Querty with the Kinesis keyboard (http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/). I considered learning Dvorak for comfort and speed advantages, but it's a bit daunting and time-consuming to get used to. I opted to get the contoured kinesis keyboard instead which takes about 10 days to get used to, but I'm slightly faster on it than normal keyboard and the comfort level is more than I ask for. It's really great for long typing sessions.
Poll: What keyboard layout do you use?
31–40 of 42 posts
Re: Poll: What keyboard layout do you use?
#32There's a lot of "I type fast on qwerty so why would I bother switching?" Speed isn't even the main reason I use dvorak. The primary reason is that it's more comfortable to type in. In addition, as a programmer, a lot of the characters actually happen to be in more useful positions than in qwerty, even though that's not what the keyboard was designed for. '-_' especially is in a better place (home row, right pinky).…
I spent a year using dvorak and did notice a slight comfort increase. I've since reverted to qwerty due to device inertia. Currently the biggest interface ergonomics problem I am trying to get through is using the mouse less in windows
Try Find and Run Robot. I don't know how well it's aged, I haven't used it for about 3 years now, but at the time it was the best of the free keyboard-launcher programs out there.
Re: Poll: What keyboard layout do you use?
#33qwerty with spanish layout, because I'm french and really need all the accent chars (spanish qwerty is a perfect mix).
I actually find Portuguese QWERTY better for programming. It's got all the braces in 'the right places' (that is, in the same place you'd find them in an US/UK keyboard), and it doesn't have the 'ñ' character that is completely useless in anything but Spanish.
(note: I grew up in Argentina, so I'm used to Argentinian keyboards, maybe Spanish keyboards use a different distribution?)
Re: Poll: What keyboard layout do you use?
#34I spent a month in 2011 learning Colemak. I never got siginificantly faster than QWERTY, but is was way more comfortable and easy on the hands.
Sadly, I went back to QWERTY because I just couldn't manage to retain QWERTY ability. I typed like a retard on other people's machines, and because I spend some of my work hours helping and teaching others (on their machines), this ended up a deal-breaker.
I had thought by typing in QWERTY in the mornings I would be able to retain both, but I just couldn't actually do that in practice.
Learning Colemak ended up being an overall negative experience, even, because QWERTY seems even more stupid than it always has, after experiencing something better.
Re: Poll: What keyboard layout do you use?
#35I've been mulling over popping out keys on a cheap USB keyboard to practice Dvorak but it's just not high up on my list of things to do.
Re: Poll: What keyboard layout do you use?
#36QWERTY, but only because I haven't yet had the time to purchase stickers or a Dvorak keyboard so I can learn Dvorak. It also doesn't help at all that the iPhone doesn't have a software Dvorak keyboard layout (jailbreaking is not an option).
IMO you shouldn't use stickers or a dvorak keyboard to learn a new layout, the goal is to touch-type, without looking at the keyboard. The F and J keys have ridges so you know where your index fingers should rest by just feeling the keys, and you should be able to find everything else from there without looking. Just print out a dvorak layout on paper and keep that around for a month or two.
I know but usually just get frustrated when I have to look at a reference to figure out what key to hit instead of just glancing down at the keyboard.
I forgot to mention, and it also doesn't help, but I'm addicted to WoW so the times that I have switched to Dvorak I just switch back to QWERTY because I want to play WoW without having to re-do all my key binds and type slow as crap.
Re: Poll: What keyboard layout do you use?
#37I realized one time that I could always use "setxkbd us -variant intl" instead of "setxkbd fin" and buy standard US-keyboard when & if I have a choice. Letters "ÄÖ" which is the only reason one uses FIN-keyboard are very conveniently located close to letters "AO" as "ALT-Q/ALT-P" in the "us -variant intl".
I am already very handy which this setup. Cost benefits can be ginormous, because there is never "50% off" sales on laptops in Finland.
Re: Poll: What keyboard layout do you use?
#38QWERTY. I should be using an AZERTY French Belgian layout since that's what you get here but I switched a few years back because all shortcuts are first thought for QWERTY (curly and square brackets are specially annoying on an AZERTY layout)
Re: Poll: What keyboard layout do you use?
#39Dvorak. One thing that was rather odd for me was that while I was learning the Dvorak keyboard and for a short time afterwards I couldn't touch type on QWERTY anymore. Then one suddenly, about six months after, it came back to me and now I can touch type in both layouts. It's almost as if the 'QWERTY typing center' of my brain had to house two layouts for a while until Dvorak got its own place.
Adding to that observation, during that same time period I could almost feel my synapses firing faster and new neuron connections being made. I felt like I got a turbo boost to my IQ during that period where I thought fast, was more creative and just generally sharper. That effect, whether placebo or otherwise has completely disappeared by now, so it's nothing intrinsic to the format.
Re: Poll: What keyboard layout do you use?
#40Dvorak user. I also use vim heavily (I switched to dvorak before I started using vim, so I've always been used to having h,j,k, and l being separated.
But doesn't that destroy some of the main good points about vim? Like keeping your fingers on the same spots on the keyboard? You could re-map hjkl to whatever the dvorak equivalents and then you'd probably have an easier time navigating around.
Dvorak work quite well with Vim. Just use "ce", "de", etc. instead of "cw", "dw", etc.