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

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

#131

Post by tom_ »

blunte wrote: post #69

Considering the author did not begin the Dvorak journey as a touch typist, their experience doesn't carry much weight with me. I took the time to learn Dvorak (years ago), and I found it very much nicer for typing prose. However, I couldn't code with it (and I didn't try a code-focused version). Perhaps I should have tried different Dvorak variations to find one that was still better than QWERTY for writing while als…

The ISO layout is possibly not more efficient, but, like QWERTY vs Dvorak, it's probably not so much less efficient that it's worth changing now that it's become some kind of a standard.

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

#132

Post by jlg23 »

The author was literally not the target audience. Unless you are already touch-typing, there won't be much of a benefit:

* all keys are equally easy to reach when you hover your finger 10cm above the keyboard while searching for a key

* you are moving fingers, hands and arms much more and with much more variety than when touch-typing, the risk of repetitive strain injuries is therefore lower

* you are typing much, much slower. Switching to dvorak is like buying an expensive pair of hiking boots for your daily 1 minute walk to the kiosk.

Last but not least, I know much more people who use a dvorak-like layout (as do I) - they adapt it to their needs (e.g.: as a lisp programmer I don't care about curly or square brackets, when I have to hack on other languages, I adapt my layout to make required special characters more easily accessible)

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

#133

Post by theandrewbailey »

audunw wrote: post #117
busterarm wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> if you only have to use a single keyboard/workstation for all of your computing time consistently. The keyboard itself is irrelevant. I'd recommend getting a keyboard without labels to free yourself from the idea that you need to look at them. All of the time? I don't get this. There's no problem switching between Dvorak and Qwerty if you do it regularly. It's like switching between bicycling and snowboarding.. you…

I've been using blank keyboards[0] at home and work for several years now. Whenever someone just stares at it for a moment, I ask "What? You can't type?"

I totally don't get the trend of backlit gaming keyboards. Desktop keyboards aren't supposed to be looked at, period.

[0] Das Keyboard 4 Ultimate

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

#134

Post by eMSF »

blunte wrote: post #115
Kiro wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

UK and Netherlands use an international keyboard with a tilda ~ key where the return key should be, and a backslash key where the left shift should be. To hit return requires actually moving the right hand to reach return. How often is that tilda needed? That is a poor trade. Moving the shift key away is even worse, because it's a modifier key. Now you cannot press shift with your left pinky finger while also reachin…

Which left hand keys can't you reach while pressing left shift? (I can quite comfortably reach up to J column with my index finger, at which point it's about 50-50 which Shift to use if I have to navigate left-handed.)

Also, being used to it, I find a large Enter key more convenient than a wide one.

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

#135

Post by dwringer »

icebraining wrote: post #113
Alex3917 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've been typing dvorak primarily for about 20 years, also since I was in high school Same. I type on my laptop pretty much all day, and am not even close to having an RSI. To me using QWERTY just seems irresponsible, like driving without a seatbelt or something. If you don't use a computer that much then I guess that's one thing, but if you actually use one on a daily basis for your job and are using QWERTY then t…

Everyone here seems to be saying that switching immediately eliminated their pain, so what's the risk? One can just switch when they start feeling pain.

An alternative to using a different key layout is to use a contoured matrix-style ergonomic keyboard (where all keys are arranged in symmetric columns and curved to fit the hand). I did this a couple of years ago and can similarly report an immediate cessation of pains associated with typing, although I kept a QWERTY layout. The costs and adjustment period involved are still not completely trivial, though.

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

#136

Post by whywhywhywhy »

oarsinsync wrote: post #96
userbinator wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have observed many others who complained about their hands hurting after typing for a short time, and the one thing that stands out is they all seem to have an unusually "tense" posture and almost "attack" the keyboard whenever they type, striking the keys much harder than they need to and making excessively abrupt movements. They also wonder why they can't type very fast and tire quickly, while others like me can…

> Use a softer keyboard if you can This. I dislike mechanical keyboards largely for this reason. Apple's "modern" laptop keyboards (pre-butterfly) are the best I've ever used. For me, they have the right amount of pressure required and key travel to be able to type very fast (>100wpm) at very low effort.

