APT VS Rommana

I've considered both the earlier version of APT, as well as Engram, with these layouts putting punctuation on the center index columns.

APT

Apt: https://github.com/apsu/apt

It's a rather bad layout by current measures. Not a lot better than QWERTY, and barely better than std Norman, much worse than Workman, Dvorak, Halmak, Engram, Colemak, Semimak, ISRT, RSTDH, MTGAP, APT, Poqtea, Hands Down, and many, many others. Even the simple Notarise is much better (with similar distance stats), and is much easier to learn coming from QWERTY.

Or u/apsuity's Apt v3

I don't have any personal experience with anything except Colemak-DH so I can't offer recommendations based on personal experience. With that being said, if I was to try a new layout I'd likely choose APTv3 or some variation of Hands Down as I hear good things about both.

It's the L placement and left index _mostly. Right hand is a bit overloaded as well however, like rnv on ring and the f placement, never on dvorak despite being full alt is not fun lol. That is not to speak for all sfbs on right hand like rn, sl, ct and gh which are bearable to slide on a low profile keyboard but hard to deal with on anything else. It also creates annoying patters like ght and wr because it puts everything on this hand. Left index is all of that, squared. You can deal with it just like you can deal with qwerty's jank, but there's just many better options out there. You could for example take a look at apt

nah colemak is good, dvorak is pretty garbage. If you wanna try something with a similar feel that's really good maybe try APT. Instead of that you can maybe also try some colemak mods like Colemak DH or rollmak: q w f p b z l u o y c r s t g m n e a i ' x v d k j h ; , .

u/AlSaMoMo has an amazing Rommana (a project with u/rafaelromao?), with a slick Hands Down Neu mod. I'm working on a similar board, which will have a mod of Hands Down Vibranium, which already has even further reduced center column usage.

I use boards with 30 to 36 keys, but only 28 are used most of the time, and each pinkie is responsible for a single key. I think it can't get any better than that for pinkies. Here are some pictures of my smaller board, a Rommana.

A Rommana built using 3D printed solderless hotswap sockets, twisted wire connections and preasure monted MCU. It is obviously not that stable, but it works.

My next one will be a modified Rommana. But it will take some weeks to see the light.