Ask HN: Options for One-Handed Typing
One-handed typer here – well, one hand and one finger, and it’s been like this for all my life. Your friend may want to consider text macro tools such as Keyboard Maestro for macOS. There are many others, but KM will also launch apps and do other magic for me just by typing two or three letters. Create a list of frequently used words or segments, define a generic expansion key (in my case #) that doesn’t require a modifier. I have more than 1000 of these macros, and it really helps with all those long words in my native German. Dictation may also help, although I find that it leads my thoughts in different directions when I see words appear on the screen as I speak.
I severely burned most of dominant hand about a decade ago in a grease fire. One-handing the whole keyboard was fine enough (70-100wpm to 15-20wpm) that I didn't bother looking for a better solution, but I was able to use the injured hand enough to press modifier keys as needed. Unless they plan on working while recovering, I'd try out not making any explicit modifications. Good excuse to catch up on movie-watching.
Arm amputee programmer here. There are some wild hardware solutions out there.
What I found best was
- a standard qwerty keyboard (I didn't want to be restricted to custom keyboards)
- A learning program called Five Finger Typist. https://www.spectronics.com.au/product/five-finger-typist-2-...
Basically I'm hybrid touch typing. Because I cover the whole keyboard as I type the chance for error increases the longer I type. I quickly glance to know where i'm aligned.
In hindsight I should have learnt to use the F and J notches more.
I have extensively remapped my IDE shortcuts to be easier to trigger.
First of all, condolences to your friend and cool of you to look into this.
Back in the day I switched to Dvorak and came across the "one handed Dvorak layout. This may be what you are referring to. I haven't tried it much but those layouts could be a temporary solution. I found Qwerty to be a lot easier to type one handed straight up because Dvorak tries to alternate hands between keys.
I recently discovered Talon, an open source app for voice control of basically everything on a machine that requires no typing at all. I saw some people are using it even if they can use their hands, as a power tool. It appears to be fully Python scriptable and also gives you some nice speech to text abilities too.
It allows you to specify a bunch of keywords for typing symbols and it looks like some people can do full coding quite quickly.
Perhaps this injury could be an opportunity to try something like this and become more powerful than before?
Best of luck and recovery to your friend.
I intermittently use a Twiddler (older version). The learning curve is initially steep but fine with practice. It's not cheap but it's not that expensive, and it works for mousing as well: https://www.tekgear.com/twiddler-4-wrap.html
Any specifics on the kind of typing they need?
If it’s human text (as opposed to code), one handed swipe style typing on a smartphone can get really fluid, and it’s relatively easy to get for someone who is a touch typer. I’d check on ways to use that as computer input if needed.
Last year I had an injury that left me one handed for a few months. I managed to hunt-and-peck my way to a patched QMK firmware for an Adafruit Macropad I had lying around. I set it up with the artsey.io layout and set the cheatsheet as my desktop wallpaper.
I found the Learning Artsey book from Discord helpful and managed to get up to 15 WPM in about a week with regular practice. Still quite tedious for coding, but good enough for emails and IRC.
https://www.adafruit.com/product/5128
https://github.com/JeremyGrosser/qmk_firmware/tree/artsey_ma...
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/artseyio/artsey/main/layou...
Have you considered voice dictation and control? There are good commercial solutions and even some free ones (like https://talonvoice.com/ - edit: not open source but has lots of community plugins). I used it for a while when I was recovering from hand problems. I was surprised how easy it was to learn. It helped a lot for tasks like navigating windows, writing emails etc. There are even voice coding applications now (https://www.cursorless.org/).
A keyboard with the keys pulled and replaced in the Dvorak "LH" (left hand) layout might be worth a try. Years ago, I had a hand injury for several weeks and this got me through. Took about a week or two to type reasonably well. It remaps the number row to one side for maximum use of the keys on the strong side.
August Dvorak developed these "LH" and "RH" layouts for amputees. The layouts are well thought out IMHO. It feels like typing on a numeric keypad.
