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|
<!doctype html>
<html lang="ar">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>لؤلؤة: لوحة مفاتيح عربية</title>
<!--<meta name="description" content="">-->
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
{# Fonts #}
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=IBM+Plex+Mono|IBM+Plex+Sans:100,400&display=swap" rel="stylesheet">
{# Pure.css #}
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://unpkg.com/purecss@2.0.3/build/pure-min.css" integrity="sha384-cg6SkqEOCV1NbJoCu11+bm0NvBRc8IYLRGXkmNrqUBfTjmMYwNKPWBTIKyw9mHNJ" crossorigin="anonymous">
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{# TeX support #}
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://unpkg.com/katex@0.13.18/dist/katex.min.css" integrity="sha384-zTROYFVGOfTw7JV7KUu8udsvW2fx4lWOsCEDqhBreBwlHI4ioVRtmIvEThzJHGET" crossorigin="anonymous">
<script defer src="https://unpkg.com/katex@0.13.18/dist/katex.min.js" integrity="sha384-GxNFqL3r9uRJQhR+47eDxuPoNE7yLftQM8LcxzgS4HT73tp970WS/wV5p8UzCOmb" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
<script defer src="https://unpkg.com/katex@0.13.18/dist/contrib/auto-render.min.js" integrity="sha384-vZTG03m+2yp6N6BNi5iM4rW4oIwk5DfcNdFfxkk9ZWpDriOkXX8voJBFrAO7MpVl" crossorigin="anonymous" onload="renderMathInElement(document.body);"></script>
{# bokeh #}
{# Defer loading bokeh, so it does not block rendering #}
{% for f in bokehres.js_files -%}
<script defer crossorigin="anonymous" src="{{ f }}"></script>
{%- endfor %}
{% for f in bokehres.css_files -%}
<link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ f }}">
{%- endfor %}
<link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css">
</head>
<body>
<div class="title-card pure-g">
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-lg-1-3">
<div class="lbox">
<h1 class="title"><img class="logo" src="lulua-logo.svg" alt="لؤلؤة"></h1>
<div class="pure-g flexreverse">
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-sm-1-2">
<h2 class="subtitle">لوحة مفاتيح عربية</h2>
</div>
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-sm-1-2">
<h2 class="subtitle" lang="en">Ergonomic Arabic Keyboard Layout</h2>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-lg-2-3">
<div class="lbox">
<div class="layout">
<img src="ar-lulua.svg" alt="لؤلؤة">
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="pure-g flexreverse">
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2">
</div>
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2" lang="en">
<div class="lbox">
<p>This is work in progress and contributions are welcome. Head over to
<a href="https://github.com/PromyLOPh/lulua">GitHub</a> to see where
you can help.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="pure-g flexreverse">
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2">
</div>
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2" lang="en">
<div class="lbox">
<h2>Goals</h2>
<ul>
<li>Ergonomic typing of unvocalized and vocalized text with 10 fingers</li>
<li>Modern Standard Arabic and Quranic Arabic</li>
<li>Localized numbers (European/Arabic-Indic)</li>
<li>Usable as primary or secondary keyboard</li>
<li>Compose-based</li>
<li>Support for Markdown, RST, Wikitext and similar markup</li>
</ul>
<p>Other languages using the Arabic alphabet (regional dialects, Urdu,
Persian) are explicitly not supported.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="pure-g flexreverse">
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2">
</div>
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2" lang="en">
<div class="lbox">
<h2>Usage</h2>
<dl>
<dt>Printout</dt>
<dd><a href="ar-lulua.pdf">PDF</a></dd>
<dt>Windows</dt>
<dd>Download <a href="ar-lulua-w64.zip">driver</a> and follow instructions in <kbd>INSTALL.txt</kbd></dd>
<dt>Android</dt>
<dd>Install
<a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.menny.android.anysoftkeyboard">AnySoftKeyboard</a>
and
<a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.anysoftkeyboard.languagepack.arabic">Arabic for AnySoftKeyboard</a>
<dt>Linux</dt>
<dd>Run: <code>xmodmap <a href="ar-lulua.xmodmap">ar-lulua.xmodmap</a></code></dd>
<dt><a href="https://klavaro.sourceforge.io/en/index.html">Klavaro</a></dt>
<dd>A touch typing tutor. Copy the <a href="lulua_ar.kbd">custom
keyboard</a> to <code>%localappdata%\klavaro</code> (Windows) or
<code>~/.config/klavaro/</code> (Linux), select Keyboard →
(Custom), then lulua_ar.</dd>
</dl>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="indepth-card">
<div class="pure-g flexreverse">
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2">
</div>
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2" lang="en">
<div class="lbox">
<h1>Learn more</h1>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<section>
<div class="pure-g flexreverse">
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2">
<div class="lbox">
<h2>الأبجدية العربية</h2>
</div>
</div>
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2" lang="en">
<div class="lbox">
<h2>The Arabic alphabet</h2>
<p>
28 letters make up the Arabic alphabet and quite a few extra symbols are
required for proper text input, like the {{ hamzah }} in its different
shapes <bdo dir="ltr" lang="ar">أ إ آ ء ئ ؤ</bdo>, {{ tamarbutah
}}, {{ alifmaqsurah }} and various diacritics for vowelized texts.
