This adaptation of the Engrammer and Hands Down Promethium keyboard layouts improves on the latter's performance in keyboard layout analyzers (see below) by mirroring it horizontally to restore familiarity with Arno's Engram 2.0 layout (CIEA on left hand's home row; PF is swapped with WV to be like Engram) and the Dvorak layout (HTNS on right hand's home row), and by optimizing the placement of punctuation for programming in the spirit of the Engrammer layout.
Notably, the differences between Engram/mer and Enthium are so minimal that one might switch to it completely with about 6 hours of practice, spread over 2-3 days (start Friday and use weekend), to unlock all letters in KeyBr training.
q y u o / x l d w z
b c i e a , k h t n s v
' - = . ; j m g p f
r
-
Q and Z are split apart onto different hands for balance and symmetry.
-
B and V are on the home row's lateral pinky keys (CapsLock, Apostrophe) to avoid reaching up for folks with short or weakened pinky fingers.
-
Apostrophe is away (on a different finger entirely) from YOU and I so it can be typed without same-finger bigrams such as
you'd
andI'd
. -
Minus and equals are clustered for intuitive zooming in/out with Ctrl.
-
Comma and semicolon are clustered for cycling f/F/t/T searches in Vim and also to mirror the relative ordering of K and J on the right hand.
-
Though period and comma are reversed in terms of their shifted symbols
>
and<
, this arrangement helps to reduce lateral stretch bigrams while clustering>
with minus and equals for->
and=>
arrows and stacking them vertically on traditional row-staggered keyboards.
PF is swapped with WV in order to address the following inconveniences:
- WN is a stair-step ascension same-finger bigram that I wished I could rake down instead
- DW (2u skip) is not as convenient for Vim as it was in Engram (which puts them adjacent)
- FG (2u skip) is not as convenient for shell background jobs (
bg
,fg
) as it was in Engram - SW (half scissor) feels a little bit weaker curling inward than reaching up (as in Engram)
- FF (e.g. "stuff") is a little bit of a chore for the pinky finger to tap twice in the upper row
I really didn't want to deviate from the canonical Hands Down Promethium layout (this "Enthium" derivative was just supposed to be a simple horizontal mirror, plus some rearranged punctuation marks) so I reluctantly went to the keyboard layout analyzer playgrounds to see how bad it would be to swap PF with WV... and to my complete surprise, this change hardly affected the layout's performance:
- Oxey's analyzer showed no changes at all in the stats!
- KeySolve analyzer showed an increase in FSB from 0.14% to 0.37% but the other stats improved: FSS reduced from 0.82% to 0.48%, HSB reduced from 6.05% to 5.64%, and HSS reduced from 5.97% to 5.50%; everything else was identical.
- Cyanophage analyzer's Total Word Effort increased from 730.9 to 735.9 but all other stats remained the same!
I'm so glad this experiment worked out because it makes the layout a lot more comfortable for me in practice and it would also further reduce the barrier to entry for others seeking to switch over to Enthium from the Engrammer layout. :)
B and V are rotated out from the upper row to the home row lateral in order to avoid reaching up for folks with short or weakened pinky fingers. Their keys are reassigned to the least frequent letters in the English language: Q and Z.
In the Cyanophage analyzer, this change reduces Pinky/Ring Scissors from 0.49% down to 0.35% (a massive drop!) and Skip Bigrams (2u) from 0.30% down to 0.29%. The other analyzers don't fully comprehend the placement of lateral pinky keys, as explained in the note at the top of each analyzer's respective subheading, but Oxey's analyzer reports a notable reduction in SFBs from 0.829% to 0.818%.
O and U are swapped (changing the inward-rolling YOU into a redirecting YUO) to distribute finger workload more evenly (especially for the middle finger) and to avoid same-finger bigrams on AU (as in "author") and EO (as in "people").
This change was suggested by the creator of Cyanophage's Analyzer himself π€© since it reduced SFBs from 0.55% to 0.49% and LSBs from 0.23% to 0.20% in his analyzer. Similarly, it reduces SFBs to 0.795% in Oxey's analyzer, elevating this layout to π₯ first place in Pascal Getreuer's performance rankings for SFBs and LSBs!
The keyboard layout community commonly recommends Pascal Getreuer's guide and comparison table as a starting point for layout exploration, and you'll see that Enthium is statistically among the best layouts there:
- 0.48% SFBs -- wins π₯ first place; beats the entire table!
- 0.18% LSBs -- wins π₯ first place; beats the entire table!
- 0.08% scissors -- wins π₯ first place (as a tie with Dvorak)
- 45.30% rolls -- beats Semimak, Engram, HandsDownNeu, BEAKL19bis, Halmak, Dvorak
- 2.83% redirects -- beats Focal, Halmak, Recurva, Sturdy, APTv3, Canary, Colemak, etc.
