Enthium is a highly performant adaptation of the Engrammer and Hands Down
Promethium keyboard layouts. It restores familiarity with Arno's Engram 2.0
layout (YOU on the left hand) and the Dvorak layout (HTNS on the right hand)
while optimizing punctuation placement for programming in the spirit of Engrammer,
featuring HJKL and ,; for Vim, -= for zooming, and ./ for filesystem paths.
q y o u = x l d p z
b c i a e - k h t n s w
' , . / ; j m g f v
r
-
Pinky load is stratified by frequency: heavy letters B (1.44%) and W (1.77%) are close to home position on the lateral pinky keys (CapsLock, Apostrophe); medium letters
'(0.47%) and V (1.09%) occupy the lower row pinky keys; and light letters Q (0.10%) and Z (0.09%) sit on the upper row. This distribution helps reduce strain for short pinky fingers or those weakened by convention. -
Vertical same-finger bigrams such as UE (0.08%), OA (0.05%), and NF (0.04%) can be raked down, mitigating their impact on typing flow and performance. Similarly, horizontal ones can be slid over based on dexterity and comfort.
-
Apostrophe is on a different finger from vowels to avoid same-finger bigrams when typing contractions in English: You'd, I'd, He'd, They'd, Quo's, Via's.
-
B/E/W, I/A, K/J, Ctrl-P/N, T/F, and
,;are directionally coherent for Vim. -
Ctrl-B/I/U shortcuts for bold/italic/underline are all on the same hand.
-
-and=are clustered for intuitive zoom-in/out shortcuts with Ctrl. -
.and/are clustered for relative./and../filesystem paths. -
,./are in the same sequence as QWERTY for easier adaptation, especially for navigation and custom application shortcuts that rely on shifted<>. -
',.are on the same fingers and hand (only the row changes) as Dvorak. -
See my blog post for a closer look at Enthium's design and evolution.
The keyboard layout community commonly recommends Pascal Getreuer's guide and ranking tables as a starting point for layout exploration, and Enthium ranks among the top-performing layouts there as of 2025-12-22. More importantly, Enthium is well-balanced in terms of ergonomic concerns (same-finger avoidance, redirects, rolls, and pinky load) for sustained use.
Comparing with conventional layout rankings:
- 0.55% SFBs — second 🥈 place; only surpassed by Focal
- 2.67% SFSs — first 🥇 place; beats the entire table!
- 0.07% LSBs — first 🥇 place; beats the entire table!
- 1.48% redirects — second 🥈 place; after HandsDownNeu
- 0.16% scissors — sixth place; after Dvorak, Anymak:END, APTv3, MTGAP, Colemak-DH
- 45.82% rolls — beats Semimak, Engram, HandsDownNeu, Anymak:END, Halmak, Dvorak
- 2.91% pinky off — beats Canary, Gallium, APTv3, Semimak, MTGAP, Dvorak, Recurva, etc.
Comparing with thumb-letter layout rankings:
- 0.55% SFBs — second 🥈 place; only surpassed by Night
- 2.67% SFSs — second 🥈 place; only surpassed by Night
- 0.07% LSBs — second 🥈 place; only surpassed by Caster
- 1.48% redirects — third 🥉 place; after Nordrassil, Vibranium
- 0.16% scissors — fourth place; after RSTHD, Promethium, Maltron
- 45.82% rolls — sixth place; beats Promethium, Nordrassil
- 2.91% pinky off — third 🥉 place; after RSTHD, Nordrassil
Several same-finger bigrams (SFBs) in Enthium can be raked down vertically across adjacent rows or slid over horizontally, based on your dexterity and comfort. This allows the same finger to actuate both keys in one continuous motion, thereby mitigating their impact on your typing flow and performance:
0.55% SFBs - 0.26% rakeable - 0.07% slideable = 0.22% effective SFBs
| SFB | Cost | Mitigation |
|---|---|---|
ue |
0.08% | rake down |
oa |
0.05% | rake down |
nf |
0.04% | rake down |
ws |
0.03% | slide in |
yi |
0.03% | rake down |
e- |
0.02% | slide out |
sw |
0.02% | slide out |
a. |
0.02% | rake down |
lk |
0.02% | rake down |
e/ |
0.01% | rake down |
hm |
0.01% | rake down |
These results were computed with Cyanophage's Layout Analyzer as follows.
