Introduction

Site last updated on 06/05/2024

Dusk, created on 04/14/2024, is a well-balanced keyboard layout for columnar keyboard with thumb keys.

The most impressive feat that Dusk achieves is that it is remarkably low in (per oxeylyzer, keysolve, cyanophage)

SFS ~4.90%
SFB ~0.50%
2u SFS ~0.10%
Finger speed ~17.33
Both full and half scissors and skipgram scissors 0.02%/0.11%/2.09%/4.68%

while maintaining a reasonable redirection and LSB. As such, Dusk is consistent and a good general-purpose thumb layout.

Github

You can star this repo by clicking on the Github icon located on the top right corner <3

Side Note

No idea what LSB, SFS, or SFB means? Check out terminology!

Click on the hamburger menu located on the top left to access Table of Contents.
Click on the brush icon located on the top left to change sitewide theme.
On Desktop, there is a table of contents on the right side for each chapter that has more than 1 section.
Go to the next/previous chapter by clicking on the > and < icon located on each side of the screen, respectively.

Layout

Dusk

On my keyboard Piantor, R is slightly to the right of what's shown here.
This variant with ,. and r<spc> swaps is what I personally use.
To read my 6 weeks experience, read here.

ACSII

x f d p q  j ' o u .
n s t c y  m h a e i
b v k g w  z l _ / ,
        r

Dusk-vq

It's made to address concern over V.

This variant has similar stats but with even lower scissor at the expense of having left index do more work and higher 2u SFS from g_v.

The higher 2u SFS can further be addressed by swapping PG, but NG and G_T become slightly worse.
Or you can swap WV, but make sure you are okay with typing know.

ACSII

x f d p v  j ' o u .
n s t c y  m h a e i
b q k g w  z l _ / ,
        r

Variants in Cmini bots

For the curious: In Cmini discord bots, you can find dusk variants created by me and other people with !cmini filter --name dusk.

Motivation

As a Canary-ortho user for 14 months and reached about 140 wpm on MonkeyType, its flaws - high SFS and high index workload - start to bother me.

--- Canary Ortho ---

w l y p b  z f o u '
c r s t g  m n e i a
q j v d k  x h / , .

In particular, I don't vibe with:

B_D and all the K interaction with B__K (back) leading to 2u SFS.
That feeling that left index is flying all over the place at high speed.
High SFS (compared to modern layouts).
LV, SYS, RL, WR, CL.

Don't get me wrong - Canary-ortho is a decent layout - but I just hope for something better. I decided to try other modern layouts such as Graphite, Gallium, Kuntum, Stronk, and several others, but none of it speaks to me the way that Canary does.

Additionally, my keyboard Piantor Pro (shown below) is a split columnar keyboard with an aggressive pinky stagger and 3 thumb keys on each side, and most popular keyboard layouts were designed for conventional rowstag keyboards.

Eventually, after making several different layouts and not finding the one, I realized what I am looking for may not be possible without having a letter on the thumb key. I started to expriment with thumb Y, I, S, and finally landing on thumb R: Dusk.

Design

Goals

Dusk was designed with these goals in mind:

Roll over Alternation
Low scissors
Low 2u SFS (including some fast X__Y)
Low SFS
Low SFB
Low finger speed
Fair workload for each finger

Coming from Canary, I'd like to focus on keeping its low scissors and 2u SFS, while optimizing for SFS and keeping an eye on SFB.

Dusk was designed with info obtained with corpus made out of MonkeyType and Typeracer quotes (duplicates removed), with some SHAI corpus sprinkled in.

Vowel Block

I decided to go with the popular vowel block

~ ~ ~ ~ ~  ~ ~ O U .
~ ~ ~ ~ ~  ~ ~ A E I
~ ~ ~ ~ ~  ~ ~ ~ / ,
        ~

as EO is the primary source of SFS on Canary and OU AEI vowel block is commonly agreed upon to be the most balanced vowel block choice in modern days. Having I alone on the pinky for the .I, stack.

Why vowel block? because vowels don't go well with most letters, but they go relatively well with each other.

If you type ./ or ../ often, you may want to swap .,.

Consonants

`LHM`

To avoid RL SFB, I decided to put R on a thumb key (as opposed to the RN stack as seen in Kuntum). L doesn't really go well with any other letter except for H and M, but L_M and M_L are both somewhat common, which leads to LHM stack having high 2u SFS if its on a non-index column, so LHM goes to index with M taking the inner spot, just like in Canary. If you are more bothered by LSB than 2u SFS, it would be wise to move M to the top.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~  ~ ~ O U .
~ ~ ~ ~ ~  M H A E I
~ ~ ~ ~ ~  ~ L ~ / ,
        R

`DTK`

T index commonly leads to high SFS in my experience playing around with layouts for the past few months, so I settled on DTK stack, which is a good load for the middle finger to handle.

~ ~ D ~ ~  ~ ~ O U .
~ ~ T ~ ~  M H A E I
~ ~ K ~ ~  ~ L ~ / ,
        R

`BNZ`

I like the idea of having N on the pinky because they promote inroll with S, T, C and tend to be have lower redirection and scissors especially now that R is gone (usually N pinky layouts end up with BR scissor like in Graphite and Gallium).

N doesn't interact with B much and with a low-usage key Z, BNZ goes to pinky. X wasn't chosen out of concerns for the interactions with the columns that follow below.

B ~ D ~ ~  ~ ~ O U .
N ~ T ~ ~  M H A E I
Z ~ K ~ ~  ~ L ~ / ,
        R

`FSV`

ST in-roll sounds like a good idea and S doesn't have good letters to partner, so I decided on FSV stack for the ring finger.

B F D ~ ~  ~ ~ O U .
N S T ~ ~  M H A E I
Z V K ~ ~  ~ L ~ / ,
        R

Wait a minute!

You may think, "wait a minute! but that creates NV scissor and awkward DV !". Yes, I hear you, so there is another variant dusk-vq that addresses this concern.

What's the trade-off?

