Recurva keyboard layout
Recurva is a 2023 layout by Gallium’s creator that chases the lowest possible same-finger pairs and skips while keeping the hands evenly balanced.
- Created by
- GalileoBlues
- Creator of Gallium
- Year
- 2023
- Finger travel
- −39%
- vs QWERTY
- Home row
- 61%
- of letters, QWERTY 37%
The layout
Recurva, with the full stop on the home row under the right index finger.
Recurva is typed with standard touch-typing fingering on a row-staggered keyboard; column-staggered variants reorder only the right index column.
How Recurva measures
Recurva typed on 23,331 words of English and compared with QWERTY.
History
- 2023After finishing Gallium, GalileoBlues spends the year trying to make one column arrangement work, through several archived layouts.
- Oct 2023He finds Recurva almost by accident in an interactive layout playground, by switching to Semimak-style vowels, and names it after Eucalyptus recurva, an endangered tree.
Design goal: Push same-finger pairs and skips as low as possible with roughly equal hand balance, while staying usable.
Pros
- By its creator’s figures, fewer same-finger pairs and skips than Semimak JQ.
- Fewer scissor stretches and more rolls than Semimak JQ.
- The two hands share the work almost evenly.
Cons
- Heavier use of the ring finger, as its creator admits.
- The full stop sits on the home row and the apostrophe and comma on the bottom right.
- Only Linux and macOS files are published, with nothing for Windows.
Recurva compared
Against QWERTY and other modern optimised layouts, ranked by finger travel per 1,000 words.
| Layout | Finger travel | vs QWERTY | Home row | Same finger | Alternation | Left hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Graphite | 72.0 m | −45% | 67% | 0.9% | 66% | 48% |
| Hands Down Neu | 75.3 m | −42% | 65% | 1.0% | 68% | 51% |
| Semimak | 75.3 m | −42% | 64% | 0.9% | 64% | 47% |
| Sturdy | 76.1 m | −41% | 63% | 1.0% | 61% | 44% |
| Engram | 77.8 m | −40% | 58% | 2.9% | 64% | 51% |
| RecurvaTHIS PAGE | 79.6 m | −39% | 61% | 1.1% | 63% | 46% |
| Canary | 79.6 m | −39% | 62% | 0.9% | 60% | 44% |
| QWERTY | 130.0 m | — | 37% | 6.5% | 55% | 57% |
Recurva was created by GalileoBlues, who also made Gallium, in October 2023.
It moves your fingers less. On 23,331 words of English, finger travel was −39% against QWERTY, 61% of letters landed on the home row against QWERTY’s 37%, and same-finger pairs were 1.1% against 6.5%. Less movement does not guarantee more speed, and switching takes weeks of practice.
Recurva is typed with standard touch-typing fingering on a row-staggered keyboard; column-staggered variants reorder only the right index column.
Yes. Choose Recurva as your keyboard layout and the on-screen keyboard and hands show where every key is.