Selenium (newish alternative to Miryoku, Seniply, Anymak, etc.)?
Just this week, I happened to stumble across Selenium.
I started using Miryoku earlier this year, and have found that Selenium solves all the pain points I was having with Miryoku in one go. Just sharing this here in case it helps anyone else, since I haven't found any other postings in this sub about it.
What I like:
- shift moves to a thumb key instead of a HRM, which eliminates the need to 'slow down' typing in order to trigger the HR shift each time.
- shift and sym layers both have one-shot function, so if you need only one capital letter (common!) or one symbol, no chording is needed. I admired this feature in Anymak, though I never managed to find a way to adapt Anymak to my 36 keys.
- no chording needed for any symbols, thanks to this one-shot behaviour. Only numbers need chording. You can, of course, still hold down the Shift or Sym keys to type multiple capital letters or symbols in a row.
- there are no characters typed with the thumbs at all (having ()- on the thumb always felt awkward to me)
- the numpad returns to the right-hand side.
- fn/media and nav/num keys are duplicated on both thumbs, so one-handed shortcuts are available if you want them.
- the symbol layer is properly optimised for programming.
Differences to Miryoku (needs adjustment initially):
- backspace and space swap hands (you can swap them, but will end up with a thumb SFB before every word that starts with a capital letter!), but enter and tab remain the same.
- Fn layer doesn't follow numpad layout
- no HRMs on nav/num and fn/media layers - you have to switch to the layer after pressing the modifier on the base layer. So, for Cmd Shift 4 for screenshot on macOS, press Cmd on the home row, then hold down Shift with the thumb, then switch to the Num layer and press 4. Etc.
- cut, copy, paste are in worse positions on the nav layer (to align with qwerty positions). BUT it does means you can do cut, copy, paste, with one hand on Dvorak, finally!
- some advanced features of Miryoku (mouse layer, 'Extra' keyboard layout that gives you Qwerty fallback, button layer) are not available. I've never used these anyway, so don't miss them.
These are just some initial impressions. I'm keen to hear if anyone else here has tried it, and what your impressions have been! To me, it feels like a combination of what I liked best about both Miryoku and Anymak, and on 36 keys!
There are also versions for 42+ and 34 keys, and if you want to have a laptop implementation, it's designed to be very similar to Arsenik.
u/wherahiko — 13 days ago