Pros:

no NV scissor (involve)
no DV (advice)
no b_v skip scissor (above)
no f_v 2u SFS (favorite)

Cons:

w_v 2u SFS (however)
g_v 2.23u SFS (give)
v__g 2.23u SFS (loving)
rv and v_r may be weird for some (service and very).
6 keys to look after for left index.

`PCGWY`

Y is yet another problematic letter as it creates CY, PY, GY SFBS and W_Y is common enough that I'd like WY to be 1u apart. I decided on

B F D P ~  ~ ~ O U .
N S T C Y  M H A E I
Z V K G W  ~ L ~ / ,
        R

because:

I want NG to be a nice roll and a good G_T (-ing, -ght, get, got).
C is usually more common, so it is on the homerow.
Y is there for the ease of alting CY, PY, YP and (optionally) GY.
W is under Y because W_Y is common, in addition to YW SFB. It is not above Y because W_T, W__T, W__K, TW and WR all feel awful. I am okay with P_W or W_P 2.24u SFS as they are rare.
P takes the last good spot and creates PY and YP alts.

I don't want to alt!

If you don't want to alt/slide CY, PY, YP, GY, and WY, and get deeply annoyed with them. May I suggest that you do

B F D P ~  ~ ~ O U .
N S T C Y  M H A E I
Z V K G W  ~ L Y / ,
        R

Now you have 2 Y that you can choose to use according to the words in question.

`QJX`

J goes well with vowel inner top spot because JU accounts for most of J appearances.
X does not go well with C and P (excel, expect), so it goes to vowel inner bottom spot.
Q takes the last remaining index spot at consonants side.

B F D P Q  J ~ O U .
N S T C Y  M H A E I
Z V K G W  X L ~ / ,
        R

Quote Symbol `'`

Other layouts commonly have OA' stack on the middle finger, but after using other layouts that have this stack, I've come to dislike it. Here is why:

You' feels like 2u SFB even if it is 2u SFS. For me, ou is a roll, so my middle finger tends to not leave for ' until after u has been typed.
don't and won't feel just awful with how common they are.
Additionally, a_' is common too (that's, can't, what's).

For the aforemetioned reasons, I decided to go with

B F D P Q  J ' O U .
N S T C Y  M H A E I
Z V K G W  X L ~ / ,
        R

with the intention to alt 'm and 'll, both of which are doable for my columnar keyboard. If you do not want to do 'll alt, I think it is still preferable over OA' stack. (I do not believe 'll alt is feasible on rowstag keyboard).

It does create h_' SFS, but it is about as common as a_'.

Alternative 1

Embrace the OA' stack like the layout below shows - all the pros and cons have been explained above.

You may want to swap J~.

This results in 0.10% lower SFB and 0.29% higher SFS on MonkeyRacer corpus.

B F D P Q  J ~ O U .
N S T C Y  M H A E I
Z V K G W  X L ' / ,
        R

Alternative 2

Swap QJ'.

Keep in mind that it creates

Y' SFB (They')
W_' SFS (We')
DN' redirection (don't)
C__' SFS (can't)

It results in 0.04% lower SFB and 0.01% lower SFS on Monkeyracer corpus, but it increases redirection by 0.59% on according to Cmini, attributed to t's and n't. Additionally, both 't and t' do not feel good to me.

B F D P '  Q J O U .
N S T C Y  M H A E I
Z V K G W  X L ~ / ,
        R

Alternative 3

Put ' at both empty spots. Use the bottom ' for 'm and 'll.

B F D P Q  J ' O U .
N S T C Y  M H A E I
Z V K G W  X L ' / ,
        R

Last Spot Options

It's free real estate. I decided to put underscore _ there because I code in C++ and Rust often.

Here are some ideas:

;
Y
'
Repeat Key (creates LL outroll)

B F D P Q  J ' O U .
N S T C Y  M H A E I
Z V K G W  X L _ / ,
        R

Final Adjustment

One user of Dusk, brownfoxjumps, mentioned that he was using dusk with BZ swap. This got me thinking - as Dusk it is now, words like above, back, break, obvious, and keyboard all require whole hand movement due to (skipgram) scissors. If BZ is swapped, then the only key that would be of concern is the top ring key F, but B and F don't really interact with each other much at all - except for the word before. b_d and prob- still don't require hand movement and feel fine. I decided that swapping BZ is worth it.

Z F D P Q  J ' O U .
N S T C Y  M H A E I
B V K G W  X L _ / ,
        R

With Z up there, it now raises the question of whether it is worth it to swap XZ. Personally, I think it is worth it because 2 out of the 3 reasons that I chose Z instead of X were that XP is awkward and the f_x scissor. With these two reasons no longer applicable, I think it is worth trading the rare 2u pinky SFS (box) for taking 0.01% lower SFB and 0.05% lower SFS (SHAI corpus) off from the finger with the highest SFS and SFB, and that sweet XP inroll (expect, experience).

X F D P Q  J ' O U .
N S T C Y  M H A E I
B V K G W  Z L _ / ,
        R

What about `FV` swap?

Some of you may be wondering: why not the following layout? Doesn't it address b_f and dv while not losing out much (g_v but it is no big deal)?

Z V D P Q  J ' O U .
N S T C Y  M H A E I
B F K G W  X L _ / ,
        R

I toyed with this idea for a while and came to the conclusion that it is not worth it because of f_nd, which is quite a lot more common than dv on dusk while feeling worse than it.

Summary:

Pros

dv roll
b_f same row

Cons

f_nd skipgram redirect 2 row jump
xz forced swap or getting f_x skipgram scissor
bv/b_v 2 row jump

Statistics

Heatmap

Oxeylyzer

main branch at this commit with default settings and keyboard type set to colstag.