<!-- -->
Since the performance of a keyboard layout depends on the text entered
it is necessary to study its mono-, di- and trigraph frequencies first.
<!-- -->
The novel corpus built for the following analysis consists of
</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="pure-g flexreverse">
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2">
<div class="lbox">
<figure class="table-overflow">
<table class="pure-table pure-table-horizontal"><thead><tr><th>مصدر</th><th></th><th>كلام</th><th>حروف</th></thead><tbody>
{% for c in corpus|sort(attribute='source.name.en') %}
<tr>
<td><a href="{{ c.source.url }}">{{ c.source.name.ar }}</a></td>
{% set count = c.get ('count') %}
{% if count %}
{# use new style formatting, for some reason %7,d does not work #}
<td>{{ '{:7,d}'.format(count.num)|arabnum }} {{ count.kind.ar }}</td>
{% else %}
<td></td>
{% endif %}
{% set stats = c.get ('stats') %}
{% for k in ('words', 'characters') %}
{% set i = stats[k]|approx('ar') %}
<td>{{ '%5.1f'|format(i[0])|arabnum }} {{ i[1] }}</td>
{% endfor %}
</tr>
{% endfor %}
<tr><td>مجموع</td><td></td>
{% for k in ('words', 'characters') %}
{% set i = corpustotal[k]|approx('ar') %}
<td>{{ '%5.1f'|format(i[0])|arabnum }} {{ i[1] }}</td>
{% endfor %}
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<figcaption>
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
</div>
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2" lang="en">
<div class="lbox">
<figure class="table-overflow">
<table class="pure-table pure-table-horizontal"><thead><tr><th>Source</th><th></th><th>Words</th><th>Characters</th></thead><tbody>
{% for c in corpus|sort(attribute='source.name.en') %}
<tr>
<td><a href="{{ c.source.url }}">{{ c.source.name.en }}</a></td>
{% set count = c.get ('count') %}
{% if count %}
{# use new style formatting, for some reason %7,d does not work #}
<td>{{ '{:7,d}'.format(count.num)|numspace }} {{ count.kind.en }}</td>
{% else %}
<td></td>
{% endif %}
{% set stats = c.get ('stats') %}
{% for k in ('words', 'characters') %}
{% set i = stats[k]|approx %}
<td>{{ '%5.1f'|format(i[0])|numspace }} {{ i[1] }}</td>
{% endfor %}
</tr>
{% endfor %}
<tr><td>Total</td><td></td>
{% for k in ('words', 'characters') %}
{% set i = corpustotal[k]|approx %}
<td>{{ '%5.1f'|format(i[0])|numspace }} {{ i[1] }}</td>
{% endfor %}
</tr>
</tbody></table>
</figure>
<details class="remarks">
<summary></summary>
<p>
The chosen Quran representation does not include all quranic
diacritization symbols, like <a
href="https://github.com/khaledhosny/quran-data">other datasets</a>.