This was ... about 20 years ago, and I don't even remember why I wanted to do this, but I found some software that let me remap the keyboard somehow - so I picked a key (probably caps lock?) that would "mirror" the standard QWERTY layout.
F would become J; S would become L, etc.
I was able to have a fairly decent input speed.
I wish I remembered why I did this. I think I had some tedious task that I couldn't figure out how to automate, that required me to have one hand on the mouse[1] most of the time, and swapping between keyboard and mouse all the time got tedious enough that I invested the time.
[1] Yes, the mouse. :)
edit: Ah, someone already made the same suggestion elsewhere here! I'm glad it's a popular choice.
I had a family member who broke a finger on their prominent hand and used the left-handed Dvorak layout while it healed, getting up to about 40 WPM:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_keyboard_layout#One-han...
I have a long fascination with weird input devices, owing partly to a predisposition to fine joint problems, and Chorders are always both super interesting in theory and kind of weird in practice, going all the way back to the Engelbart/SRI 5-key Keyset that was carried forward to the Alto.
Of the ones I've played with, I find the 7-key kind (4 fingers and 3 thumb positions) to be the most appealing, and I don't see them mentioned in the thread. Infogrip has sadly discontinued their commercial BAT offering, the "Spiffchorder" family ( https://www.chorder.org/wiki/doku.php/start ) use the same chord-set and are designed to be cheap and easy construction - I've made a few in different physical arrangements. I'm too qwerty habituated and never got _completely_ comfortable, but I've been up to tolerable a couple times.
My "normal" typing is mostly on conventional splits (Kinesis makes make some nice off-the-shelf options that just split and tent), largely to avoid shoulder issues. I recently tried a ortholinear split and... I'm pretty convinced they really don't have meaningful benefits.
Once their finger movement has been restored, I'd look into various large-split keyboards. The Kinesis Freestyle2 USB version has a large split (20") option that could help. They have screw hole mounts on the bottom which you could likely jerry-rig with a sling to put the keyboard in the proper position. I used it with a custom 3d-printed mount so that I could attach it to the arms of my chair.
The wireless version has less of a gap, but you could always just get two of them and use the left half of one and the right half of another.
Feel free to reach out to me at justin (at) justin-c (dot) com, if you want to talk. I spent about 5 years working on custom mounting options for keyboards after getting a severe RSI, ultimately proven to be partially caused by a rheumatic condition.
I went through the same as few years ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26710046
It depends on what you're doing but the biggest help to me was the dictate button in outlook to draft email then just edit, probably a lot more use now with copilot etc. Your friend needs to be prepared for a significant drop in productivity at the computer and at home. Even simple things like making a sandwich or getting dressed will be difficult and slow, especially at the start.
I would reach out to Charachorder and ask if you can get a priority shipment of one of their products. They spend a lot of time making informative videos about their product, and disabilities is a significant use case. If your friend is willing to make the tradeoff of a steep learning curve for raw input speed, this seems like your best bet. I have never personally used the device, but from what I can see, it requires very little finger movement.
There is Edgar Matias's "Half Keyboard" layout, where the right hand's keys of a regular keyboard are mirrored on the left hand when holding a modifier key with your thumb. The idea is that if you have learned touch-typing then muscle memory for the right hand should be available also on the left.
Matias wrote an article [1] about it and then made it into a commercial product [2], but the concept should be possible on any programmable keyboard. Perhaps it would be possible with a AutoHotkey (MS-Windows) or Karabiner (MacOS) script otherwise.
There is a large scene for more-or-less DIY "ergonomic" mechanical programmable keyboards with various different physical layouts, but common themes are 1) that they are split in a pair of two physical keyboards and 2) that they have multiple thumb-keys for modifiers / Return / Space. You could build and program just one half of such a pair. Many years ago I programmed an ErgoDox with the HalfKeyboard layout, just to try it out, and that ErgoDox I had built on a budget from mostly salvaged vintage components.