Metric	Dusk
Highest finger speed	2.774 (RP)
Pinky-Ring Bigramn	1.768%

dusk
x f d p q  j ' o u . 
n s t c y  m h a e i 
b v k g w  z l ; / , 
Sfb:  0.525%
Dsfb: 4.911%
Finger Speed: 17.338
    [1.639, 1.451, 2.028, 2.630, 2.321, 1.890, 2.636, 2.744]
Scissors: 0.311%
Lsbs: 2.175%
Pinky Ring Bigrams: 1.768%

Inrolls: 19.922%
Outrolls: 19.897%
Total Rolls: 39.820%
Onehands: 1.250%

Alternates: 20.976%
Alternates (sfs): 5.151%
Total Alternates: 26.127%

Redirects: 2.652%
Redirects Sfs: 1.492%
Bad Redirects: 0.277%
Bad Redirects Sfs: 0.111%
Total Redirects: 4.531%

Bad Sfbs: 0.332%
Sft: 0.010%

Score: -1.491

Genkey

Metric	Dusk
Highest finger speed	1.55 (RI)

dusk
x f d p q  j ' o u . 
n s t c y  m h a e i 
b v k g w  z l ; / , 
Missing characters: [r]
Rolls (l): 18.62%
	Inward: 14.71%
	Outward: 3.91%
Rolls (r): 31.79%
	Inward: 10.62%
	Outward: 21.16%
Alternates: 33.26%
Onehands: 1.59%
Redirects: 5.81%
Finger Speed (weighted): [0.74 0.55 0.73 1.39 1.55 0.88 1.28 1.16]
Finger Speed (unweighted): [1.10 1.98 3.50 7.62 8.53 4.22 4.61 1.74]
Highest Speed (weighted): 1.55 (RI)
Highest Speed (unweighted): 8.53 (RI)
Index Usage: 11.8% 12.6%
SFBs: 0.496%
DSFBs: 4.875%
LSBs: 1.92%
Top SFBs:
	ue 0.129%	oa 0.075%	cy 0.032%	lm 0.025%
	'm 0.024%	gy 0.023%	yp 0.022%	eu 0.020%

Worst Bigrams:
	ue 17.029	oa 11.602	ml 8.754	.i 7.824
	i, 7.077	nb 6.907	dt 6.037	py 3.978

Score: 27.00

Krillyzer

Krillyzer is mainly used for analyzing SFS and SFBS distance.

Metric	Dusk
SFS distance	1.151
SFB distance	1.335

Dusk
  x f d p q j ' o u .
  n s t c y m h a e i
  b v k g w z l _ / ,
  r

SFB              SFS              LSB             
  Freq  0.486%     Freq  4.920%     Freq  1.141%     
  Dist  1.335      Dist  1.151      Dist  2.081      

Rolls 48.945%
  Inroll   20.874%
  Outroll  28.071%

Trigrams
  Alternates 33.083%
  Redirects   4.878%
  Onehands    1.730%

Rows
  Top    20.496%
  Home   54.367%
  Bottom 10.982%
  Center  7.734%

Index        Middle       Ring         Pinky       
  L 10.61%     L 13.42%     L  8.74%     L  8.22%     
  R 12.78%     R 15.12%     R 15.04%     R  9.65%     

Hand Balance
  Left   41.003%
  Right  52.576%
  Thumb   5.137%

Keysolve

It only support right thumb key, so it needs to be mirrored. Keysolve uses Monkeyracer corpus.

Metric	Dusk
Half Scissor Bigrams	2.09%
Half Scissor Skipgrams	4.68%
Full Scissor Bigrams	0.02%
Full Scissor Skipgrams	0.11%

Cmini

dusk
  x f d p q  j ' o u .
  n s t c y  m h a e i
  b v k g w  z l _ / ,
          r                 

MONKEYRACER:
  Alt: 28.95%
  Rol: 49.90%   (In/Out: 21.69% | 28.20%)
  One:  1.80%   (In/Out:  0.76% |  1.04%)
  Rtl: 51.69%   (In/Out: 22.46% | 29.24%)
  Red:  3.38%   (Bad:     0.32%)

  SFB: 0.48%
  SFS: 3.89%    (Red/Alt: 1.14% | 2.76%)

  LH/RH: 46.97% | 53.03%

a200

Right thumb space setting

MONKEYTYPE-QUOTES.JSON
thumb: RT             

Dusk
x f d p q  j ' o u . 
n s t c y  m h a e i 
b v k g w  z l _ / , 

Trigrams
========
Alternates - Total: 33.07%   
     Rolls - Total: 43.74%   In: 21.88%   Out: 21.86%   Ratio:   1.00  
  Onehands - Total:  3.55%   In:  0.70%   Out:  2.85%   Ratio:   0.25  
 Redirects - Total:  7.40%   
   Unknown - Total:  0.00%   

Same Finger
===========
       SFB - 1.68%         DSFB - 4.17%   
       SFT - 0.02%          SFR - 6.37%   

Finger Use
==========
      Left - Total: 38.07%   LP:  6.84%   LR:  7.20%   LM: 11.09%   LI: 12.95%   
     Right - Total: 43.42%   RP:  8.07%   RR: 12.35%   RM: 12.47%   RI: 10.54%   
     Thumb - Total: 18.50%   

Row Use
=======
       Top - 23.02%         Home - 63.61%       Bottom - 13.37%

Cyanophage

This website gets mentioned a lot lately and for a good reason - it is one of the most accessible playground for keyboard layouts creations that exist as of April 2024, but a few things to keep in mind:

Its finger usage doesn't include the thumb R or space.
It was speculated that all its stats include space, so they are all much lower than those from the other tools.

Regarding Scissors

I am not on board with how Cyanophage calculates scissors; for examples, vp on dusk is not considered as scissors, but lo is, and there is no consideration for half scissors like pt or ft at all. Additionally, Cyanophage considers nf and e, to be scissors, but they are not normally considered to be scissors.

2U SFS

Cyanophage's tool is one of the only tools that show 2u SFS.
If you alt 'll, the actual number is 0.10%.
There is the hidden P__G (mostly -ping as in hoping) and K__D (kind), but they are not that common.