<!-- -->
This makes comparison fairer, since most keyboards presented below do
not include any of them.
</p>
</details>
<p>
The plot below shows {{ alif }}, {{ lam }}, {{ ya }}, {{ mim }}, {{
waw }} and {{ nun }} can be considered the most frequently used letters
in the Arabic language.
<!-- -->
Together they account for more than 55% of all letters in the corpus.
</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<figure id="letterfreq">
<div class="lbox" lang="en">
<div id="letterfreq-div"></div>
</div>
<figcaption class="pure-g flexreverse">
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2">
</div>
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2" lang="en">
<div class="lbox">
<p>Arabic letter frequency distribution</p>
</div>
</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
</section>
<section>
<div class="pure-g flexreverse">
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2">
</div>
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2" lang="en">
<div class="lbox">
<h2>Layout properties</h2>
<p>Throughout this evaluation color coding is used to identify fingers:</p>
<dl class="colorcodes">
<dt class="finger little">red</dt>
<dd>little finger</dd>
<dt class="finger ring">blue</dt>
<dd>ring finger</dd>
<dt class="finger middle">magenta</dt>
<dd>middle finger
<dt class="finger index">violet</dt>
<dd>index finger</dd>
<dt class="finger thumb">cyan</dt>
<dd>thumb</dd>
</dl>
<p>Asymmetry is defined as the difference between left and right hand button
usage \(b_{left/right}\) and includes the thumb:</p>
$$a = \frac{b_{left}}{b_{total}} - \frac{b_{right}}{b_{total}}$$
<p>
The layout proposed uses four shift layers in a way inspired by <a
href="https://neo-layout.org/">Neo2</a>.
<!-- -->
Thus it assumes a <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC_keyboard#Keyboard_layouts">102/105
key ISO keyboard</a> common in Europe – but also available in Arab
countries – to accommodate for the necessary shift keys.
<!-- -->
These are in order: <span class="layer second">Shift on the left and
right</span>, <span class="layer third">caps lock on the left and the
rightmost key in the middle row</span>, <span class="layer fourth">the
key right to the left shift key and the key labeled <em>Alt Gr</em> to
the right of the spacebar</span>.
<!-- -->
Symbols are assigned to the four layers by their function: <span
class="layer first">characters</span>, <span class="layer
second">punctuation</span>, <span class="layer
third">diacritics</span>, <span class="layer fourth">other</span>.
</p>
<details class="remarks">
<summary></summary>
<p>Apple, for instance, provides an <a
href="https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MLA22AC/A/magic-keyboard-arabic">Arabic
hardware keyboard</a> with this physical layout. But both variants,
101/104 key and 102/105 key devices, seem to exist in the Arab
world.</p>
</details>
<p>
The first layer was optimized using an extended reimplementation of <a
href="http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?typing_effort">carpalx</a>.
<!-- -->
From several runs with 100.000 iterations each the layout which had
good scores and looked reasonable to the human eye was picked.
<!-- -->
Afterwards the third layer was optimized using the same process, but
only using data from the Hindawi corpus, because it is the only one
with at least some fully diacriticised texts.
<!-- -->
Finally the different brackets were arranged by hand and the remaining
symbols algorithmically distributed on the second layer using the raw
Wikitext from the Arabic Wikipedia dataset.
</p>
<details class="remarks">
<summary></summary>
<p>This is <a
href="https://github.com/mw8/white_keyboard_layout/blob/master/README.md#finding-the-optimal-layout">a
common way</a> of arranging brackets, because most algorithms ignore
human desire for symmetry.</p>
</details>
<p>
The most frequent letters have all been assigned to the home row, which
makes them easily accessible.
<!-- -->
{{ Alif }} and {{ lam }}
are typed with different hands, balancing the load on hands almost
evenly.
<!-- -->
The index and middle finger of both hands share the majority of the
typing load, but naturally the left middle finger is used more
frequently due to its assignment to the letter {{ alif }}.
</p>
<p>
The layout targets Quaranic and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), also called Fuṣḥa
(<bdo lang="ar">الفصحى</bdo>), only.