[1]: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/One-Handed-Touch-Typin...
I was in a full arm cast (including fingers) for 9 months in college while taking many CS classes and I just used my one hand to type on the full qwerty keyboard. It definitely slowed me down, but I got up to ~60 wpm with the one hand. I think it's easier to just stick with the layout you know vs trying to learn to type with one hand in a new layout.
The nice part is that I can still type pretty quickly one-handed (maybe 50 wpm? Haven't measured in a while) and it's convenient sometimes.
Wouldn't think that they could use their voice. I had a serious shoulder injury and a surgery an all that. At first I tried my other arm but it would get tired. Voice conversion to text works really well nowadays. Voice to text worked for me.
Perhaps I missed it, but I’m amazed I didn’t see any mention of Maltron here:
https://www.maltron.com/store/p19/Maltron_Single_Hand_Keyboa...
They’re expensive, and the other options mentioned may be better, but I feel like they should be included for completeness’ sake at the very least.
Aah!
Just in time...
Though a bit late to the party!!
I'm on the recovery path of my dominant hand boxer's fracture... A month and a few weeks to go yet for the cast removal...
Surprisingly got used to type with two fingers and minimal movement though have to place the external keyboard at an awkward angle.
My 2 cents would be to try out a few existing possibilities before investing heavily on alternates. Sometimes all such just-for-the-time-extensions (or should I call it contraptions?) do not have a useful after life after the utilization or in-need-of period.
I have had many injuries / broken bones (or at least 7 more times! (And please don't judge me based on this. I'm either that clumsy or those were freak incidents...)) and none that were created / acquired to help me out during those restricted movement periods have stayed with me...
Anyways, the mileage may vary... My short advice... Try for sometime (if you could get somethings loaned or borrowed) for a short / extended-short periods and invest...
Tough times and best wishes and speedy recovery to get back on feet and to a healthy normal!
This too shall pass...
I use a Moonlander keyboard: https://www.zsa.io/moonlander It's very easy to change the layout on these boards since you can do it directly from their website.
One of the left thumb keys "flips" the board so that the left half behaves like the right half. In my experience it's not hard to learn to type like this. Here's my layout: https://configure.zsa.io/moonlander/layouts/oLyWr/latest/0
Bonus of using a Moonlander in this case is that you can unplug the unused right half and put it away if you don't need it.
The best solution for me was to type with the left hand and switch from a mouse to a Logitech MX Ergo thumb-trackball — the key advantage is it can sit inside the sling and instantly give me full functionality.
My use case was shoulder surgery that kept my dominant right hand in a sling for two+ months, but I could use my fingers after a week or so, and much of my work is CAD.
It took only a few hours to completely get used to it, and I never went back to a mouse. While left-hand-only typing speed obviously went down, this was significantly mitigated by having a full function point-&-click device.
It turns out this setup is also really helpful when working in tight spaces where a mouse is near-impossible, such as airplanes or tight luncheon booths.
Even typing emails and multi-page documents left-handed was tolerable for 10 weeks, but if it had been longer, I probably would have looked into a chorded one-handed keyboard solution, as the learning cost would have been worth it.
I hope this helps, and good on you for helping your friend, and I hope they get well fast!
I have used a one-handed keyboard for 20 years. My current set up is using
- A 25 key Macropad (really an external numpad) Something like this, for around $50 USD https://www.dhgate.com/product/25keys-macro-keyboard-kit-pro...
- The keyboard supports QMK, the customizable open source keyboard firmware
- I programmed my own layout using the Frogpad style layout others have mentioned. Its central feature is that it is what's known as a "chording keyboard" in which you hit multiple keys at the same time, like a piano chord, to trigger different letters.
- The reduced keys on the keyboard mean I can comfortably produce any character at normal speed with one hand without moving my wrist in a way that would cause RSI.
If you want more info or a copy of my QMK config let me know.