Finger Usage

Dusk is right-hand heavy.
If you are of the belief that thumb shouldn't count, then its L:R = 38.86:54.71 = 41.53:58.47, which is about as imbalanced as Canary-ortho at 42.24:57.76.
If you are of the belief that thumb should count, then it is even worse than 41.53:58.47 because space is by far the most common letter (more than E).

dusk (usage)
  x f d p q  j ' o u .
  n s t c y  m h a e i
  b v k g w  z l _ / ,
          r                 

MONKEYRACER:
  LI: 10.21%    RI: 13.30%
  LM: 12.02%    RM: 15.25%
  LR:  8.05%    RR: 16.58%
  LP:  8.58%    RP:  9.58%

  LT: 6.44%

  Total: 100.00%

SFS Finger Distribution (Cmini)

Right index taking the most load at 0.97%, but it really only handles HLM as the other 3 keys are infrequent.

dusk (sfs)
  x f d p q  j ' o u .
  n s t c y  m h a e i
  b v k g w  z l _ / ,
          r                 

MONKEYRACER:
  LI:  0.63%    RI:  0.97%
  LM:  0.45%    RM:  0.54%
  LR:  0.25%    RR:  0.64%
  LP:  0.13%    RP:  0.37%

  LT: 0.00%

  Total: 3.97%

SFB Finger Distribution (Cmini)

No finger gets over 0.20%
The majority of SFB for right index is attributed by 'm, which is designed to be alted ('l too).

dusk (sfb)
  x f d p q  j ' o u .
  n s t c y  m h a e i
  b v k g w  z l _ / ,
          r                 

MONKEYRACER:
  LI:  0.09%    RI:  0.16%
  LM:  0.01%    RM:  0.07%
  LR:  0.02%    RR:  0.13%
  LP:  0.01%    RP:  0.00%

  Total: 0.48%

My Thoughts

11 Days In

I have been using Dusk for 11 days (as of 04/27/2024) and I am currently typing this documentation with it. I am about 60 WPM on MonkeyType E200 tests now and 50 WPM on E10k test (both 2-min tests and with 99% accuracy).

With my current typing speed, I have yet to observe any glaring issues with it.

I rarely feel any SFB or SFS at all thanks to Dusk's impressive stats, and the major gripe that other people have: LSB and W position don't bother me at all.

Additionally, I like the fact that it has almost all the common shortcuts on my left hand: CTRL-C, CTRL-V, CTRL-X, CTRL-W, CTRL-D. The only regrettable thing is CTRL-Z and CTRL-A being 2 hands.

When it comes to vim, I am editing this documentation with Helix and I think decent: xd is an inroll; hlkj, except j, are easily reachable; wb are on the same row though w is not ideal. (disclaimer: I got used to using Canary-ortho on Neovim and Helix, and I don't see how Dusk is worse than Canary-ortho when it comes to vim motion).

But of course, no layout is perfect, despite its impressive stats, Dusk isn't without its own problems. The below I list out all criticism that Dusk has received and all the minor annoyances I have noticed while using Dusk.

Criticism

Dusk has received some criticism in the first 14 days from the Alt Keyboard Layout community and I've summarized them below (sorted by frequency):

# of Complaints	Complaint
4	`W` position is subpar for how frequent it is
3	`K` position creates `CK` and `SK` half scissors - deal breaker
2	`V` position creates `NV` scissors and awkward `DV` and it is bad
2	`'` position is questionable
2	`OUL` as in `should` redirection sucks
1	`DV` as in `advice` is somewhat common - deal breaker

I've attempted to address some complaints by suggesting alternative key placements which are found throughout this documentation, but ultimately Dusk is not designed for everyone.

Awkward Sequences

These are the sequences that I personally find awkward. All frequency below are obtained from Cmini with SHAI corpus with the command !cmini examples <pattern>. Only those >= 0.010% are documented.

Pattern	Example	Classification	Frequency
`w_p`	`swap`	2.236u SFS	0.010%
`p_w`	`power`	2.236u SFS	0.059%
`b_x`	`box`	2u Pinky SFS	0.026%
`f_v`	`five`	2u Ring SFS	0.054%
`k_d`	`asked`	2u Middle SFS	0.152%
`p__g`	`shipping`	2u Index SFS	0.184%
`k__d`	`kind`	2u Middle SFS	0.052%
`u,`	`you,`	Pinky-ring FSS	0.045%
`nv`	`involve`	Pinky-ring HSB	0.162%
`e.`	`me.`	Pinky-ring HSB	0.655%
`b_f`	`before`	Pinky-ring FSS	0.103%
`dv`	`advice`	awkward	0.075%
`k_p`	`skip`	Middle-Index FSS	0.022%
`dw`	`hardware`	awkward	0.021%
`wd`	`powder`	awkward	0.011%
`SUM`		Sum of all above	1.631%

The long list above seems daunting, but is actually a vast improvement over Canary-ortho.

Magic Dusk

If you'd like a keyboard layout without any flaw, you should look into magic keyboard layouts in which there exists a magic key that does your custom commands based on surrounding inputs.

It may be possible to make Dusk a magic layout, for examples, you can swap '_ and replace _ with a magic key on top index (that's where most magic layouts have their magic key).

If you want to learn more about magic layouts, you may want to check out Ikcelaks's repo.

`Dusk` vs. `Canary-ortho`

Scissors

Info obtained from Keysolve (Monkeyracer corpus).

Metric	Diff	Dusk	Canary
HSB	-1.28%	2.09%	3.37%
HSS	-1.65%	4.68%	6.33%
FSB	-0.08%	0.02%	0.10%
FSS	-0.47%	0.11%	0.58%

2u SFS

Info obtained from Cyanophage.

Metric	Diff	Dusk	Canary
2u SFS	-0.04%	0.11%	0.15%

It doesn't take the hidden ones like v__y, b__k, and p__k in Canary-ortho into account (very, back, park), so in actuality, it is better than just a 0.04% reduction.

Various info

Info obtained from Oxeylyzer.

Metric	Diff	Dusk	Canary
SFB	-0.347%	0.525%	0.869%
SFS	-3.058%	4.911%	7.969%
Finger Speed	-7.512	17.338	24.850
Top Finger Speed	-4.795	2.744 (RP)	7.539 (LI)
LSB	-0.358%	2.175%	2.533%

Quotes

Info obtained from Cmini with Monkeyracer corpus.

