My personal layout designed by what works for me. No one else will touch this but that is not why its here.
One layout,every platform: Linux (X11 + Wayland), Windows, Android/GrapheneOS, and QMK/Vial ortholinear boards.
`~ !9 @7 #5 $3 %1 ^0 &2 *4 (6 )8 -_ =+ Del
Tab q r f w g ;: l p y z [{ ]} \|
Bksp a s e t d h n u i o '" Enter
Shft ,< c x v /? k m b j .> Shft
Ctrl Super Alt [ Space ] AltGr Super Menu Ctrl
- Home row
a s e t d h n u i o - Number row: symbols unshifted, digits on Shift. Digits run odd-left /
even-right radiating out from the center (
9 7 5 3 1 | 0 2 4 6 8), so consecutive digits alternate hands. - Backspace where it should be (the old Caps Lock key) — the most-used editing key on the strongest position. Delete takes the old Backspace corner. There is no Caps Lock.
- AltGr + h/j/k/l = ← ↓ ↑ → — vim arrows that follow the letters, wherever they live on the board.
- Measured ~3.3% same-finger bigrams on English text (QWERTY ~7.6%, Colemak ~1.6%).
Everything is position-based: keyboards send standard scancodes and the OS layout does the remapping, so any keyboard works on any device and there is exactly one source of truth per OS. Works identically on row-staggered and ortholinear boards.
./linux/install.shInstalls to ~/.config/xkb/ (user-level — survives system updates) and
verifies the layout compiles. Nothing activates until you select it:
| Environment | How to enable |
|---|---|
| GNOME / KDE (Wayland) | add input source "English (Piercing)" (re-login first) |
| sway | input type:keyboard xkb_layout piercing |
| Hyprland | input { kb_layout = piercing } |
| X11 | setxkbmap -I$HOME/.config/xkb piercing -print | xkbcomp -I$HOME/.config/xkb - $DISPLAY |
On-screen keyboard layouts for Phosh phones (Furi, PinePhone, Librem 5),
based on the furi-phone-colemak-keyboard structure. Includes portrait +
landscape (_wide) variants of the base layout plus terminal/ (Ctrl,
Alt, Tab, arrows, F-keys), email/ (@ key), and url/ (/ key) hint
variants. Bottom row everywhere: Backspace · Shift · prefs · Enter ·
space · 123 — Enter left of space (~1:2 Enter:space split), same thumb
order as the Preonic.
Run on the phone, inside the Phosh session:
./linux/install.sh # xkb layout first (defines the input source)
./linux/squeekboard/install.sh # copies layouts, enables the input source- Build
piercing.klcwith MSKLC 1.4: Project → Build DLL and Setup Package → run the generated installer → select "English (Piercing)" in Settings → Time & Language. - Run
install.ps1as Administrator — applies the Caps→Backspace and Backspace→Delete scancode remaps and autostarts the AltGr-arrows script (needs AutoHotkey v2). Reboot once.
Touch keyboard. Google's Gboard has no mechanism for loading custom layouts — its closest built-in is stock Colemak, and that is a hard limit of Gboard itself. Use HeliBoard (F-Droid, works great on GrapheneOS):
- HeliBoard Settings → Languages & Layouts → English → + →
load
android/heliboard/piercing.txt. - Settings → Layouts → Functional keys → add custom →
load
android/heliboard/piercing-functional-keys.json. This clears the cramped Shift/Backspace off the letter row and makes the bottom row⌫ · ⇧ · ⏎ · space · ?123(Enter left of a ~1:2 space, like the Preonic). - Long-press any top-row letter for that column's number-row pair
(e.g. long-press
q→9/!). - Optional: enable Settings → Preferences → Number row. HeliBoard can
even reorder it to
9 7 5 3 1 0 2 4 6 8via a custom[number_row]section — see HeliBoard's layouts.md.
Physical keyboards (USB/BT): build the tiny APK in
android/hardware-keyboard/ (open in Android Studio or run
gradle assembleRelease; sideload on GrapheneOS), then
Settings → System → Physical keyboard → "English (Piercing)".
Includes the full layout, Backspace/Delete remaps, and AltGr arrows.
For a Drop Preonic rev3 running Vial firmware, preonic-vial/apply-piercing.py
writes the keymap over USB — instant, no reflash, fully reversible:
./apply-piercing.py # dry run: show pending changes
./apply-piercing.py --apply # write to the board
./apply-piercing.py --dump my.bin # back up the current keymap first!
./apply-piercing.py --restore my.bin # put a backup backThe board keeps sending standard positions (the OS layout remaps), with:
- Layer 1 (hold the
,key): F1–F12, vim arrows on the h/j/k/l letter keys,- = \[ ]` symbol column - Layer 2 (hold the
ckey): numpad (digits encoded to survive the Piercing number row) and the same symbol column - AltGr thumb key (4th bottom-left) — OS-level vim arrows, same finger positions as Layer 1
- Bottom row: Ctrl · Super · Alt · AltGr · Enter(2u) · Space(2u) · PrtSc · Vol− · Vol+ · Esc
qmk/keymap.c is a compile-ready mirror for non-Vial QMK builds, and
kle-piercing-5x12.json imports into
keyboard-layout-editor.com.
- Preonic:
apply-piercing.py --dump backup.bin && apply-piercing.py --apply - Linux: select "English (Piercing)" as input source
- Windows / Android: install as above, pick the layout
Roll back anytime: --restore backup.bin on the board, re-select your old
layout in each OS, delete the Scancode Map registry value on Windows.
images/ per-device diagrams (PNG)
linux/ xkb symbols + rules + install.sh
linux/squeekboard/ Phosh phone OSK layouts + install.sh
windows/ MSKLC .klc, scancode-remap.reg, AltGr .ahk, install.ps1
android/heliboard/ touch-keyboard layout + functional keys json
android/hardware-keyboard/ KCM layout APK project (physical keyboards)
ortho-5x12/ Preonic: Vial apply/restore tool, QMK mirror, KLE
MIT — see LICENSE.