I once needed to seriously investigate a setup for one-handed typing. My conclusion at the time was that after a learning period, one-hand typing on a regular keyboard was just as productive as using a special keyboard, and had the advantage of not needing special facilities. I think the only special feature needed was the addition of a "sticky" key facility.
A free mirror-based layout that goes beyond just letters: https://99percentinvisible.org/article/one-hand-touch-typing...
There are other options, but hardware solutions are really expensive
Your friend might also consider No Handed Typing i.e. speech based typing. The tools for this have really progressed in recent times. I have a friend who codes full time without using his hands. He uses https://talonvoice.com/ but I'm sure there are other tools as well.
I have one of these: https://artsey.io/ - it has only eight keys, and I love it: https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2023/08/08/1230
The layout/project is a bit niche, but I can vouch that it works, even if slowly at first (I am mostly right-handed but ordered a left-handed one and it's become quite natural to use, although I will fumble some keys and symbols on occasion).
You can order something like a Keychron keyboard (they have many models that support VIA/QMK and full keyboard remapping) and implement the same layout, or something more "natural" like a mirror layout.
Its been a while since this happened but I laid my motorcycle down, ended up fracturing my wrist. Honestly, if you aren't used to one handed typing its not worth the time to train to get good at it(I'm assuming they're right hand dominant) its all just muscle memory. If they can pick it up quickly go for it, keyboard bindings, or something like predictive text assistance, or even vim-like remappings are an interesting idea.
IMO - if possible just peck-type(like an old lady who is learning to use a keyboard) or use text to speech/AI & editing where possible - like in emails. They shouldn't be using the left arm/hand much right after surgery anyway. If they're programming definitely not as easy but still doable.
There was just a 99% invisible podcast about exactly this topic.
~25 years ago I injured my right (dominant) hand and wasn't able to type with it for about 2.5 months. I figured the time was short enough that I would just use a regular keyboard, one handed, and live with the slowdown.
It was annoying, certainly, and while I did get faster typing only with my left hand, I of course never got close to full speed. But it was fine, I survived, and I don't think it would have been worth spending the money, as well as the time to learn a new keyboard setup.
Remember that a one-handed keyboard (or some other arrangement) isn't going to bring you back up to full speed immediately. It's probably going to take a few weeks to learn, and you might not even get back up to full speed at all.
Maybe worth considering speech to text. Dictation has come a long way and if they are using a Mac any of the locally running whisper wrappers will work.
1. https://goodsnooze.gumroad.com/l/macwhisper (dictation + transcription)
2. https://carelesswhisper.app (does dictation only, and does it really well; cheapest)
3. https://superwhisper.com (both local and hosted models + lots of bells and whistles, but much higher pricing)
Jeff Geerling recently posted a video of a keyboard with inbuilt speech to text, my might be of interest!
Specialty keyboards like the TiPY are indeed very expensive, here in the EU it's a thousand (!) Euros:
https://tipykeyboard.com/en/produkt/tipy-keyboard-black-en
However, if your relative is employed and needs to type for the job, then there's a good chance the employer will pay for it if it means they can work more efficiently during these months. Another option, which however is much less likely to succeed and will probably take much longer, is to try to get this through health insurance.
I know someone who uses a Twiddler full-time, and I used mine for about a month when I broke my dominant hand about a decade ago. Works very well if your hand is the right size for it.
I have a tap strap, but I use it mostly as a remote control for my TV, not as a primary input device. It probably works, but I'm not good enough with it to have the kind of error rate I'd really like.
Android has a Morse input method which would be entirely suitable for one-handed text input and there are certainly solutions for using an android phone as a keyboard, but I don't know how it'd handle things like arrow keys.
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
Special keyboards for one-handed typing are probably very expensive because of two reasons. First the small market, not a lot of potential customers, a lot of development costs and high per-unit production costs. And second because they are often paid for by insurance or a public program to bring people with disabilities to the workplace. It's a bargain for insurance to buy a keyboard for 1000$ and enable a person to do their job, instead of paying for decades of sick leave.