> butterfly

Using this worries me so much that I'm just planting a ticking time bomb of RSI. I a slight ache every time I use it because you have to hit the keys so hard to ensure they register and the stop is so abrupt as paper thin plastic smacks against the metal.

Previous gen feels so gentle compared to it, and this is coming from someone who likes tactile mech keyboards.

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

#137

Post by lorenzhs »

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #17

I'm disappointed that this article is no different from all the other articles on keyboard layouts that I've ever encountered and ignores non-English uses. Obviously, a post written in English has no good reason describing a Norwegian-specific alternative to QWERTY, but it still manages to ignore half of the population of English-speaking people by not taking into account using multiple languages on the same keyboard…

For German, there's Neo 2: https://neo-layout.org/, which is optimised towards German, English, Programming, and Mathematics (in that order). Its third layer, accessed using the caps lock key on the left or the key above right shift, contains all the symbols used by (non-esoteric) programming languages. I've been using it for well over five years now and wouldn't go back to QWERT[YZ] for any reason.

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

#138

Post by 4thaccount »

busterarm wrote: post #97
cecilpl2 wrote: post #11

I've been typing dvorak primarily for about 20 years, also since I was in high school, and I highly recommend it. I agree that switching is a pain in the ass. It will make you essentially unable to type for about 2-4 weeks. Ctrl-C/V/X is a valid concern. I fixed it by mapping mouse buttons to copy/paste, and also getting an Advantage2 Kinesis into which I've programming custom keybinding for Undo/Redo/Copy/Cut/Paste.…

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…

Or you can get RSI in just a few years (right out of college) using QWERTY. I switched to an ergonomic keyboard and it has helped a lot, but it flares up on occasion....I've considered Dvorak on several occasions, but doubt I have the time to be that inefficient for a few weeks. I also use Vim when testing some of our software and would hate to have to relearn all the things I only know my muscle memory now.

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

#139

Post by dgellow »

On the same topic, but not with dvorak. I'm using a custom version of bépo[0] (kind of french dvorak, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout#B%C3%89PO) since ~2009/2010, and don't plan to switch to something else anytime soon, but I wouldn't recommend anyone else to do switch if not to satisfy their curiosity (learning to create custom layout for windows, macos, and linux can be quite interesting).

> Dvorak was different. It forced me to learn to type properly, and eventually I did.

That was for me the main benefits. When I started with bépo I couldn't look at my keyboard, and even if I thought at the time that I wasn't looking when typing, as soon as a tried a different layout I could see how often I was really doing it.

But bépo isn't great for english and programming, so I had to do some modifications to have a good way to access [], {}, (), , =, w, etc. And now I spent so much time using this layout that I don't see myself moving to anything else. It just feels natural, and very comfortable, and I only remember that I'm using something special when I try to use a coworker keyboard or play some games that require keyboard shortcuts (which isn't something I do that often).

Also, there is one really cool, fancy benefit: I have a very quick access to weird characters such as «» (french quotes), … ("..." character), — (long dash), ÷, ×, and a bunch of other weird accents, greek characters, symbols, etc :)

[0]: if you're curious, see https://gist.github.com/dgellow/5915994 to see an xkb version. Config commented in french.

PS: I also have macos and windows version of the layout if someone is interested.

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

#140

Post by 4thaccount »

dwringer wrote: post #135
icebraining wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone here seems to be saying that switching immediately eliminated their pain, so what's the risk? One can just switch when they start feeling pain.

An alternative to using a different key layout is to use a contoured matrix-style ergonomic keyboard (where all keys are arranged in symmetric columns and curved to fit the hand). I did this a couple of years ago and can similarly report an immediate cessation of pains associated with typing, although I kept a QWERTY layout. The costs and adjustment period involved are still not completely trivial, though.

Which keyboard do you use? I use a cheap Microsoft Ergonomic 4000 which works great. I may be ready to step up though.
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