Metric	Diff	Dusk	Canary
SFB	-0.50%	0.48%	0.98%
SFS	-4.03%	3.89%	7.92%
Red	-0.10%	3.38%	3.48%
Alt	+4.72%	28.95%	24.23%
Rtl	+0.40%	51.69%	51.29%

Note that 28.95% is not considered to be high alt. Graphite has 32.92% and Semimak-JQ has 33.82%. Canary-ortho having 24.23% alt is remarkably low and it was designed to be that way.

Flowy-meter

This is subjective.

Metric	Dusk	Canary
Flowy	No	Yes
Fun	Mid	High
Top	?	213 WPM

Canary is a solid layout based on Colemak-DH and is fun to type on (at lower speed). It is gained some recognition in the past few years and can now be found on Keybr. The issues that I had with Canary is not to say that Canary is un-usable at high speed; in fact, there are 5 people who have cleared 200 WPM with Canary as of April 2024. I still do like Canary and can recommend it if you can look past its flaws.

Addressing `P_W` and `W_P`

I do not think it is worth it to swap WQ or PG to address this 2.24u SFS. Instead, addressing it by hitting P with middle finger and W with index finger is my suggestion.

Addressing `gr_p` and `wr_p`

Redirect SFS is known to be more annoying than alt SFS - it is especially bad when it is 2u. You can hit p with your middle finger for gr_p and wr_p to address them (graph, grep, and wrap).

Closing

Overall, I believe Dusk is an improvement over Canary-ortho in a lot of ways and I am happy with how it turns out.

FAQ

Compare Canary to Dusk is not fair!

Yes, I agree, but I used to main Canary-ortho, it makes sense for me to compare them.

For comparison with other thumb layouts, check out Comparison.

I hate where ' is!

Explore these options:

I hate where `V` is!

Consider Dusk-qv.

I hate `Y` due to SFBs

Explore this option.

Why not swap 2 index block?

It increases alternation by a whopping 4% to 32.XX% on Cmini with Monkeyracer corpus, which is too high for my taste.
OW and WO middle-index full stretch would suck. Swapping W and Q won't help because then WA would suck.
The intended CY, YC, PY, YP alts would be less feasible. Think words like happy or privacy.

How much worse is vowel thumb space and can I use thumb R with vowel thumb?

All of the below still stands true, but I have some new perspective on this here.

It is commonly known that space should be pressed with the consonant thumb because it has lower redirection and higher roll, and so why is the thumb R in Dusk on the consonant side?

The reason is simple - thanks to a200 analyzer, I've come to the conclusion that even after considering the extra 0.52% redirection incurred by vowel space thumb, having R on the consonant thumb as opposed to the vowel thumb leads to approximately 3.87% lower redirection overall.

But then you may wonder: Is the redirection caused by thumb even real? How come that I have not felt any space redirection?

For me at least, after having tried Dusk with vowel thumb R for a few days, most redirection involving R is just as good, if not better than, the redirection involving index finger, but with one exception: when index L is also involved. Take the word earlier for example, that word just feels bad to type with vowel thumb R.

What is the True SFB if I alt and slide?

If you

Alt PY, YP, CY, 'M, and 'L.
Slide UE, OA, HL, YW, and FS.

then SFB is almost none, leaving really only GY, LM, I., and I,. None of which is common (unless you type almost a lot).

Can I re-arrange index letters?

Yes - arrange them how you like them!

Can I use `Dusk` on a rowstag keyboard?

It is possible to do so with wide mod, but Dusk was designed for colstag keyboards, so I can't say the experience would be good. You may or may not want to re-arrange some letters.

Is Dusk good for e200 on MonkeyType?

It is :D

It doesn't have any SFB (0.00%) on e200 and with remarkably low SFS as well.

dusk
  x f d p q  j ' o u .
  n s t c y  m h a e i
  b v k g w  z l _ / ,
          r                 

ENGLISH-200:
  Alt: 30.73%
  Rol: 50.11%   (In/Out: 21.60% | 28.51%)
  One:  1.34%   (In/Out:  0.67% |  0.67%)
  Rtl: 51.45%   (In/Out: 22.27% | 29.18%)
  Red:  3.79%   (Bad:     0.22%)

  SFB: 0.00%
  SFS: 3.34%    (Red/Alt: 1.56% | 1.78%)

  LH/RH: 47.04% | 52.96%

`W` position... Really?

There is actually another version of Dusk: Dusk_optimized.

To get rid of W inner key (and optimize SFS and SFB), Dusk_optimized moved P to be with BN, and in doing so, it gets rid of the inner corner key and achieves even lower SFB and SFS. However, the cost of it is a whopping 1.41% increase in half scissors according to Keysolve.

I hesitate to recommend Dusk_optimized for the following reasons:

Words like prob, problem, public being 2 row ring jump (much more freq than f_v or f__v on Dusk).
Frequent nk half scissor.
Worse ng and g_t.

dusk_optimized
  z p d g q  j ' o u .
  s n t c y  m h a e i
  f b k w v  x l _ / ,
        r                   

MONKEYRACER:
  Alt: 29.10%
  Rol: 49.88%   (In/Out: 21.12% | 28.76%)
  One:  1.69%   (In/Out:  0.65% |  1.05%)
  Rtl: 51.57%   (In/Out: 21.77% | 29.81%)
  Red:  3.48%   (Bad:     0.39%)

  SFB: 0.46%
  SFS: 3.81%    (Red/Alt: 1.12% | 2.69%)

  LH/RH: 46.91% | 53.09%

How did you make the figures in Layout?

It is from here with the following settings:

layout:
  qmk_keyboard: chocofi
  #qmk_layout: LAYOUT_split_3x5_2
layers:
  DEF:
    - [X, F, D, P, Q, J, "'", O, U, .]
    - [N, S, T, C, Y, M, H, A, E, I]
    - [B, V, K, G, W, Z, L, "_", /, ","]
    - {}
    - {t: R}
    - {}
    - {}
    - {t: Space}
    - {}

6 Weeks in (2024-06-05)

Main Criticism

I reached 8X WPM on English 10k 2 min test a while back and have been practicing Quotes instead, and I honestly do not like Dusk as it (p.s. I didn't end up alting 'll).