| Category | Statistic | Enthium | Promethium | Engrammer | Dvorak | Colemak-DH | QWERTY |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Summary | Total Word Effort 📉 | 724.5 | 732.1 | 899.5 | 1185.5 | 1047.9 | 2070.6 |
| Summary | Effort 📉 | 416.42 | 398.09 | 457.41 | 769.69 | 534.99 | 1258.15 |
| Bigrams | Same Finger Bigrams 📉 | 0.55% | 0.58% | 0.99% | 1.87% | 0.91% | 4.38% |
| Bigrams | Skip Bigrams (2u) 📉 | 0.33% | 0.36% | 0.39% | 0.45% | 0.49% | 1.43% |
| Bigrams | Skip Bigrams (SFS) 📉 | 2.67% | 3.05% | 3.47% | 3.48% | 4.24% | 5.45% |
| Bigrams | Lat Stretch Bigrams 📉 | 0.07% | 0.24% | 0.41% | 0.80% | 1.27% | 4.55% |
| Bigrams | Scissors 📉 | 0.16% | 0.11% | 0.36% | 0.08% | 0.15% | 1.46% |
| Trigrams | Alt 📈 | 38.09% | 36.98% | 35.62% | 39.08% | 25.43% | 21.38% |
| Trigrams | Alt SFS 📉 | 4.46% | 5.27% | 5.93% | 5.85% | 5.47% | 5.42% |
| Trigrams | Roll in 📈 | 1.55% | 1.72% | 1.82% | 0.28% | 1.50% | 1.32% |
| Trigrams | Roll out 📈 | 0.40% | 0.29% | 0.29% | 0.27% | 0.98% | 1.48% |
| Trigrams | Bigram roll in 📈 | 26.99% | 29.17% | 28.14% | 23.51% | 25.18% | 20.38% |
| Trigrams | Bigram roll out 📈 | 16.88% | 14.56% | 14.03% | 15.14% | 21.54% | 17.58% |
| Trigrams | Redirect 📉 | 1.48% | 1.53% | 2.26% | 1.55% | 5.33% | 6.22% |
| Trigrams | Weak redirect 📉 | 0.79% | 0.87% | 0.74% | 0.64% | 1.09% | 0.44% |
| Trigrams | Other 📉 | 9.36% | 9.61% | 11.17% | 13.68% | 13.49% | 25.78% |
| Computed | Pinky off 📉 | 2.91% | 4.08% | 5.70% | 4.13% | 0.78% | 2.47% |
See my Glorious Engrammer keymap:
Install:
cd linux/
sudo make install
echo Now restart your graphical session.
Activate:
setxkbmap -layout us -variant enthium # one layout; no switch
setxkbmap -layout us,us -variant enthium,basic # dual layout switching
Repair (e.g. whenever a system-wide XKB package upgrade reverts installation):
cd linux/
sudo make reinstall
echo Now restart your graphical session.
Uninstall:
cd linux/
sudo make uninstall
echo Now restart your graphical session.
Install:
-
You'll need Karabiner-Elements, which is also available in Homebrew:
brew install --cask karabiner-elements
Activate:
-
Use the complex modification feature for Enthium to remap your keys.
(Note: The latest version of this is available here in this Git repository.)
Uninstall:
-
Remove the complex modification feature for Enthium that you activated.
-
Optionally remove Karabiner-Elements, which can be done with Homebrew:
brew uninstall --cask karabiner-elements
Released under the same terms as Arno's Engram 2.0 keyboard layout's sources:
MIT License
Copyright 2022 Ricard Figueroa https://github.com/rfiga
Copyright 2021 Suraj N. Kurapati https://github.com/sunaku
Copyright 2021 Arno Klein https://github.com/binarybottlePermission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
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