” is Period (base layer), Question (thumb shift) or Exclamation Mark (home row shift). The chord acts as a one shot modifier, capitalizing the next keystroke.

thumb numbers and function keys

the double key thumb activation for Function keys remains unchanged..

thumb mouse

thumb shortcuts

the Steno layer key is moved from the upper to the lower corner to reduce finger memory errors with the ingrained BEAKL Ti PgUp key. Double tap Paste actions to terminate with an Enter further workflow tuning..

Tap key actions for..

keycode	single tap	double tap	triple tap
Paste	string	string Enter
XPaste	string	string Enter
Priv		string
Pub		string

toggle layers

the CapsLock Layer incorporates the new Shift Home Row emphasis as above..

The remaining Number Fn Symbol Mouse toggle layers are identical to the thumb raised layouts above, using the Escape key to return to the normal keyboard mode.

legend

history

add a CapsLock toggle to the right thumb Space Backspace keys (double key tap) for convenient finger reach – and an unintended thumb row symmetry to the center column Fn Capslock keys.

Add a dual key Soft Reset to the center column Fn Capslock keys. With both keys held down, reinitialize the keyboard to its base layer – useful during the development of complex keyboard macros. Sort of ironic to add this feature now, at possibly my keyboard endgame!

Only a few days in but this layout is by far the most fluid modifier/thumb key model designed so far. The fixed thumb position (save for raising the Number Layer) makes all the difference in the world to the feel of this keyboard, differentiating this layout from most other split ergo layouts that I am aware of.