<!-- -->
Dialectical Arabic (<bdo lang="ar">العامية</bdo>) is mainly a spoken
language, although with the rise of social media sites like Twitter and
Facebook this is changing.
<!-- -->
For now however it’s not an optimization target due to the lack of a
good, representative corpus.
</p>
<p>
Designing the layout to be compose-based has both benefits and
disadvantages.
<!-- -->
Compose-based mainly means the {{ hamzah }} is treated like an optional
diacritic for {{ alif }}, {{ waw }} and {{ ya }} instead of viewing
{{ alifhamzah }}, {{ wawhamzah }} and {{ yahamzah }} as precombined,
atomic units.
<!-- -->
Although {{ alifhamzah_ }} and {{ alif_ }} are not the same, the {{
hamzah_ }} can be dropped if the writer’s intention is unambigiously
inferable from context.
<!-- -->
Thus it makes sense to provide {{ hamzah_ }} as a combining character
on the keyboard.
<!-- -->
Additionally it uses two keys less than precombining it with its stems,
allowing the entire alphabet plus hamzah diacritic to fit on a single
keyboard layer.
<!-- -->
However, there is a cost to this approach:
All {{ hamzah_ }} variants account for {{
'%.1f'|format(layoutstats['ar-osx'].hamzaImpact*100) }}% of button
combinations.
<!-- -->
Splitting {{ hamzah_ }} and from its stem means doubling the total number
of button combinations and thus button presses, decreasing scores like
words per minute (WPM) slightly.
<!-- -->
Splitting {{ alif }} and {{ alifhamzah }} could also reduce pressure
on left middle finger and allow for more even distribution, since {{
layoutstats['ar-osx'].hamzaOnAlef|fraction }}<sup>th</sup> of all {{
alif }} uses are with {{ hamzah }}.
</p>
<details class="remarks">
<summary></summary>
<p>See for example section 3.3 of <a
href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6046-5_3">Buckwalter’s <em>Issues in Arabic Morphological Analysis</em></a>.
</p>
</details>
</div>
</div>
</div>
{% macro fingerhandstats(stats) %}
{% set hands = stats.hands %}
{% set fingers = stats.fingers %}
<div class="fingerhandstats" dir="ltr" lang="en">
{% for hand in Direction %}
{% set handpct = hands[hand]/stats.buttonPresses*100 %}
<div class="{{ hand.name.lower() }}" style="width: {{ '%.3f'|format(handpct) }}%;">
<div class="hand">{{ '%.2f'|format(handpct) }}%</div>
<div class="fingers">
{% for finger in fingerOrder[hand] %}
{% set fingerpct = fingers[(hand, finger)]/stats.buttonPresses*100 %}
{# finger width is relative to parent (i.e. hand) #}
{% set fingerwidth = fingers[(hand, finger)]/hands[hand]*100 %}
<div class="{{ finger.name.lower() }}" style="width: {{ '%.3f'|format(fingerwidth) }}%;">{{ '%.2f'|format(fingerpct) }}</div>
{% endfor %}
</div>
</div>
{% if loop.first %}
<div class="asymm"><small>Asymmetry: {{ '%.3f'|format(stats.asymmetry) }}</small></div>
{% endif %}
{% endfor %}
</div>
{% endmacro %}
<figure id="ar-lulua-heat">
<div class="lbox" lang="en">
<img src="ar-lulua-heat.svg">
{{ fingerhandstats(layoutstats['ar-lulua']) }}
</div>
</figure>
</section>
<section id="related">
<div class="pure-g flexreverse">
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2">
</div>
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2" lang="en">
<div class="lbox">
<h2><a href="#related">Related work</a></h2>
<p>This section explores existing keyboard layouts made for the
Arabic language and analyzes their usability.
<!-- -->
Comparing them with the proposed layout above is difficult at best,
because the layouts presented below cover different character sets.
<!-- -->
Some lack numbers, some do not include short vowels and others provide
no way to type symbols.
<!-- -->
Therefore no individual score is assigned to each layout, but an analysis
of each layout’s features is given.