- 2.80% pinky off excluding lateral -- beats Graphite, Canary, Gallium, MTGAP, etc.
Q
(0.10%) +'
(0.47%) +Z
(0.09%) +F
(2.14%)
- 5.33% pinky off including lateral -- beats Engram, Halmak; surpassed by the rest
Q
(0.10%) +'
(0.47%) +Z
(0.09%) +F
(2.14%) +B
(1.44%) +V
(1.09%)
These results come from Cyanophage's analyzer, detailed in the following section.
NOTE: This analyzer currently has a limitation where it only supports links with a letter on the left thumb, not on the right; so this layout is mirrored horizontally for analysis. Mirroring doesn't affect the results.
Overall stats:
- Total Word Effort: 733.1
- Effort: 442.98
Finger usage:
- Same Finger Bigrams: 0.48%
- Skip Bigrams (2u): 0.35%
- Lat Stretch Bigrams: 0.18%
- Pinky/Ring Scissors: 0.34%
- Scissors (overall): 0.08%
Trigram stats:
- alt: 37.93%
- bigram roll in: 27.53%
- bigram roll out: 16.51%
- other: 7.92%
- alt sfs: 4.62%
- redirect: 2.83%
- weak redirect: 1.39%
- roll in: 0.89%
- roll out: 0.37%
NOTE: This analyzer currently doesn't support placing letters on lateral home row pinky keys such as the traditional CapsLock key and the apostrophe, so these results may not be accurate. For instance, the SFB percentage here assumes that R B V are all typed by the thumb whereas they're all really on different fingers: with R on right thumb, B on left pinky, V on right pinky.
Overall stats:
BIGRAMS SFB: 0.76% LSB: 0.40% HSB: 4.87% FSB: 0.36%
SKIPGRAMS SFS: 6.30% LSS: 0.68% HSS: 5.90% FSS: 0.42%
TRIGRAMS ALT: 41.24% ROL: 41.15% ONE: 1.29% RED: 2.93%
Finger usage:
LEFT LI: 18.61% LM: 15.33% LR: 8.84% LP: 3.05%
RIGHT RI: 13.12% RM: 14.59% RR: 10.60% RP: 7.94%
TOTAL LH: 45.83% RH: 54.17%
Custom source for copy/paste:
q y u o / x l d w z
c i e a , k h t n s
' - = . ; j m g p f
r b v
NOTE: This analyzer currently doesn't support placing letters on lateral home row pinky keys such as the traditional CapsLock key and the apostrophe, so these results may not be accurate. For instance, the SFB percentage here assumes that B and V are typed by the left thumb whereas they're really on different fingers: with B typed by the left pinky and V by the right pinky.
Overall stats:
- Sfb: 0.783%
- Dsfb: 6.279%
- Lsb: 0.292%
- Inrolls: 27.399%
- Outrolls: 16.566%
- Total Rolls: 43.966%
- Onehands: 1.576%
- Alternates: 34.349%
- Alternates (sfs): 7.910%
- Total Alternates: 42.259%
- Redirects: 2.955%
- BadRedirects: 1.043%
- Total Redirects: 3.998%
- Other: 8.202%
- Invalid: 0.001%
Finger usage:
finger 0: 3.63% finger 9: 8.60%
finger 1: 9.25% finger 8: 10.65%
finger 2: 14.58% finger 7: 14.56%
finger 3: 17.83% finger 6: 12.33%
Left hand: 45.29% Right hand: 46.14%
Left center: 1.211% Right center: 1.189%
Home keys usage: 56.37%
Sfb% per finger:
finger 0: 0.011% finger 9: 0.024%
finger 1: 0.071% finger 8: 0.100%
finger 2: 0.148% finger 7: 0.051%
finger 3: 0.202% finger 6: 0.114%
For completeness, I've tabulated all statistics for this and related layouts:
Analyzer | Category | Statistic | Enthium | Promethium | Engrammer | Dvorak | Colemak-DH |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Oxey's | Bigrams | SFB | 0.783% | 0.868% | 1.511% | 2.779% | 1.367% |
Oxey's | Bigrams | DSFB | 6.279% | 6.761% | 7.620% | 6.979% | 8.767% |
Oxey's | Bigrams | LSB | 0.292% | 0.404% | 0.671% | 1.255% | 1.975% |
Oxey's | Trigrams | Inrolls | 27.399% | 29.333% | 28.273% | 23.820% | 25.173% |
