The Twiddler comes with a standard key map. It was designed with the goal of getting a new user to proficiency in the least amount of time and also allow for a high Words Per Minute (WPM) rate for experienced users. You can, and should, modify your key map so that it works well with the way you use it.

We have addressed how to make simple changes to the key map to help you get started. In this section you will find out how to make dramatic changes to your key map, learn entirely new mappings designed for big speed boosts and where to find resources to make your own Super Config.

One of the most powerful features of the Twiddler is its ability to send more than one keystroke for a single chord. Did you know that the average word length in the English language is 4.8 letters per word, and 80% of all words used are between 2 and 7 letters long? Identifying which words are used the most and assigning them to a chord for easy access will speed up your typing dramatically. Lucky enough, we've done a lot of that work for you!

Here are the top 5 most used words in the English language and they are available in the factory default configuration file to help you increase your typing speed:

Another popular Multi-character chord is your email address. Pressing one chord instead of typing each individual character is a pretty good productivity boost when you think about how many times you type your email in a single day.

IMPORTANT: Twiddler config files are not encrypted. Do not store passwords or other sensitive information in the config file.

Back in 1999, Brandon Rhodes created a new Twiddler layout based on efficiency and spacial associations on key placement. It is one of the most popular “aftermarket” key maps due to the attention to detail and depth of the research into the entire key map. Here is a link to the paper describing the work that went into creating the map: TabSpace Guide (PDF)

Here is a link to the config file for your Twiddler3: TabSpace Config file (CFG)

Google has been scanning books and documents for 20 years. They have created a huge corpus of text which they continue to mine and parse and they share this data with everyone. Here is a link to that work. It is a bit rough to look at but the data is golden. It gives you insights to the top n-grams in English, American English, British English, Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Russian and Spanish.

Google n-Grams