I’ve used Dvorak for 10 years, and it’s not all that

Anyone try the workman layout?

https://workmanlayout.org/

Same journey for me. I went from using AZERTY without touch typing to QGMLWY with touch typing (http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?full_optimization). I practised with https://thetypingcat.com/ and zty.pe. It took ~3 months@30m/day to get to 60wpm, then I made the switch and it took about a week to get comfortable using it everyday.

Some takeways:

- the keyboard layout doesn't matter that much, what matters most is touch typing vs not touch typing

- I still cannot touch type with azerty. The touch typing skill does not transfer to the other layout surprisingly. On mobile I use qwerty, but I don't type that much on mobile.

- On OSx, I use this horror of a script: https://github.com/pinouchon/keybest/blob/master/rewrite_c/a.... It works fine, except that some password inputs use the mapping, some don't, which is slightly annoying. On ubuntu, I use XKB. I made it work through days of digging the documentation, XKB is the most confusing thing ever.

- The QGMLWY mapping preserves ctrl-x, c, v, z so cutting and pasting is not an issue

- I re-learned ctrl+letter and cmd+letter hotkeys. I like them better with the new layout.

- I created a custom layer called 'gamma' for coding with the modifier on the 'm' key: with the following layers: "top: #[({})]^ middle: ;=:"'/_-! bottom: ~?$\&+*.,". For coding this is invaluable. For example, to type underscore, my fingers don't move, it's just simultaneous pinky+index while staying in home-row position. On traditional layouts or not-so traditional layouts (qwerty, dvorak, colemak), modifiers are all over the place and don't take into account special character frequency.

- I also have a 'alpha' layer for movement that I do use. I moved the shift and tab keys. I also tried moving backspace and enter keys but ended up keeping their original positions.

- One added benefit with messing so much with the keyboard is that when I need a new hotkey or a special mapping for a game (where the default bindings are stupid), I can jump to my script and create a special mapping for that game.

- One big downside is that whenever I switch OS, I have to redo my keyboard setup otherwise I cannot use the keyboard

- Like others have mentioned, a neural interface would be better

Counterpoint to the people agreeing here at having a much higher dvorak typing speed vs qwerty speed, I've never tried dvorak, but I have a >100wpm typing speed on qwerty (every time I do a challenge with people at work on typeracer.com, I flag their bot-check validator/captcha process) having learnt to touch type as a teenager juggling multiple msn-messenger conversations without wanting the counterparty to be aware

I've been on a computer pretty much 12-16 hours a day for 30 years now. Dvorak only makes sense to me if you only have to use a single keyboard/workstation for all of your computing time consistently. On my own I have four different machines/OS and I frequently have to type at other peoples'.

I spent 10 years in Dvorak, Colemak and a variety of modified Colemak layouts before settling back on qwerty. I never noticed much difference in typing speed between it and dvorak (~104wpm) and I am still without RSI.

Using vim with dvorak is a real pain.

> As an aside, why why why do people use the international keyboard layout?

That's like saying "why do characters outside standard English exist?". I honestly don't understand what you're complaining about. People use international keyboard layouts because they want to write another language than English.