Oxey's | Trigrams | Outrolls | 16.566% | 14.526% | 14.050% | 15.104% | 20.940% |
Oxey's | Trigrams | Total Rolls | 43.966% | 43.858% | 42.323% | 38.924% | 46.113% |
Oxey's | Trigrams | Onehands | 1.576% | 2.189% | 2.146% | 0.624% | 2.484% |
Oxey's | Trigrams | Alternates | 34.349% | 33.770% | 32.483% | 35.769% | 22.913% |
Oxey's | Trigrams | Alternates (SFS) | 7.910% | 8.205% | 8.752% | 8.787% | 7.461% |
Oxey's | Trigrams | Total Alternates | 42.259% | 41.974% | 41.235% | 44.556% | 30.375% |
Oxey's | Trigrams | Redirects | 2.955% | 2.273% | 3.103% | 2.639% | 9.081% |
Oxey's | Trigrams | BadRedirects | 1.043% | 1.236% | 1.386% | 0.818% | 1.498% |
Oxey's | Trigrams | Total Redirects | 3.998% | 3.509% | 4.489% | 3.458% | 10.579% |
Oxey's | Trigrams | Other | 8.202% | 8.468% | 9.806% | 12.437% | 9.202% |
Oxey's | Trigrams | Invalid | 0.001% | 0.001% | 0.001% | 0.001% | 1.248% |
Oxey's | Usage | Finger 0 | 3.63% | 9.56% | 6.58% | 8.50% | 8.12% |
Oxey's | Usage | Finger 1 | 9.25% | 10.65% | 9.21% | 8.72% | 8.04% |
Oxey's | Usage | Finger 2 | 14.58% | 14.56% | 19.47% | 12.99% | 11.55% |
Oxey's | Usage | Finger 3 | 17.83% | 12.33% | 13.35% | 14.95% | 19.19% |
Oxey's | Usage | Finger 6 | 12.33% | 13.28% | 16.04% | 16.33% | 18.88% |
Oxey's | Usage | Finger 7 | 14.56% | 19.77% | 14.93% | 13.73% | 15.60% |
Oxey's | Usage | Finger 8 | 10.65% | 9.01% | 10.31% | 13.84% | 10.11% |
Oxey's | Usage | Finger 9 | 8.60% | 4.62% | 9.90% | 10.59% | 7.77% |
Oxey's | Usage | Left hand | 45.29% | 47.10% | 48.61% | 45.16% | 46.89% |
Oxey's | Usage | Right hand | 46.14% | 46.68% | 51.18% | 54.49% | 52.36% |
Oxey's | Usage | Left center | 1.211% | 1.189% | 1.765% | 9.208% | 4.592% |
Oxey's | Usage | Right center | 1.189% | 1.384% | 1.294% | 7.257% | 3.393% |
Oxey's | Usage | Home keys | 56.37% | 56.37% | 56.37% | 56.70% | 62.31% |
Oxey's | SFB% | Finger 0 | 0.011% | 0.028% | 0.012% | 0.020% | 0.041% |
Oxey's | SFB% | Finger 1 | 0.071% | 0.100% | 0.089% | 0.028% | 0.047% |
Oxey's | SFB% | Finger 2 | 0.148% | 0.051% | 0.230% | 0.253% | 0.186% |
Oxey's | SFB% | Finger 3 | 0.202% | 0.114% | 0.591% | 1.075% | 0.219% |
Oxey's | SFB% | Finger 6 | 0.114% | 0.339% | 0.380% | 0.433% | 0.388% |
Oxey's | SFB% | Finger 7 | 0.051% | 0.185% | 0.053% | 0.494% | 0.341% |
Oxey's | SFB% | Finger 8 | 0.100% | 0.040% | 0.098% | 0.256% | 0.137% |
Oxey's | SFB% | Finger 9 | 0.024% | 0.011% | 0.058% | 0.220% | 0.007% |
KeySolve | Bigrams | SFB | 0.76% | 0.94% | 1.56% | 2.62% | 1.49% |
KeySolve | Bigrams | LSB | 0.43% | 0.45% | 0.98% | 1.17% | 2.21% |
KeySolve | Bigrams | HSB | 4.86% | 6.04% | 3.02% | 6.11% | 5.93% |
KeySolve | Bigrams | FSB | 0.35% | 0.26% | 0.30% | 0.14% | 0.37% |
KeySolve | Skipgrams | SFS | 6.33% | 7.02% | 7.50% | 7.00% | 7.95% |
KeySolve | Skipgrams | LSS | 0.73% | 0.93% | 1.34% | 4.48% | 1.75% |
KeySolve | Skipgrams | HSS | 5.88% | 6.11% | 6.91% | 8.56% | 6.49% |
KeySolve | Skipgrams | FSS | 0.38% | 0.78% | 0.81% | 1.22% | 0.78% |
KeySolve | Trigrams | ALT | 41.24% | 40.37% | 39.59% | 41.70% | 27.58% |
KeySolve | Trigrams | ROL | 41.16% | 40.84% | 39.35% | 37.19% | 42.78% |
KeySolve | Trigrams | ONE | 1.29% | 2.66% | 2.65% | 0.43% | 2.45% |
KeySolve | Trigrams | RED | 2.93% | 1.78% | 2.65% | 2.25% | 6.74% |
KeySolve | Usage | LI | 18.61% | 13.91% | 13.91% | 14.56% | 18.82% |
KeySolve | Usage | LM | 15.33% | 20.92% | 20.30% | 13.96% | 10.18% |
