V M L C P " | B ^ U O , \
S T R D Y Q $ F N E A I -
X K J G W Z H ' ? .
⎵ ⇥ / @ ⇧
^ is the magic key, and @ is the repeat key.
| Prev | A |
B |
C |
D |
E |
F |
G |
H |
I |
J |
K |
L |
M |
N |
O |
P |
| Magic | O |
EFORE |
Y |
Y |
U |
-- | Y |
-- | ON |
UST |
S |
k |
ENT |
ION |
A |
Y |
| Prev | Q |
R |
S |
T |
U |
V |
W |
X |
Y |
Z |
, |
. |
/ |
- |
= |
wspc |
| Magic | -- | L |
K |
MENT |
E |
ER |
HICH |
ES |
P |
-- | ⎵BUT |
\ |
-- | > |
> |
THE |
A second press of the magic key outputs N, regardless of the previous key. wspc stands for "white space" and
includes space, tab, enter, ", and (.
See the README for an overview on how the magic key works.
| Prev | Repeat |
|---|---|
A |
ND |
I |
NG |
Y |
OU |
N |
F |
B |
ECAUSE |
W |
OULD |
, |
⎵AND |
. |
ORG |
wspc |
FOR |
The repeat key simply repeats any other previous key. For example L repeat outputs L L.
I have added the implementation of Magic Sturdy that I use. The keymap file is for a ZSA moonlander, but the code trivially generalizes to any keyboard. However, it does rely on a pending QMK feature that is still an open PR. You will need to use the PR's branch to compile this code. Here is the PR: qmk/qmk_firmware#19700
Magic Sturdy is a minor but powerful variation of the already excellent STRD1 layout that @O-X-E-Y
generated in Oxeylyzer. The core purpose of the magic key is to nearly eliminate all problem SFBs
and scissors from the layout.
Soon after, it was extended to provide briefs for of the six most common trigrams (THE, ING, AND,
ION, FOR, and YOU) and a few other sequences. The briefs for WOULD, WHICH, BECAUSE, and BEFORE
are a recent and somewhat of an experiment to test if comparatively rare but high impact briefs are worth using.
The most important mappings for improving typing flow are the vowel mappings that convert the SFBs on UE, EU, and OA
to inward rolls; the left-index mappings that convert the SFBs involving Y to alternations; the mappings involving
K that eliminates those scissors; and the mapping that removes the R L SFB (which is particularly troublesome in
STURDY, because "rl" is usually expanded to "rld" or "rly", which makes it a bad candidate for alt-fingering).
I began adding macros once I realized that the reasonably common TM bigram was virtually always expanded to TMENT.
From there I added macros where they added value and there were no other flow problems to fix for a particular key.
Care was taken to avoid creating too much usage imbalances, and preference was always given to improving flom over
removing keystrokes. For example, Y maps to P instead of OU.
A very important detail is that all of the highest frequency uses of the magic key relocate a right index press
rather than adding one (THE contains H and ON contains N). For this reason, the total usage on the right-index
does not increase by as much as you might expect.
Similar to the last point, there is very little interaction between the magic key and any other key on the left-index.
Only the ^N SFB is non-negligible, so I made a second press of the magic key always output N, so the SFB becomes a
double tap instead.
The overrides to the regular repeat key are a recent addition. They eliminate the one bad SFB on the right-index (NF) and
also provide briefs for the second and third most common trigrams: AND and ING. An additional bonus of the latter
two is that they reduce usage of both index fingers.
This layout is based on STRD1, but I call it Magic Sturdy, because that's the name that everyone knows, and the distinguishing features of Sturdy are on its consonant hand, which this layout shares. Additionally, aside from the right-index, the vowel hand can be setup however you personally prefer.
STRD1 is the base, because that was the layout I was learning, and the magic key was conceived as an elegant solution
to that layout's two biggest pain points: "RLD"/"RLD" and "Y" plus everything else on the left-index. I thought that it
would be great if I could replace the useless Z key with a key that would be either Y or L depending on what I
needed. When I noticed that the same spot also provided fixes for "UE", "EU", and "OA", I got very excited.
Serendipitously, there are several characteristics of STRD1 that make it very well suited for having a magic key on the
vowel side index. Most critically, this finger begins with fairly low usage and very low movement when compared to the
vowel index in a typical layout (The weighted finger movement as measured by Oxeylyzer is only 0.661).
TODO