</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<figure id="triadeffort">
<div class="lbox" lang="en">
<div id="triadeffort-div"></div>
</div>
<figcaption class="pure-g flexreverse">
</figcaption>
</figure>
<div class="pure-g flexreverse">
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2">
</div>
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2" lang="en">
<div class="lbox">
<p>
Carpalx tries to minimize the effort of typing in blocks of three
consecutive keystrokes, triads, and thus a good layout in that sense
should make typing frequent triads easy.
<!-- -->
The figure above plots cumulative triad frequency on the x-axis and
weighted cumulative effort on the y-axis.
<!-- -->
Thus, at an x value of 0.5 the y-axis is the sum of triad frequencies
multiplied by their effort for all triads responsible for 50% of the
typing process.
<!-- -->
Standard layouts are the layouts from <a href="#ar-asmo663">ASMO</a>,
<a href="#ar-linux">Linux</a> and <a href="#ar-osx">OSX</a> whereas
<em>usable</em> lists only those which are actually relevant for typing.
<!-- -->
As we can see the layout presented above meets the optimization goal.
<!-- -->
Only the top 5% of all triads are “easier” to type with <a
href="#ar-malas">Malas’ layout</a>, because lulua splits {{ hamzah }}
from its {{ alif }} stem.
<!-- -->
As expected the <a href="#ar-phonetic">phonetic layout</a> is one of the
worst ones, because QWERTY is not optimized for Arabic letter frequencies.
</p>
<p>
The following sections provide details about these layouts.
</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="ar-asmo663" class="pure-g flexreverse">
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2">
</div>
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2" lang="en">
<div class="lbox">
<h3><a href="#ar-asmo663">ASMO 663</a></h3>
<p>
Trying to unify existing layouts, the Arab Standardization and
Meterology Organization (<abbr>ASMO</abbr>), now part of
<a href="https://www.aidmo.org/"><abbr>AIDMO</abbr></a>, published an Arabic
keyboard layout in 1987 as
<a href="https://www.aidmo.org/smcacc/ar/index.php?option=com_sobi2&Itemid=2&limitstart=2150">standard 663</a>
titled <em>Arabic terminal keyboard layout</em>.
<!-- -->
The layout has several shortcomings:
Most notably it clusters letters by their visual similarity (<bdo
dir="ltr" lang="ar">ض ص، س ش، ح ج خ</bdo>) and not frequency.
<!-- -->
Also it overuses the right index finger by assigning the four
high-frequency letters {{ alif }}, {{ ta }}, {{ waw }} and {{ tamarbutah
}} to it.
</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<figure>
<div class="lbox">
<img src="ar-asmo663-heat.svg">
{{ fingerhandstats(layoutstats['ar-asmo663']) }}
</div>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<div id="ar-osx" class="pure-g flexreverse">
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2">
</div>
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2" lang="en">
<div class="lbox">
<h3><a href="#ar-osx">Mac OS X</a></h3>
<p>
Mac OS X’s Arabic keyboard layout makes a few small changes to ASMO
663 by moving the {{ tamarbutah }} to a hard to
reach spot on the right of the top row.
<!-- -->
It also moves the short vowels from the first to the top row of the
second layer and replaces them with symbols.
<!-- -->
The bottom row keys are aditionally shifted to the right, beginning
with {{ ra }}.
</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<figure>
<div class="lbox">
<img src="ar-osx-heat.svg">
{{ fingerhandstats(layoutstats['ar-osx']) }}
</div>
</figure>
<div id="ar-linux" class="pure-g flexreverse">
<figcaption class="pure-g flexreverse">
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2">
</div>
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2" lang="en">
<div class="lbox">
<h3><a href="#ar-linux">Linux</a></h3>
<p>
A more common layout is the one used on Linux, which also exists on
Windows with minor changes to the first layer.
<!-- -->
While its top and center row barely differ from
ASMO 663 the bottom row now contains a separate key
for the ligature {{ lamalif }} , likely inherited from <a
href="https://oztypewriter.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-arabic-typewriter-keyboard-and.html">early
typewriter layouts</a>.
<!-- -->
But at the cost of pushing punctuation characters to the second
layer, {{ dal }} into the top and {{ dhal }} even further into the number row.