KeySolve | Usage | LR | 8.84% | 8.70% | 8.83% | 9.55% | 7.83% |
KeySolve | Usage | LP | 3.05% | 3.64% | 5.72% | 8.24% | 7.63% |
KeySolve | Usage | RI | 13.12% | 13.12% | 16.52% | 16.90% | 20.00% |
KeySolve | Usage | RM | 14.59% | 14.59% | 15.03% | 13.35% | 16.91% |
KeySolve | Usage | RR | 10.60% | 10.60% | 10.08% | 13.36% | 10.46% |
KeySolve | Usage | RP | 7.94% | 8.95% | 9.47% | 10.08% | 8.16% |
KeySolve | Total | LH | 45.83% | 47.18% | 48.75% | 46.31% | 44.46% |
KeySolve | Total | RH | 54.17% | 52.82% | 51.25% | 53.69% | 55.54% |
Cyanophage | Summary | Total Word Effort | 733.1 | 732.3 | 899.8 | 1185.5 | 1048.2 |
Cyanophage | Summary | Effort | 442.98 | 398.07 | 457.44 | 769.78 | 535.05 |
Cyanophage | Bigrams | Same Finger Bigrams | 0.48% | 0.58% | 0.99% | 1.87% | 0.91% |
Cyanophage | Bigrams | Skip Bigrams (2u) | 0.35% | 0.36% | 0.39% | 0.45% | 0.41% |
Cyanophage | Bigrams | Lat Stretch Bigrams | 0.18% | 0.24% | 0.41% | 0.80% | 1.27% |
Cyanophage | Bigrams | Pinky/Ring Scissors | 0.34% | 0.42% | 0.71% | 0.40% | 0.65% |
Cyanophage | Trigrams | Alt | 37.93% | 36.98% | 35.62% | 39.08% | 25.43% |
Cyanophage | Trigrams | Alt SFS | 4.62% | 5.27% | 5.93% | 5.85% | 5.47% |
Cyanophage | Trigrams | Roll in | 0.89% | 1.37% | 1.82% | 0.86% | 1.50% |
Cyanophage | Trigrams | Roll out | 0.37% | 0.11% | 0.29% | 0.27% | 0.98% |
Cyanophage | Trigrams | Bigram roll in | 27.53% | 29.18% | 28.14% | 23.51% | 25.18% |
Cyanophage | Trigrams | Bigram roll out | 16.51% | 14.56% | 14.03% | 15.14% | 21.55% |
Cyanophage | Trigrams | Redirect | 2.83% | 2.03% | 3.05% | 2.57% | 9.22% |
Cyanophage | Trigrams | Weak redirect | 1.39% | 1.30% | 1.40% | 0.28% | 1.52% |
Cyanophage | Trigrams | Other | 7.92% | 9.20% | 9.72% | 12.44% | 9.17% |
Legend: QWERTY=white; Engram=gold; Enthium=blue/green; Quirks=pink.
Install:
cd linux/
sudo make install
echo Now restart your graphical session.
Activate:
setxkbmap -layout us -variant enthium # one layout; no switch
setxkbmap -layout us,us -variant enthium,basic # dual layout switching
Repair (e.g. whenever a system-wide XKB package upgrade reverts installation):
cd linux/
sudo make reinstall
echo Now restart your graphical session.
Uninstall:
cd linux/
sudo make uninstall
echo Now restart your graphical session.
In order to use the layout on MacOS, you'll need to install Karabiner-Elements.
You can install it via Homebrew:
brew install --cask karabiner-elements
Or download it from the main Karabiner-Elements website.
When downloaded, simply follow the instructions of the installation guide.
Once everything is installed, you can use the complex modification feature to remap your keys.
The enthium complex modification is available here.
To get back to the basic layout, you can simply remove the enthium complex modification.
- Brew :
brew uninstall --cask karabiner-elements
- Manual : Remove the
Karabiner-Elements.app
from your Applications folder.
Released under the same terms as Arno's Engram 2.0 keyboard layout's sources:
MIT License
Copyright 2022 Ricard Figueroa https://github.com/rfiga
Copyright 2021 Suraj Kurapati https://github.com/sunaku
Copyright 2021 Arno Klein https://github.com/binarybottlePermission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
Like my work? π Please spare a life today as thanks! πππππ£πβ¨πβ
Why? For π ethics, the π environment, and πͺ health; see link above. π