Your dream keyboard is the one you've had all along ❤️
LOFT remaps your laptop and standard keyboard into the thumb-keyed, split-layout, ergonomic dream you've been seeking!
It positions your hands up and out in a creative way to get you all the goodies you thought you'd need some garage-built, geek-contraption for. All on a standard ANSI keyboard.
And it's free! Built and shared with love.
Symbol, number, and arrow layers
Split layout for the wrists
Thumb keys save your pinkies from shift-key hell
Exclamation and question marks cozy together!!
And yes, it works with Colemak!
Symbols on your home-row
Not just for the nerds. Basics like exclamations and parentheses shouldn't require acrobatics to hit.
Top keys mirror common 2–6 symbols
Brackets all together now
Hyphen, en-, and em- dashes ready to impress
Access with either symbol layer key
"Ten-key" numpad
A proper number pad is already under your right hand.
Never feel like a goof stretching two hands up to a number row again.
Arrows à la vim
Cursor keys are on your home-row!
With other amuse-bouches like media keys.
An alternative "T-style" config will be available in the future.
✔️ Yes, recommended for...
Regular typists
Writing a novel or a 50-page grant proposal? LOFT is great for prose and standard computer use.
Vim and the terminal lifestyle
The standard modifiers are in a single row under one thumb. Not great for complex "chording," but fantastic for terminal tools like Vim!
Tight wrists and shoulders
LOFT dissolved years of persistent wrist pain and shoulder tightness for me.
On a laptop, LOFT isn't as luxurious as a true split-keyboard; but it's a big help!
And you can use it with a split-keyboard too: I used LOFT with a Freestyle2 happily for 5 years.
Pinky pain and elbow aches
Before LOFT, reaching my pinkies down and out to shift was wrecking my nerves. My pinkies ached and my "tennis elbows" throbbed, despite elaborate stretching routines.
I DIY'd an Ergodox, but the wide-paw hand-position felt exhausting and tense. So I designed LOFT to keep my hands in a naturally curled and relaxed "piano playing" position.
10+ years later, I type all day at my laptop and desktop without pain.
QWERTY and Colemak
I use Colemak, of course – it's great! LOFT remaps the keyboard "in QWERTY," and macOS's standard keyboard setting switches between QWERTY, Colemak, and other standard layouts.
If you use another layout successfully, let me know?!
The dissatisfied adventurers of life
LOFT is not just a fix to typing pain. It was born from a desire to find fun and exciting optimizations to life. It's a refusal to accept the way things are when they're functional at best.
When others say "that's just how it is," and you reply "couldn't this be so much better?!" aghast at the apethy around you; when the unfeeling universe plods along and you are desperate to LIVE; when, in the heady hours of the night, your mind's eye shifts anxiously over the half-filled and only half-behued tapestry of your life and you think "... should I try a new keyboard layout before the last thread is wove?"
...then LOFT may be for you.
❌ No, not recommended for...
Emacs and chording
The standard modifiers are in a single row under one thumb. This is not great for heavy "chording."
Gaming
LOFT won't play well with PC games that take a more traditional layout.
ISO or Japanese keyboards
LOFT is designed for ANSI keyboards – the standard in North America, most of Asia, etc.
It won't work on JIS (Japanese) or ISO (Europe, Latin America, Middle-East, etc) hardware.
Specialty software
There are going to be some in-depth "pro" apps that don't work well with LOFT.
I personally use LOFT (and Colemak) with Affinity Photo 2, Logic Pro, Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, Illustrator, and others. I rarely feel slowed but do acknowledge there's a learning curve.
Windows and Linux
I just haven't researched tooling for these yet. If you'd like to help, reach out!
Anyone afraid of a learning curve
LOFT may take a few days to learn, and weeks to fully internalize; it isn't a walk in the park.
It's for the adventurous and people dedicated to their typing-health.