</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<figure>
<div class="lbox">
<img src="ar-linux-heat.svg">
{{ fingerhandstats(layoutstats['ar-linux']) }}
</div>
</figure>
<div class="pure-g flexreverse">
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2">
</div>
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2" lang="en">
<div class="lbox">
<p>In contrast to the layouts presented so far the following
layouts claim to be optimized for the Arabic language and were, at
least partially, created algorithmically.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="ar-alramly" class="pure-g flexreverse">
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2">
</div>
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2" lang="en">
<div class="lbox">
<h3><a href="#ar-alramly">Al-Ramly et al</a></h3>
<p>
One of the eariest accounts can be found in the article <a
href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S1474-6670(17)64475-6">Statistical
Distribution of Arabic Letters Aids to the Design of a New
Keyboard</a> by Al-Ramly et al published in 1980.
<!-- -->
The Arabic half of the proposed bi-lingual layout seems to be
hand-optimized based on several metrics including character
frequencies – without mentioning a source for them though – visual
similarity (“letter groups”) and their position on previous
layouts.
<!-- -->
It tries to balance load between hands, assign more work to index
and middle fingers and place common letters in the home row.
<!-- -->
However the asymmetry given in the article, 0.032, cannot be
reproduced here.
<!-- -->
For the most part the layout lacks combining and pre-combined
characters, a task that is left to “machine intelligence” making it
hard to use nowadays.
</p>
<p>
While the layout distributes load between fingers quite well it
favors the left hand by assigning {{ alif }}
and {{ lam }} to it.
<!-- -->
The decision to place {{ tha }} in a very
prominent spot seems weird, given it only accounts for 0.5% of all
symbols, even in their own analysis.
</p>
</div></div>
</div>
<figure>
<div class="lbox">
<img src="ar-alramly-heat.svg">
{{ fingerhandstats(layoutstats['ar-alramly']) }}
</div>
</figure>
<div id="ar-idlebi" class="pure-g flexreverse">
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2">
</div>
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2" lang="en">
<div class="lbox">
<h3><a href="#ar-idlebi">Idlebi et al</a></h3>
<p>
Another article from the early days of computers published in 1990
is <a
href="https://archive.org/details/computers_and_the_arabic_language_1990/page/n112/mode/2up">Design
of Arabic Keyboard Layout Based on Statistical Properties of Arabic
Characters</a> by Idlebi et al.
<!-- -->
They present two examples of programmatically optimized layouts and
account for character and bigram frequencies based on a corpus of
100.000 characters, finger movement time of unknown origin and finger
load.
</p>
<p>
Unfortunately the results use 12 keys per row and are not suitable
for use with current European keyboards, which usually feature only 11 keys
in the bottom row.
<!-- -->
Thus the layout displayed below lacks the Arabic question mark and
comma in the bottom right.
<!-- -->
Probably due to their unusual assumption that middle- and
ring-finger rest in the top row their results are suboptimal,
placing both {{ alif }} and {{ ya }} in the top row.
<!-- -->
Their analysis notices this and suggests improved positions for
both characters, but these are not actually implemented.
<!-- -->
The big asymmetry is caused by placing {{ alif }}, {{ lam }}, {{ ya }} and
{{ waw }}, four of the five most frequent letters, on the right hand side.
</p>
</div></div>
</div>
<figure>
<div class="lbox">
<img src="ar-idlebi-heat.svg">
{{ fingerhandstats(layoutstats['ar-idlebi']) }}
</div>
</figure>
<div id="ar-malas" class="pure-g flexreverse">
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2">
</div>
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2" lang="en">
<div class="lbox">
<h3><a href="#ar-malas">Malas et al</a></h3>
<p>
About 20 years later (2008) Malas et al. presented an alternative
layout generated by a genetic algorithm in their article <a
href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1bf8/74dcaa7f21c2cc3c6c5e526b61a9ee352bba.pdf">Toward
Optimal Arabic Keyboard Layout Using Genetic Algorithm</a>.
<!-- -->
They used a snapshot of the Arabic Wikipedia probably from around 2008 and
optimized for typing speed only, claiming 35% faster typing compared
to the <a href="#ar-linux">currently used layouts</a>.