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.
I had a surgery once upon a time on my non-dominant arm which left me in a one-handed typing state for a couple of months. I simply used one hand on a full size keyboard. My typing speed went through the floor, but it was doable. I doubt I would invest the time, effort, and expense to learn dedicated hardware if I had to go through it again. I definitely would explore those options if I had permanent loss of the hand, though.
I came across this on Instagram today:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DKcV8_cPHll/
They made a one handed keyboard for someone who can't use their right hand. They also open sourced it on github:
over the years i tried the following options, all have their down and upsides, I prefer the half-dvorak layout to the frogpad and the twiddler2, I also like the morse code solution, but input might be slower.
* mattias half-qwerty or a similar half-dvorak layout (different from rh/lh dvorak)
* frogpad (a onehanded keyboard)
* twiddler2 (a chording one-hand joystick/keyboard)
* morse code with a mouse, keyboard or special keying device https://makoa.org/jlubin/morsecode.htm
https://github.com/grahamwhaley/pico_vband https://github.com/acecentre/morace
* shorthand augment these methods with bref or superwrite alphabetic shorthand so you have to type around 40% less https://www.reddit.com/r/shorthand/comments/esjhdk/bref_shor...
I broke a meta carpal on my left hand several months ago and dealt with a similar issue. I ended up making a little python script that would use whisper to record with a button press, did some small corrections and then saved it to clipboard. It was very helpful. I did end up needing my regular clipboard as well, so I just had it save and paste with a slightly different shortcut sequence.
The Taipo layout is ported to QMK, ZMK, and KMK keyboards. It is meant to be useable with one hand. It's also a chording layout that requires far fewer keys than most keyboards. It's on my list of things to try this year: https://inkeys.wiki/en/keymaps/taipo
When I broke my collarbone on my dominant arm I learned Dvorak left-handed layout a QMK keyboard. I configured some layers to make all the symbols needed for programming easy to access, and hold-space-for-shift. I learned the layout using Epistory, a typing game. There’s several similar games now that look helpful. It was slower but workable.
I am very interested in keyboard and built some like dactyl manuform. I watched this one on youtube and was impressed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNU5rRbhzTU
Also if you go down the youtube rabbit hole you will find many interesting 1 hand layouts.
In case it helps, https://www.joshwcomeau.com/blog/hands-free-coding/
I would think swipe-style keyboard on your phone would be a good solution (as long as its normal text and not code). I wonder if theres a KVM-like application for your phone and computer so swipes on your phone can send keypresses to the other side.
I don't know the current versions, but years ago I remember a "chording keyboard" for the HP Palmtop - it was IIRC a handheld device with five or six keys that you typed by pressing keys at the same time.
The guy was able to type pretty darn fast with it, one handed.
I've used Talon for voice and AutoHotKey for mapping the caps lock key as a mouse click. But beware, suddenly using the non dominant side much more to compensate can cause issues. I probably needed some proactive physical therapy or strengthening on the non injured side.
Along with figuring out the typing, don't underestimate how powerful voice transcription has become with apps like superwhisper https://superwhisper.com/
Surprised no one mentioned this, but voice dictation is pretty good in both Windows and MacOS. Would it be possible to use a combination of one hand and voice dictation, AI text prediction (autocomplete), etc?
You could try one handed dvorak as a layout, macos supports it, not too sure about other systems.
My first thought would be to have them look into voice dictation instead of relying only on one hand. That would be much faster than typing
I would use wispr flow or these other whisper voice to text tools that use ai to be even better
for/from a phone: https://github.com/dessalines/thumb-key
on a phone: swipe / glide typing only requires 1 finger. good enough for general text.