There are two main glaring issues that I have noticed while practicing quotes:

Hand Imbalance

When typing quotes at about 100 WPM with the presence of ',., I can't help but notice that my right hand is doing significantly more work than my left hand.

On e10k, this is not an issue, but I am not really fine with it on quotes.

`haei` + Vowel Space

Too many common words in quotes are redirects and it annoys me at high speed.

the<spc>
he<spc>
she<spc>
hi<spc>

Despite maining Dusk and practicing on MonkeyType everyday for at least 1 hour in the past month, my right thumb still can't handle redirect nearly as fast as my left thumb. In partcular, redirects are 2 letter outroll followed by the last letter inroll.

Minor Criticism

These are things that I have hoped that I'd get used to, but didn't really happen.

`pr`/`rp`

I really do not vibe with rp or pr and they are somewhat common. Maybe my hand is just too small.

High Alt

Dusk as is now is still too high alternation for my taste, mostly attributed to the fact that most words end with a letter on the left hand side and space is on the right thumb.

What now?

I am swapping <spc>r.

It fixes all the issues that I listed above and I am not bothered by the redirects that used to bother me such as earlier anymore. They are still funny to type though, but I can type them at 1XX WPM now.

I already returned to 75 WPM (e10k, 2 min) on day 2 of switching back to vowel R.

Takeaway

It is likely not worth it to switch your space thumb just to learn a layout.
Dusk really isn't that great and I can only conditionally recommend it. That is,
- if you are already using vowel thumb space with h on the index, then you likely won't agree with my complaints here; Dusk is probably good for you.
- however, if you are using non-vowel thumb space like I did and if you are bothered by thumb redirects, then Dusk (and honestly lots of other thumb layouts too) is not for you (no matter which thumb you space Dusk, you will always end up with thumb redirect.)

Comparison

Here you can find my thoughts on other thumb layouts and hopefully, a charitable description of them.

Aptmak

aptmak (Eve)
  v w f p b  j l u y '
  r s t h k  x n a i o
  ; c g d q  z m , . /
               e                   

MONKEYRACER:
  Alt: 24.36%
  Rol: 47.84%   (In/Out: 30.52% | 17.31%)
  One:  3.26%   (In/Out:  2.38% |  0.88%)
  Rtl: 51.10%   (In/Out: 32.91% | 18.19%)
  Red:  5.75%   (Bad:     1.75%)

  SFB: 1.10%
  SFS: 5.56%    (Red/Alt: 2.48% | 3.08%)

  LH/RH: 42.79% | 57.21%

Made by Apsu, one of the main creators of the beloved Canary (2nd most loved layout).

Aptmak has been the go-to option for thumb layout recommendation in AKL discord server. It is the most established thumb layout and has had many users using it full time. It's design goal, as I understand it, is to make a thumb layout based on Colemak and usable for 23332 keyboards.

While its stats on SFS and SFB are not as impressive as Dusk, it's a good choice for people who dislike LSB and don't want to be bothered with relearning to press space with another thumb.

Bunya

bunya (GalileoBlues)
  b l m c z  j f o u ,
  n r t d p  y h a e i
  x q v g w  ; k ' / .
        s                   

MONKEYRACER:
  Alt: 33.87%
  Rol: 45.23%   (In/Out: 19.87% | 25.36%)
  One:  2.61%   (In/Out:  0.45% |  2.16%)
  Rtl: 47.84%   (In/Out: 20.32% | 27.52%)
  Red:  2.00%   (Bad:     0.34%)

  SFB: 0.55%
  SFS: 4.15%    (Red/Alt: 0.61% | 3.54%)

  LH/RH: 48.13% | 51.87%

Made by the creator of the beloved Gallium (3rd most loved layout).

Bunya is based on Gallium and is currently the best thumb S layout that GalileoBlues has as of April 2024.

Stats wise, it's got SFS and SFB that rival Dusk with a higher focus on alternation. It has lower redirection and likely more annoying scissors such as LV (involve) and BR (break). From a quick glance, it should have a similar 2u SFS as Dusk.

Some obvious cons are that RL SFB is unfortuately a true SFB that can't be alt-fingered and that double thumb ss is quite common (less, miss, across, pass, guess).

Overall, Bunya is a very solid thumb layout and likely one of the best thumb S layouts to date.

Pine-y

pine-y (infiniteplayer)
  q l c m k  ' f o u ;  
  n r s t w  p h a e i ,
  j x z g v  b d . - /  
               y                     

MONKEYRACER:
  Alt: 32.43%
  Rol: 43.56%   (In/Out: 19.38% | 24.19%)
  One:  2.90%   (In/Out:  0.63% |  2.27%)
  Rtl: 46.46%   (In/Out: 20.01% | 26.45%)
  Red:  3.57%   (Bad:     0.28%)

  SFB: 0.78%
  SFS: 5.36%    (Red/Alt: 1.30% | 4.06%)

  LH/RH: 42.51% | 57.49%

This layout is based on Pine-v4 from ClemenPine. It boasts the highest speed rating and 3rd most comfort rating on the layout battle website.

RST homerow is familiar to many as it is the same homerow found on Colemak as well, and I personally believe that having T on index feels quite good as there are many words that end with T, promoting inroll that ends on the strongest finger.

Aside from BO scissor (about), there really aren't many scissors in this layout, achieved by having 3 dead letters on left hand pinky, ring, and middle fingers. 2u SFS may be a bit higher than Dusk due to k__g (looking, thinking) and m_g (might) if that's something you care about.

All the while having competitive SFS and SFB stats. Overall, this is the layout that I like the most out of the 3 that we've discussed thus far.

