Romak is a keyboard layout built for Portuguese and English users, with a goal to enhance hand alternation, minimize finger movement, reduce single-finger bigrams, and decrease reliance on the pinky and central columns.
For the regular versions of Romak, including performance analysis, check this other page instead.
This is a version of Romak 24 that uses a Magic Key to improve the typing experience, reducing SFBs and consecutive activations of the secondary alpha layer.
This Magic Key replaces the regular H key from the standard Romak 24. It will still type H by default, but will also produce V or Y in some cases where H is not the most useful output. For consonants in the secondary alpha layer, this Magic Key will simply reactivate the secondary alpha layer for a second shot.
To cope with the cases where an H is required but the Magic Key would produce something else, the Q in the secondary alpha layer is moved to the outer left thumb key, with H taking its place.
Alpha 1 layer:
B M G L O U
D N S T R A E I
F C P * , .
® Sp A2 Sf
Alpha 2 layer:
H Qu K Ô Ê Â
Y Z X W Ã É Á Í
J Ç V Õ Ó Ú
Q _ _ '
® = Repeat Key
* = Magic Key
Sp = Space
A2 = One Shot Alpha 2
Sf = One Shot Shift
Usually the Repeat Key will simply repeat the last character, but in some cases an alternate repeat can be used.
This is how the Repeat Key behaves:
| Previous Key | Output |
|---|---|
| H | AH |
| Qu | Ê |
| Ç | OS Alpha 2 |
| ' | V |
| Anything Else | Repeat |
The Magic Key will produce H after most consonants, V after most vowels and Y after consonants that are not usually followed by H. For consonants in the secondary alpha layer, it will reactivate the secondary alpha layer.
This is how the Magic Key behaves:
| Previous Keys | Output |
|---|---|
| YZXHQuKJÇV | OS Alpha 2 |
| ÂÀÃÕ | |
| AÁEÉÊIÍOÓÔUÚ ' | V |
| BMDF | Y |
| ␣ | H |
| OS ⇧ | H |
| Anything Else | H |
A complete implementation can be found here.