How can one-handed work in Ubuntu be eased?

accessibility

My right hand is temporarily immobilized and I would like to do some minor general work on my computer. Mostly web browsing, mailing and file and directory browsing and editing. For this I currently use Firefox, Thunderbird, Nautilus and the GNOME terminal (I have already asked a specific question about Emacs). Are there ways to ease such, or any other general, one-handed work in Ubuntu?

I have found https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2391805/how-can-i-remain-productive-with-one-hand-completely-immobilized but that is not exactly what I am asking for. I want to ease whatever little time spent one-handed in Ubuntu and this is also interesting for situations where there is no injury involved, such as when one hand is occupied. I do realize I should avoid unnecessary strain.

The main thing that is much slower one-handed is writing. Since I am only temporarily immobilized it seems to make no sense learn a new keyboard layout. I would be surprised if I managed to learn and become more effective with a new keyboard layout (than one-handed QWERTY) before I can use my other hand again.

What I have already found:

Sticky keys for making it easier to enter keyboard commands.
When writing one-handed there are more cases of where it is useful to paste in phrases rather than to reenter them.
It is easier to use Super+S rather than CtrlAlt+arrow keys to switch work space.

Solution 1:

I am writing this even considering that the person's right hand is also permanently immobilized.

Mouse

You might want to start using your mouse using left hand for the time being. You can change the mouse from Right Hand to Left Hand

Changing mouse from right-handed to left-handed

Keybindings

You should change your keybindings which needs a key combo and the other key is on the right side. Like P or change screen lock from Ctrl+Alt+L

You can change your Keyboard bindings from Keyboards in System Settings

Changing system wide keyboard shortcuts

As I have never been in such a situation, so imagining is a bit tough.

Solution 2:

Half Qwerty Half Keyboards Half QWERTY is for the user who recently was an excellent typist with two hands.

Half Qwerty uses the skills that have been acquired after many years of typing with two hands. Half Qwerty allows the remaining strong hand to do what it has always been trained to do, on the side of the keyboard on which it has always typed. enter image description here

Video clips here

Site content here

I do not promote this as such. I am providing an alternative.

Please read on.

Another option may be a speech to text software which is available Here

This allows a person to talk to the computer and produce text. Written in GTK+ very adaptable.

source here this is the front end for "eSpeak"

enter image description here

Solution 3:

A linux software version of the Half-QWERTY concept is available here:

Mirrorboard: A one-handed keyboard layout for the lazy

Using the 'mirroring' concept to type with one hand is definitely the way to go, if you are only temporarily injured. It lets you start typing with one hand almost immediately. No need to learn a completely new layout.

The best version have predictive text to pick the most-likely word automatically, rather than having to specify every key using spacebar. However I'm not aware of any predictive text versions for Linux.

Predictive Text versions:
One-Hand Keyboard [Mac App Store] or [Free Trial]
One-Hand Keyboard [Windows PC]

Other mirrored one-handed resources:

https://github.com/ivanstojic/mirrorboard