One-finger keyboards for Esperanto, English, and Russian

Decades into the smartphone era, seven billion people communicate with one finger on a virtual QWERTY keyboard. Why not arrange the keys for one-finger typing, with the spacebar and most common letters in the center? Jean Ichbiah did that in 1995 with his FITALY keyboard, and no one noticed.

Here are my arrangements:

On the left is Ichbiah's FITALY, to which I've added digits, symbols, and Esperanto diacritics. If you don't use Esperanto, you can fill those seven slots with whatever you like. A long press on a letter gives the symbol below it; feel free to add symbols under the digits and bottom-row letters.

On the right, I've tried to create something similar for Russian. I calculated, for billions of permutations, how far a finger would need to travel to type the complete text of Anna Karenina. In fact there are 263 decillion (2.63×10³⁵) permutations of 32 letters, so mine might not be ideal, but it looks pretty good.

With digits, I put 1, 2, and 3 nearest to the spacebar because 30% of numerals in documents start with 1 and another 30% with 2 or 3, according to the Newcomb–Benford law.

You can use these layouts for free on your Android device. Go to Google Play and install Multiling O. Hold a finger on the spacebar, drag it to Layouts, choose [ + DIY ], and paste the following text:

{
"title":"62FITALY",
"onScreen":{
"main":[
"84zvchwk[DEL]",
"62fitaly[ENTER]",
"01[SPACE][]ne[SPACE][][SHIFT]",
"73gdorsb[SYM:,]",
"95qjumpx[ALTGR:.]",
"[TOOL] ĵŝĉĝŭĥ[FDEL]"
],"sym":[
"  #$_-+= ",
"  %&<>/* ",
"  ³²()÷× ",
"  '\"[]\\@ ",
"  `^{}|~ ",
"" ] } }

{
"title":"62RUSSIAN",
"onScreen":{
"main":[
"84цздмуж[DEL]",
"62ылаикч[ENTER]",
"01[SPACE][]не[SPACE][][SHIFT]",
"73бвотся[SYM:,]",
"95хгрпьй[ALTGR:.]",
"[TOOL]ъёщшюэф[FDEL]"
],"sym":[
"  #$_-+= ",
"  %&<>/* ",
"  ³²()÷× ",
"  '\"[]\\@ ",
"  `^{}|~ ",
"" ] } }

Sadly, Multiling O has been abandoned, and no longer works with newer versions of Android. Fortunately I learned of another program called Unexpected Keyboard that provides similar functionality. The maps for it are

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<keyboard name="62FITALY" script="latin">
  <row>
    <key c="8"/>
    <key c="4"/>
    <key c="z" nw="\#"/>
    <key c="v" nw="$"/>
    <key c="c" nw="_"/>
    <key c="h" nw="-"/>
    <key c="w" nw="+"/>
    <key c="k" nw="="/>
    <key c="backspace"/>
  </row>
  <row>
    <key c="6"/>
    <key c="2"/>
    <key c="f" nw="%"/>
    <key c="i" nw="&amp;"/>
    <key c="t" nw="&lt;"/>
    <key c="a" nw="&gt;"/>
    <key c="l" nw="/"/>
    <key c="y" nw="*"/>
    <key c="enter"/>
  </row>
  <row>
    <key c="0"/>
    <key c="1"/>
    <key c="space" width="2.0"/>
    <key c="n" nw="("/>
    <key c="e" nw=")"/>
    <key c="space" width="2.0"/>
    <key c="shift" nw="capslock"/>
  </row>
  <row>
    <key c="7"/>
    <key c="3"/>
    <key c="g" nw="'"/>
    <key c="d" nw="&quot;"/>
    <key c="o" nw="["/>
    <key c="r" nw="]"/>
    <key c="s" nw="\\"/>
    <key c="b" nw="\@"/>
    <key c="," nw=";"/>
  </row>
  <row>
    <key c="9"/>
    <key c="5"/>
    <key c="q" nw="`"/>
    <key c="j" nw="^"/>
    <key c="u" nw="{"/>
    <key c="m" nw="}"/>
    <key c="p" nw="|"/>
    <key c="x" nw="~"/>
    <key c="." nw=":"/>
  </row>
  <row>
    <key c="?" nw="!"/>
    <key c="ĵ" nw="£" shift="1.0"/>
    <key c="ŝ" nw="€"/>
    <key c="ĉ" nw="₽"/>
    <key c="ĝ" nw="°"/>
    <key c="ŭ" nw="²"/>
    <key c="ĥ" nw="³"/>
    <key c="delete"/>
  </row>
</keyboard>

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<keyboard name="62RUSSIAN" script="cyrillic">
  <row>
    <key c="8"/>
    <key c="4"/>
    <key c="ц" nw="\#"/>
    <key c="з" nw="$"/>
    <key c="д" nw="_"/>
    <key c="м" nw="-"/>
    <key c="у" nw="+" ne="ӯ"/>
    <key c="ж" nw="="/>
    <key c="backspace"/>
  </row>
  <row>
    <key c="6"/>
    <key c="2"/>
    <key c="ы" nw="%"/>
    <key c="л" nw="&amp;"/>
    <key c="а" nw="&lt;"/>
    <key c="и" nw="&gt;" ne="ӣ"/>
    <key c="к" nw="/" ne="қ"/>
    <key c="ч" nw="*" ne="ҷ"/>
    <key c="enter"/>
  </row>
  <row>
    <key c="0"/>
    <key c="1"/>
    <key c="space" width="2.0"/>
    <key c="н" nw="("/>
    <key c="е" nw=")"/>
    <key c="space" width="2.0"/>
    <key c="shift" nw="capslock"/>
  </row>
  <row>
    <key c="7"/>
    <key c="3"/>
    <key c="б" nw="'"/>
    <key c="в" nw="&quot;"/>
    <key c="о" nw="["/>
    <key c="т" nw="]"/>
    <key c="с" nw="\\"/>
    <key c="я" nw="\@"/>
    <key c="," nw=";"/>
  </row>
  <row>
    <key c="9"/>
    <key c="5"/>
    <key c="х" nw="`" ne="ҳ"/>
    <key c="г" nw="^" ne="ғ"/>
    <key c="р" nw="{"/>
    <key c="п" nw="}"/>
    <key c="ь" nw="|"/>
    <key c="й" nw="~"/>
    <key c="." nw=":"/>
  </row>
  <row>
    <key c="?" nw="!"/>
    <key c="ъ"/>
    <key c="ё" nw="£"/>
    <key c="щ" nw="€"/>
    <key c="ш" nw="₽"/>
    <key c="ю" nw="°"/>
    <key c="э" nw="²"/>
    <key c="ф" nw="³"/>
    <key c="delete"/>
  </row>
</keyboard>