Co-incidentally, saw this video on Microsoft's VSCode Youtube channel yesterday - the Engineer in question was born without a right hand and shows her workflow with accessibility tools: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUPqKm5wVhw
Hope this helps your relative. Good luck.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38400368
DonHopkins on Nov 24, 2023 | parent | context | favorite | on: AI is currently just glorified compression
I love David MacKay's brilliant work on the Dasher text input system, which draws deeply from his work on information theory -- imagine Dasher integrated with an IDE and code search and Copilot and language model!
"Writing is navigating in the library of all possible books." -David MacKay
We just allocate more shelf space to the more probable letters.
Why isn't Dasher built into every operating system and mobile phone?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dasher_(software)
https://dasher.acecentre.net/about/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17105728
DonHopkins on May 18, 2018 | parent | context | favorite | on: Pie Menus: A 30-Year Retrospective: Take a Look an...
Dasher is fantastic, because it's based on rock solid information theory, designed by the late David MacKay. Here is the seminal Google Tech Talk about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpOxbesRNBc
Here is a demo of using Dasher by an engineer at Google, Ada Majorek, who has ALS and uses Dasher and a Headmouse to program:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvHQ83pMLQQ
Another one of her demonstrating Dasher:
Ada Majorek Introduction - CSUN Dasher
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvsSrClBwPM
Here’s a more recent presentation about it, that tells all about the latest open source release of Dasher 5:
Dasher - CSUN 2016 - Ada Majorek and Raquel Romano
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFlkM_e-sDg
Here's the github repo:
Dasher Version 4.11
https://github.com/GNOME/dasher
>Dasher is a zooming predictive text entry system, designed for situations where keyboard input is impractical (for instance, accessibility or PDAs). It is usable with highly limited amounts of physical input while still allowing high rates of text entry.
Ada referred me to this mind bending prototype:
D@sher Prototype - An adaptive, hierarchical radial menu.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oSfEM8XpH4
>( http://www.inference.org.uk/dasher ) - a really neat way to "dive" through a menu hierarchy/, or through recursively nested options (to build words, letter by letter, swiftly). D@sher takes Dasher, and gives it a twist, making slightly better use of screen revenue.
>It also "learns" your typical useage, making more frequently selected options larger than sibling options. This makes it faster to use, each time you use it.
>More information here: http://beznesstime.blogspot.com and here: https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=960
Dasher is even a viable way to input text in VR, just by pointing your head, without a special input device!
Text Input with Oculus Rift:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFQgluUwV2U
>As part of VR development environment I'm currently writing ( https://github.com/xanxys/construct ), I've implemented dasher ( http://www.inference.org.uk/dasher ) to input text.
One important property of Dasher is that you can pre-train it on a corpus of typical text, and dynamically train it while you use it. It learns the patterns of letters and words you use often, and those become bigger and bigger targets that string together so you can select them even more quickly!
Ada Majorek has it configured to toggle between English and her native language so she can switch between writing email to her family abroad and co-workers at google.
Now think of what you could do with a version of dasher integrated with a programmer's IDE, that knew the syntax of the programming language you're using, as well as the names of all the variables and functions in scope, plus how often they're used!
I have a long term pie in the sky “grand plan” about developing a JavaScript based programmable accessibility system I call “aQuery”, like “jQuery” for accessibility. It would be a great way to deeply integrate Dasher with different input devices and applications across platforms, and make them accessible to people with limited motion, as well as users of VR and AR and mobile devices.
https://web.archive.org/web/20180826132551/http://donhopkins...
Here’s some discussion on hacker news, to which I contributed some comments about Dasher:
A History of Palm, Part 1: Before the PalmPilot (lowendmac.com)
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This will depend a bit on the person but for me when I injured my right arm I found that my touch typing muscle memory worked surprisingly well with a toggle key to flip the left side of my keyboard to become a mirrored version of the right side. Each finger was still hitting the same key like it would if I was using my right hand to hit the key but on my left hand. This was fairly easy to accomplish on a QMK firmware keyboard (I was also already typing on a split keyboard so that might be part of the reason it was fairly easy to adjust). See https://docs.qmk.fm/features/swap_hands#swap-hands-action