A friend of mine has an injured left arm, surgery & recovery happening soon, and they’re facing a long period with basically only their dominant right hand available. They’re a developer and typing is a core activity.
We’re looking for recommendations for a keyboard that would assist them during this time. Not sure what would work well, so open to suggestions. I’ve lent them a v1 duckypad for now, which can be programmed with difficult-to-type shortcuts like control-P. I’ve suggested the Moonlander, which has great options for long-press and sticky-layer transforms - I’m not sure if those features are available in other devices? We’re not looking for a hard-to-learn alternative, otherwise they’d have taken my old CyKey chording keyboard lol …
What do you all think would be a good option for us to look into?
That’s the trick, isn’t it? When you say not too hard to learn, do you mean a device that enables straightforward configuration as someone learns to touch-type with one hand, or do you mean a device that sacrifices top speed for minimal learning curve at all?
Honestly, for the latter a regular old TKL with QMK/VIA might be the best option. No learning curve, not too wide, and a full set of modifiers on each side of the spacebar to enable the tricky combo presses you mentioned, and ultimately there is deeper functionality in QMK to do the flip in software. If you meant the former, then the firmware should still have all the layer toggle, combos, and macros you need to make something work well. There are also bespoke assistive tech devices like the Maltrons or HTX keyboard.
I think in this context, we’re expecting things to go back to ‘normal’ in a few months, and would be happy with reduced efficiency in the meantime; rather than a permanent shift to a different way of producing input (something like Cursorless voice input for example). That HTX looks very nice!
and typing is a core activity.