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Workman Keyboard layout

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101–110 of 128 posts

Re: Workman Keyboard layout

#101
post #96

20 years ago or so, I ran an evolutionary algorithm that permuted keys in a layout, evaluated them against a corpus of English texts from Project Gutenberg and the Linux kernel sources, and a home-grown cost function that penalized finger motion and especially double-hits by the same finger. The best layouts all had the property that the vowels were on the home row under the left hand, and the common consonants were…

I'm on Dvorak currently, but on Vim, the keybindings make up for an awkward experience. How does one deal with that?

I wrote my own Dvorak optimized editor, aoeui. :-)

Re: Workman Keyboard layout

#103
I've been using programmer's dvorak for almost a month now, and most of my RSI pain in the wrists went away. It took me a while to get use to it (about two months to get to 80% of the speed I had before on qwerty), specially the numbers. But right now I just love it. This layout looks ok, but not too big of an improvement over dvorak, plus programmer's dvorak comes installed almost everywhere (at least the platforms I use the most).

Re: Workman Keyboard layout

#104
post #46
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just letting you know, learning two layouts is not doable. The muscle memory of one will always be more powerful. I cannot type querty anymore after I have switched to dvorak programmer [1]. [1]: http://www.kaufmann.no/roland/dvorak/

If you find you have trouble remembering two layouts then I would suggest using a specialized ergonomic keyboard with a non-QWERTY layout for most of your typing and leave all the normal slab keyboards and laptops as QWERTY. For much the same reasons you don't get confused between a piano and a computer keyboard, using a keyboard which is physically significantly different helps separate the two layouts in your muscl…

This is what I've done too (I use Dvorak on split keyboards and QWERTY on non-split keyboards) and it's done a good job of keeping my QWERTY speed up. I do have to look at the keys if I'm trying to type QWERTY with a split keyboard, but that doesn't happen to me very often, and it's not really much of a problem when it does.

I occasionally get a few keypresses wrong when I first start typing after I've been using the mouse, but once I'm going I'm fairly accurate.

Re: Workman Keyboard layout

#106
post #18

Seems a little strange to concentrate so much on keyboard layouts rather than switching to a split or ergonomic keyboard....

Or even better, do both. Someone recently posted a new layout for the Ergodox Keyboard which looks quite efficient (generated by a programm written in Rust). [1]

[1] https://xsznix.wordpress.com/2016/05/16/introducing-the-rsth...

Re: Workman Keyboard layout

#107
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The benefits of switching from the painful Sholes (QWERTY) layout to anything designed for comfort are huge. Are there really? I find relevant studies lacking, not to mention this: https://www.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/keys1.html Also the whole DVORAK vs QWERTY thing presupposes we are all 20th century secretaries or novel writers and english at that, when in reality, we as programmers: 1) Have different patterns than…

Quite. as far as programming (hell even just prose the way I do it) swapping the various sigils into the tyughvbn cluster would save me more contortions than any rearrangement of letters.

This is why my own custom keyboard remapped Alt to another "shift level". So, for example, Alt+s and Alt+d remap to ( and ) respectively on my keyboard. I have all the other special characters on there too.

Strangely enough, pressing Alt feels easier to me than pressing shift, so I prefer typing special characters over capital letters.

Re: Workman Keyboard layout

#108
Anyone tried any unconventional keys? I changed semicolon with 'type the last character' because I observed typing the same character consecutively significantly slowed down the speed. I mean there is no reason why a key should be bound to a single character.

Re: Workman Keyboard layout

#109
post #67

20 years ago or so, I ran an evolutionary algorithm that permuted keys in a layout, evaluated them against a corpus of English texts from Project Gutenberg and the Linux kernel sources, and a home-grown cost function that penalized finger motion and especially double-hits by the same finger. The best layouts all had the property that the vowels were on the home row under the left hand, and the common consonants were…

What about chording keyboards? I've always wanted to try one of those, though it might be a bit hard to hit unusual keys or combinations. The idea that one hand could control the entire keyboard leaving the other free for the mouse seems interesting.

I spent a month trying different layouts on the Twiddler 2, but ended up ditching it. I could only get up to ≈25% of my normal typing speed. And no matter what layout I experimented with, some keyboard shortcuts were a huge pain. There just weren't enough meta keys.

I do think there's something that could be made in this space, but it would be a niche product. Standard keyboards require no up-front training. A complete novice can use one just fine (although slowly). Chording keyboards require a significant time investment before you can type a single sentence. That up-front cost might be worthwhile, but it really hurts adoption.

In addition to that fundamental issue, most chording keyboards today have two big implementation problems:

1. They are USB instead of Bluetooth. That makes them much less convenient for mobile usage, where they have the greatest advantage over standard keyboards. Instead of grabbing the chorder and typing, you first have to plug it into your laptop, tablet, or phone (if that's even possible).

2. They lack a decent pointing mechanism. The Twiddler series uses a thumbstick. I would vastly prefer a trackball under my thumb. If done right, it would give the ideal combination of speed and precision.

Now that VR is poised to become popular, I think there's a larger chance that someone will make a high-quality chording keyboard. Still, I wouldn't put money on it. Learning to use one proficiently is almost as time-intensive as learning to play an instrument.

Re: Workman Keyboard layout

#110
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, I found my best evolved layout: K,UYP WLMFC OAEID RNTHS Q.';Z XVGBJ Some things to note: 1) E and T just have to be under the middle fingers on the home row in any comfortable layout. 2) T and H need to be adjacent. 3) Vowels on one side, consonants on the other side of the home row. Keep the home row's Scrabble score to a minimum. Honestly, I think that's all that really matters. Dvorak isn't perfect for me (I/…

Hey, I did something similar about 12 years ago! I'd tried the Dvorak keyboard layout and found that I liked the guiding design principles, but decided that the actual layout was a sub-optimal implementation of those design principles. So, I dumped several megs of personal email archives (with the headers & '>' removed) and several megs of C++/Python source code (including comments) through some little statistical nu…

> It’s easier to drum your fingers by rolling inwards rather than rolling outwards.

Interesting. I’ve always found it _much_ easier to drum my fingers outwards - index to pinky - than inwards. Outwards I get a nice rhythm, inwards is awkward, conscious, and more often I end up just flapping all four fingers up and down, all tapping the desk at the same time.

Quick survey in the house, my son is like me, my wife and daughter find inwards easier. (The dog just thinks I’m an idiot and the cats wouldn’t even acknowledge me.)

Strange.

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