If you want to use Pine-y, I would recommend that you do

q l c m k  ' f o u .  
n r s t w  p h a e i
j x z g v  b d ; / ,  
           y

Sturdy-thumbn

sturdy_thumbn (Oxey)
  v b l f q  / g o u ,
  s t r h k  y c a e i
  z j x d m  p w ' ; .
        n                   

MONKEYRACER:
  Alt: 34.45%
  Rol: 43.03%   (In/Out: 22.23% | 20.80%)
  One:  2.92%   (In/Out:  0.40% |  2.52%)
  Rtl: 45.95%   (In/Out: 22.63% | 23.32%)
  Red:  2.91%   (Bad:     0.30%)

  SFB: 0.54%
  SFS: 4.57%    (Red/Alt: 0.91% | 3.65%)

  LH/RH: 48.25% | 51.75%

Made by the creator of Sturdy, the 4th most loved layout on AKL discord, and Oxey recommends sturdy_thumbn for those who seek a thumb layout variant based on Sturdy.

By having N on thumb, it addresses the K scissor-related issues that people have with Sturdy. Additionally, it now has one dead key Q on the left index, which drastically lowers the finger with the highest finger speed on Sturdy.

Sturdy-thumbn is an overall improvement on Sturdy and with SFS and SFB stats comparable to Dusk as well. I, however, do not like the fact that ML (almost) and PO (people, open, stop, hope, top) as I found these stretches are not really comfortable on colstag (Piantor Pro).

SturdE

sturdE (Oxey)
  v m l c p  ; x o , /
  s t r d y  f n a i u
  q k j w g  b h ' . z
               e                   

MONKEYRACER:
  Alt: 28.12%
  Rol: 49.23%   (In/Out: 23.53% | 25.70%)
  One:  2.49%   (In/Out:  1.51% |  0.98%)
  Rtl: 51.72%   (In/Out: 25.04% | 26.68%)
  Red:  2.83%   (Bad:     0.33%)

  SFB: 0.57%
  SFS: 5.15%    (Red/Alt: 2.16% | 2.99%)

  LH/RH: 43.36% | 56.64%

Oxey doesn't recommend this over sturdy-thumbn and I can see why: it doesn't really address most issues that people have with Sturdy. I agree with Oxey here.

SNTH

SNTH
  x p d m q  = y o u ,
  s n t h v  g c a e i
  f b k l j  z w ' / .
        r                   

MONKEYRACER:
  Alt: 34.23%
  Rol: 43.69%   (In/Out: 26.41% | 17.28%)
  One:  3.01%   (In/Out:  0.53% |  2.49%)
  Rtl: 46.70%   (In/Out: 26.94% | 19.77%)
  Red:  2.48%   (Bad:     0.39%)

  SFB: 0.40%
  SFS: 4.65%    (Red/Alt: 0.70% | 3.95%)

  LH/RH: 49.77% | 50.23%

Made by Hands Down creator, a common presence on AKL subreddit.

It is similar to Dusk, and so it makes more sense to compare them.

Pros:

Much lower LSB than Dusk.
No corner key like W in Dusk.

Subjective:

More alternation and less roll than Dusk

Cons:

Similar SFB, but higher SFS.
MB full scissor (number).
Some may be bothered by the PL (simple) and LD (should) motions.
More 2u SFS (fix, public, small).
More half scissors (nk, m_k as in make).

I wouldn't recommend SNTH largely for the same reason that I wouldn't recommend Dusk_optimized.

Snth-wuv

snth-wuv (ddn)
  b r d l q  ' p o , w
  s n t h /  y c a i u
  z x k m j  g f ; . v
               e                   

MONKEYRACER:
  Alt: 31.30%
  Rol: 44.92%   (In/Out: 26.12% | 18.80%)
  One:  3.75%   (In/Out:  1.10% |  2.64%)
  Rtl: 48.66%   (In/Out: 27.22% | 21.44%)
  Red:  4.35%   (Bad:     2.04%)

  SFB: 0.48%
  SFS: 3.69%    (Red/Alt: 0.87% | 2.82%)

  LH/RH: 45.18% | 54.82%

Made by ddn, a really helpful person in AKL discord.

Snth-wuv is impressive in a way that it has similar SFB but with noticeably lower SFS than Dusk.

Some cons may be:

RK full scissors and GO stretch as they are quite common (work and go)
Heavy ring RNX stack.

Strand

strand (CN)
  v m l f q  / y o u .
  s t r h b  g c a e i
  z j x d k  p w ' ; ,
        n                   

MONKEYRACER:
  Alt: 34.84%
  Rol: 43.08%   (In/Out: 21.62% | 21.46%)
  One:  2.93%   (In/Out:  0.40% |  2.53%)
  Rtl: 46.01%   (In/Out: 22.02% | 23.99%)
  Red:  2.90%   (Bad:     0.30%)

  SFB: 0.52%
  SFS: 4.17%    (Red/Alt: 0.91% | 3.26%)

  LH/RH: 48.25% | 51.75%

Made by val0rance, a frequenter on AKL discord.

Having 3 dead keys just like Pine-y and sturdy-thumbn ensures that there isn't going to be awkward scissors, but it still has LK (talk) and PO (top and people) full index-middle stretch on the index.

Overall, it is a decent layout and in many ways reminds me of sturdy-thumbn by Oxey.

Zanycat

zanycat (ClemenPine)
  v y l g q  ' f o u p
  t s r c m  b h a i n
  j z x w /  k d . , ;
               e                   

MONKEYRACER:
  Alt: 26.43%
  Rol: 45.37%   (In/Out: 15.88% | 29.50%)
  One:  4.49%   (In/Out:  1.22% |  3.27%)
  Rtl: 49.86%   (In/Out: 17.09% | 32.77%)
  Red:  7.74%   (Bad:     2.51%)

  SFB: 0.65%
  SFS: 3.63%    (Red/Alt: 1.63% | 2.00%)

  LH/RH: 37.45% | 62.55%

Made by ClemenPine with a goal to minimize SFS and SFB. It has slightly higher SFB than Dusk, but does achieve lower SFS.

ClemenPine themselves does not seem to recommend this layout. I agree with them here because of the common PI scissor (piece and stupid) and SY on ring is probably suboptimal (system).

