The Problem

I broke my wrist. I’m in a cast for probably 2 months and still have plenty of programming to do. I just cant use my left hand, which is my main hand. I don’t want to buy new hardware if I can help it, so the solution has to be software.

Given that I’m a qwerty typist, I want to lean on that as much as possible.

My home setup

At home I run a 2015 MacBook Pro running El Capitan, so I’ve done the following:

• Installed Karabiner, which is a powerful key remapping app.
• Taken this half-qwerty config as a starting point.

Half qwerty

The half qwerty layout is, as far as I know, based on the Mathias keyboard, which remaps each side of the keyboard to the opposite side when you hold down the space bar. It’s useful because if you’re a touch typist you have key positions symmetrically in your fingers.

Typing is still slower, but I feel like I’m learning fast.

Tweaks

Default key hold time

By default, Karabiner remaps keys after 200ms, which is enough to feel a bit frustrating.

In Karabiner’s parameters, we can adjust the “Holding Key To Key Holding Threshold”.

Where’s my tab key?

Since I’m on the right side of the keyboard, I need a tab key, so I remapped .

Given that I don’t have a control key and I use emacs, I’ve also remapped alt on the right side to control.

Config

My config so far is available at this repository