About

I use Canary as my default keyboard layout (alternative to QWERTY/Dvorak/Colemak)

History (Time & WPM)

20+ years of QWERTY (120WPM)

↳ 1 Month of Dvorak (50WPM)

↳ 1 Week of Colemak (30WPM)

↳ 1 Month of Colemak-DH (80WPM)

↳ 1 Month of Canary (80WPM)

(MonkeyType Test: 60 Second English 200)

Canary Keyboard Layout

Here is the default layout as-designed to be used with Angle Mod on a Row Stagger (standard) keyboard:

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

And here is a version that can be used on Ortho keyboards (you probably aren't using this type of keyboard):

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 / , .

Canary & Goku Keyboard Layout Config

I wanted to share my Karabiner Elements layout settings to help others use the same layout or take inspiration from how I've set up my extended layers (e.g. when a key like CapsLock is pressed and held, the key mappings change to be more useful).

Please note that this only works with MacOS

What Is Goku?

Goku is a compiler that allows you to write and compile to Karabiner much easier (and more quickly). If you look at the file goku.edn you'll see how easy it is to map everything out. Even more complex secondary layers.

How Do I Use Goku

1. Follow this video here to setup Goku on your machine (that's how I did it)
2. Simply copy the goku.edn file from this repo here to your Users>name>.config folder, then rename it to karabiner.edn.
3. Once it is in there, make sure in Karabiner you have a profile set up called Default (as running Goku will overwrite it — if you want to keep your current profile, rename it to something else, then create a new profile called Default).

Feel free to add/modify any of the mappings (I've documented the Goku file to explain how to do everything)

Without Goku (Normal Karabiner)

Use My Entire Config

1. Simply copy the karabiner.json file to Users>name>.config>karabiner
2. (make sure you first backup your existing karabiner.json file if you are already using it for something).

You'll probably want to also delete some of the other profiles I have mapped for other layouts (in Karabiner Preferences)

Use Just Canary Or Extended Layer Mapping

1. Simply open the canary.json or extended_layer.json file and copy any of the relevant rules to your existing Karabiner file to Users>name>.config>karabiner
2. Be sure to remove all of the descriptive comments that I have in the json files or it won't work

Customizations

Feel free to visit the Karabiner Preferences "Complex Modifications" tab to delete any additional mappings I have, like the "⌘ QWERTY" or "Extended Layer" mappings.

Important Notes

You must have your computer set to QWERTY in order for the mappings to work correctly, everything here is mapped from the starting point of QWERTY.