Editing Ergolinear (section)

==Background==

During 2016, Ian Douglas started to collaborate with Xay Voong, developer of the BEAKL line of logical layouts, in trying to develop the optimal keyboard layout for English. While Xay made use of AdNW's "opt" analyzer, both parties compared results using
Patrick Gillespie's Keyboard Layout Analyzer (KLA). 

It soon became apparent that certain features in layout design affected the score:

* Layouts which put things on an AltGr layer, like Arensito, had an advantage due to reduced finger travel, and better use of thumbs.
* Layouts which were ortholinear in style, like Ergodox, had an advantage due to reduced finger travel.
* Avoiding wide keys produced an advantage, due to reduced finger travel.
* Replacing two shift keys operated by the pinkies, with one shift key operated by the thumb, produced a big improvement in the score.
* In general, reducing pinky load and distance helped a lot.

At the same time, it became apparent that while the Ergodox layout provided many of these features, the large vertical keys, and many thumb keys, was not the optimal design.