<!-- -->
However the decision to put {{ ya }} in the top
row seems odd.
<!-- -->
Assigning the same left index finger to {{ alif }},
{{ ya }} and {{ waw }}, which are three of the most frequent letters, heavily
strains this particular finger.
</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<figure>
<div class="lbox">
<img src="ar-malas-heat.svg">
{{ fingerhandstats(layoutstats['ar-malas']) }}
</div>
</figure>
<div id="ar-khorshid" class="pure-g flexreverse">
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2">
</div>
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2" lang="en">
<div class="lbox">
<h3><a href="#ar-khorshid">Khorshid et al</a></h3>
<p>
In figure 8 of the paper
<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264837659_A_new_optimal_Arabic_keyboard_layout_using_genetic_algorithm">A new optimal Arabic keyboard layout using genetic algorithm</a>
published in 2010 Khorshid et al. present yet another layout.
<!-- -->
They reject the idea of using contemporary text sources like
newspapers or books and consequently their only input text is a
copy of the Quran, whose distribution of mono- and digraphs
is quite different from modern, non-religious texts.
<!-- -->
A 36% improvement over the standard keyboard based on their
criteria for ergonomic layouts is claimed in their conclusion as
well.
<!-- -->
However their algorithm seems to favor the bottom row instead of the
easier to use top row since it places the letters {{ ba }}, {{ ta }}
and {{ ra }} there.
</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<figure>
<div class="lbox">
<img src="ar-khorshid-heat.svg">
{{ fingerhandstats(layoutstats['ar-khorshid']) }}
</div>
</figure>
<div id="ar-osman" class="pure-g flexreverse">
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2">
</div>
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2" lang="en">
<div class="lbox">
<h3><a href="#ar-osman">Osman et al</a></h3>
<p>
In 2015 patent
<a href="https://patents.google.com/patent/US9041657B2/en">9,041,657 B2</a>
was filed in the US, presenting yet another computer-generated layout.
<!-- -->
Its genetic algorithm was seeded with just 54 Arabic e-books consisting
of 7 million characters in total.
<!-- -->
Overall it claims to be 9% faster than default layouts.
<!-- -->
This layout rips off most of the standard layout’s second layer,
but amusingly fails to include a question mark, while it does
provide <em>three</em> single-quote marks ’ and <em>two</em> Arabic
semicolon <bdo dir="ltr" lang="ar">؛</bdo>.
<!-- -->
Additionally it places {{ ya }} in an even
worse position than Malas’ layout.
</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<figure>
<div class="lbox">
<img src="ar-osman-heat.svg">
{{ fingerhandstats(layoutstats['ar-osman']) }}
</div>
</figure>
<div id="ar-qtaish" class="pure-g flexreverse">
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2">
</div>
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2" lang="en">
<div class="lbox">
<h3><a href="#ar-qtaish">Qtaish et al</a></h3>
<p>
Qtaish et al presented this layout in
<a href="http://www.sci-int.com/pdf/637456047563529791.pdf">An Improved Arabic Keyboard Layout</a> in 2021.
<!-- -->
They use a novel corpus of 5 million words or roughly 66 million letters
<!-- 65713689 adding up the numbers in their paper --> consisting of
newspapers, (now defunct) social networks and blogs, as well as six
dictionaries (see remarks).
<!-- -->
Then letters were classified into three categories based on their
frequency, which apparently were used to populate home, top and bottom
row (in this order).
<!-- -->
Additionally bigrams were somehow used to arrange letters and avoid
placing them on the same or adjacent fingers, making rolling finger
movements incentiviced by carpalx impossible.
<!-- -->
Ultimately it looks like the layout was designed by hand and not through
an automated process. <!-- see section 5 of the paper -->
</p>
<details class="remarks">
<summary></summary>
<em>Alfarahindi</em> and <em>Alein Dictionary</em> are most likely the same 8th century book <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitab_al-%27Ayn">Kitab al-'Ayn</a>.