Racket

racket (GalileoBlues)
  f l d w x  / b o u ,
  s h t c y  q n a e i
  j m k g v  z p ' ; .
        r                   

MONKEYRACER:
  Alt: 30.46%
  Rol: 47.72%   (In/Out: 23.12% | 24.60%)
  One:  2.02%   (In/Out:  1.00% |  1.02%)
  Rtl: 49.74%   (In/Out: 24.12% | 25.61%)
  Red:  3.63%   (Bad:     0.42%)

  SFB: 0.40%
  SFS: 4.34%    (Red/Alt: 1.24% | 3.10%)

  LH/RH: 49.06% | 50.94%

Made by the creator of Gallium (2nd most loved layout on AKL discord).

This layout is solid all around, but LHM ring certainly isn't for everyone due to its high movement and 2u SFS, in addition to the LK scissor (talk).

Outrroll

outrroll (yappi_)
  x l d f q  ' y o u ,
  s h t n b  g c a e i
  v m k p z  j w ; / .
        r                   

MONKEYRACER:
  Alt: 34.91%
  Rol: 43.71%   (In/Out: 17.25% | 26.46%)
  One:  2.96%   (In/Out:  0.33% |  2.63%)
  Rtl: 46.67%   (In/Out: 17.58% | 29.09%)
  Red:  2.52%   (Bad:     0.41%)

  SFB: 0.45%
  SFS: 3.96%    (Red/Alt: 0.64% | 3.33%)

  LH/RH: 49.67% | 50.33%

Made by yappi, a frequenter on AKL discord.

This layout has similar SFS and SFB as Dusk, and it doesn't have the W index corner key nor the LSB that Dusk has.

What's the catch? The catch to achieve all that is the heavy and high movement LHM ring, in addition to the LK and SM scissors (talk and small).

Is the trade worth it? for me it is not worth it, but maybe it is for you!

Snert

snert (CN)
  v p l g q  j f o u ,
  s n h t k  y c a e i
  x b m d z  / w ' ; .
        r                   

MONKEYRACER:
  Alt: 32.64%
  Rol: 45.30%   (In/Out: 22.18% | 23.12%)
  One:  2.71%   (In/Out:  0.37% |  2.34%)
  Rtl: 48.01%   (In/Out: 22.55% | 25.46%)
  Red:  2.59%   (Bad:     0.11%)

  SFB: 0.39%
  SFS: 4.95%    (Red/Alt: 1.16% | 3.79%)

  LH/RH: 49.73% | 50.27%

Made by val0rance, a frequenter on AKL discord.

Some people like having T on index, and Snert doesn't have the high index movement that some other index T layouts have.

I think we should swap BP to address bl (able) and mp (important) though, but then SP scissor gets created (space).

RSTHD

RSTHD
  j c y f k  z l , u q =
  r s t h d  m n a i o '
  / v g p b  x w . ; -  
               e                     

MONKEYRACER:
  Alt: 24.64%
  Rol: 49.17%   (In/Out: 31.72% | 17.45%)
  One:  3.37%   (In/Out:  2.66% |  0.71%)
  Rtl: 52.54%   (In/Out: 34.38% | 18.16%)
  Red:  4.36%   (Bad:     0.27%)

  SFB: 0.96%
  SFS: 5.91%    (Red/Alt: 3.48% | 2.43%)

  LH/RH: 43.00% | 57.00%

RSTHD, created by Simon in 2016, is the oldest thumb layout on the list before any of the modern analyzers and metrics come into existence.

Its SFS is on the higher end due to GT (-ght) and MN (-ment) stacks. v_r (very) skipgram pinky-ring half scissor and by full index-middle stretch can be too much for some. All in all, I think it is a decent layout especially given that it was made in 2016.

Terminology

Same Finger Bigram (SFB): Pressing two keys with the same finger in conjunction.
Same Finger Skipgram (SFS): Pressing two keys with the same finger, but separated by x letters.
Disjointed Same Finger Bigram (dSFB): Synonym for SFS. Not used as much anymore.
Lateral Stretch Bigram (LSB): A bigram where your hand must stretch laterally, as in using the middle finger following middle column usage on the same hand. An example is be on QWERTY.
Alt-fingering: Pressing a key with a different finger than would be typed with traditional touch typing technique.
Alternation: Pressing a key with the opposite hand than you typed the last.
Roll: Typing two or more keys with the same hand, moving in the same "direction". For example, on QWERTY, sdf would be a roll, but sfd would not.
Inward/Outward Roll: A roll which goes in a particular direction. Inward means towards the center of the keyboard, like df on QWERTY. Outward means away from the center, like fd on QWERTY. Many people, but not all, consider inward rolls to be more comfortable than outward rolls.
Redirect/Redirection: A one-handed sequence of at least three letters that 'changes directions'. For example, on QWERTY, sfd would be a redirect, but sdf would not.
Hand Balance: How much work each hand does for a layout. For example, a 35%:65% hand balance would mean that the left hand types 35% of keys, and the right hand types 65%.
Scissor: A vague concept that generally refers to fingers curling or extending in awkward relations to other fingers on the same hand. QWERTY cw and ex are usually considered significant examples of scissors.
Half-Scissor Bigram (HSB): A half-scissor is a pattern where one finger needs to stretch or contract to press a key on the top or bottom row and another finger on the same hand stays on the homerow - but the finger that is on the lower of the two rows is either middle or ring. ok, sc, and rd are common examples of half-scissors on QWERTY.
Full-Scissor Bigram (FSB): A full-scissor is a pattern where one finger needs to reach to the top row and another finger on the same hand needs to contract to hit the bottom row - but the finger that is on the lower of two rows is either middle or ring. cr, ex, xt are all FSBs on QWERTY.
Half-Scissor Skipgram (HSS): Similar to HSB except it is separated by x letters from another finger.
Full-Scissor Skipgram (FSS): Similar to FSB except it is separated by x letters from another finger.
Lateral Stretch Skipgram (LSS): Similar to LSB except it is separated by x letters from another finger.
Onehand (ONE): A onehand is when all three keypresses are pressed on the same hand, and in an order from left to right or right to left. asd, sdf, and fds are all onehands on QWERTY.

Dusk Keyboard Layout

How did you make the figures in Layout?