<!-- -->
There are also <a href="https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%AC_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%B3_%D9%85%D9%86_%D8%AC%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%87%D8%B1_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%82%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%88%D8%B3">Taj-Alaroos</a>, <a href="https://www.lesanarab.com/letter/">Lesan Alarab</a>, <a href="https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B9%D8%AC%D9%85_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%88%D8%B3%D9%8A%D8%B7">Almujam Alwaseet</a> and <a href="https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%86%D8%AC%D8%AF_(%D9%84%D9%88%D9%8A%D8%B3_%D9%85%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%88%D9%81)">Almunjed</a>.
<!-- -->
All of them are lexica, not dictionaries.
</details>
<p>
Although the authors do not provide a number row, it has been added for
fair comparison.
<!-- -->
However to be actually usable the layout would need punctuation symbols and diacritics.
</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<figure id="ar-qtaish">
<div class="lbox">
<img src="ar-qtaish-heat.svg">
{{ fingerhandstats(layoutstats['ar-qtaish']) }}
</div>
</figure>
<div id="ar-ergoarabic" class="pure-g flexreverse">
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2">
</div>
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2" lang="en">
<div class="lbox">
<h3><a href="#ar-ergoarabic">Ergoarabic</a></h3>
<p>
Being first released in 2021 <a
href="https://github.com/darkstego/ergoarabic">Ergoarabic</a> is the
most recent optimized layout for Arabic.
<!-- -->
On the first layer it combines the positions of 17 keys from the <a
href="#ar-linux">standard PC layout</a> with brackets and punctuation
symbols from QWERTY, aiming to retain compatibility with both.
<!-- -->
The remaining keys have been re-arranged or moved to the shift layer by
hand for improved ergonomics.
</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<figure id="ar-ergoarabic">
<div class="lbox">
<img src="ar-ergoarabic-heat.svg">
{{ fingerhandstats(layoutstats['ar-ergoarabic']) }}
</div>
</figure>
<div id="ar-phonetic" class="pure-g flexreverse">
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2">
</div>
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2" lang="en">
<div class="lbox">
<h3><a href="#ar-phonetic">Phonetic</a></h3>
<p>
The <a href="http://arabic.omaralzabir.com/home">Arabic Phonetic Keyboard</a>
simply maps the QWERTY layout to Arabic letters, based on their sound.
Thus Q becomes {{ qaf }}, Y becomes {{ ya }} and so on.
It claims to be optimized for writing vowelized texts, especially
Quranic Arabic, and thus includes quite a few combining characters and
special symbols.
Although it claims to make frequently used letters easily available –
based on the work of Intellaren – it makes no effort to arrange letters
according to their usage frequency.
</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<figure>
<div class="lbox">
<img src="ar-phonetic-heat.svg">
{{ fingerhandstats(layoutstats['ar-phonetic']) }}
</div>
</figure>
<div id="intellark" class="pure-g flexreverse">
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2">
</div>
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2" lang="en">
<div class="lbox">
<h3><a href="#intellark">Intellark</a></h3>
<p>
While technically speaking not a layout but alternative input
method, <a href="http://www.intellaren.com/intellark">Intellark</a> by
Intellaren is worth mentioning.
<!-- -->
It is based on repeatedly pressing the same button to modifiy the
current character.
<!-- -->
For example pressing A on the QWERTY keyboard cycles through the
alternatives <bdo dir="ltr" lang="ar">ا أ إ آ</bdo> and <bdo dir="ltr" lang="ar">ء</bdo>.
<!-- -->
Obviously this is slow, error-prone and violates Dvorak’s guidelines
for keyboard layout designs.
</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</section>
<section>
<div class="pure-g flexreverse">
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2">
</div>
<div class="pure-u-1 pure-u-xl-1-2" lang="en">
<div class="lbox">
<h2>Acknowledgements</h2>
<p>This work would not have been possible without Martin Krzywinski’s
work on <a
href="http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?typing_effort">carpalx</a>.
<!-- -->
Neo Layout’s <a
href="https://github.com/neo-layout/neo-layout/tree/master/windows/kbdneo2/Quelldateien">kbdneo2</a>
Windows driver proved to be an invaluable source for understanding the
undocumented nature of Windows keyboard driver development.
</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</section>
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