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Workman Layout for Vim

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Re: Workman Layout for Vim

#11

Post by lupire »

johncoltrane wrote: post #4
linsomniac wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the issue boils down to qwerty-hjkl become workman-yneo. hjkl don't have _meaning_, it's all about their specific location on the keyboard. So if yneo is now left/down/up/right, you now need to do something else for yank/next/end/open.

^H, ^J, ^K, and ^L _had_ meaning and that meaning is why hjkl do what they do. Their location on the homerow of a number of layouts is an accident. And they are not very useful in practice anyway. "Remapping" the whole keyboard around them is IMO a silly idea.

Nope. hjkl are arrow keys. https://catonmat.net/why-vim-uses-hjkl-as-arrow-keys

Re: Workman Layout for Vim

#13

Post by sanswork »

jacknews wrote: post #10

This is a problem with alternative layouts - you have to relearn or remap all the shortcuts for different apps as well as learn the new alphabet locations. Shortcuts sometimes use mnemonics, eg p to print or whatever, but they're often just in particular locations, like V for paste for example - it's just next to 'C' for cut - so if those two keys are separated on your new layout, it's confusing, and in any case, doe…

I use Colemak on my split keyboards (qwerty on my laptop and regular keyboards) and am a vim user. I just have a layer that has all my common programming symbols on my left hand and switches the homerow on the right hand back to qwerty so I can use vim navigation and it works seamlessly.

Re: Workman Layout for Vim

#14

Post by sanswork »

nanis wrote: post #6

This[1] links to http://www . workmanlayout.com/blog/ which is a 404. (space inserted to avoid auto link generation). Going to the main page of that site reveals some articles from the past few years, but also has online casino and crypto links disguised as posts. E.g.: > is your premier source for crypto insights, covering the latest news, trends, and guides on blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and cybersecurity. Whethe…

I touch typed qwerty for about 20 years using really bad technique(full left hand two fingers on right that roamed). When I got my first split keyboard I switched to Colemak and went through a bunch of touch typing tutorials to teach myself proper form. Without switching layouts I don't think I could have forced myself to start using proper form in qwerty.

Re: Workman Layout for Vim

#15

Post by iorrus »

nanis wrote: post #6

This[1] links to http://www . workmanlayout.com/blog/ which is a 404. (space inserted to avoid auto link generation). Going to the main page of that site reveals some articles from the past few years, but also has online casino and crypto links disguised as posts. E.g.: > is your premier source for crypto insights, covering the latest news, trends, and guides on blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and cybersecurity. Whethe…

It’s an old blog post from over a decade ago (2013). Here is what I assume it originally pointed to: https://workmanlayout.org/

Re: Workman Layout for Vim

#16

Post by drekipus »

jacknews wrote: post #10

This is a problem with alternative layouts - you have to relearn or remap all the shortcuts for different apps as well as learn the new alphabet locations. Shortcuts sometimes use mnemonics, eg p to print or whatever, but they're often just in particular locations, like V for paste for example - it's just next to 'C' for cut - so if those two keys are separated on your new layout, it's confusing, and in any case, doe…

This is why something like colemak-dh is preferred. Keeps the "location shortcuts" where they are, but moves the others, and is by far the most comfortable writing experience I've had

Re: Workman Layout for Vim

#17

Post by ndeast »

Last year during a couple month break I had between jobs I decided I would learn a new keyboard layout as it was something I always wanted to do, but never wanted to commit to the learning process while I still needed to be proficient at typing.

I chose to learn Colemak-DH [0]. Before learning I was around a 75-80 WPM Qwerty touch typist. I went all in and did a lot of heavy practice. It took me around a week to be able to touch type colemak-dh (slowly) and then a further few months to touch type at speed.

I didn't want to lose my ability to use Qwerty so after getting up to a moderate speed of ~45 WPM I exclusively brought my colemak flashed happy hacking keyboard to work, and left qwerty at home. I have now equalized at about 60 WPM on both layouts after 8 months, and can pretty easily swap between them.

Now I don't really know what to do, nor have I noticed really any perceived benefit of switching layouts. The biggest difficulty has been vim keybinds. I really don't want to have to remap all of my vim keybinds (as like the OP article states, I think of my vim commands based on their name and qwerty representation) so I have been relying on multiple keyboard layers to handle movement keys and the like. Having to use modifiers, remember the different locations between layouts, and stealing away previous CTRL+ modifiers from vim to accommodate this kind of sucks.

I notice no difference in wrist (dis)comfort, it's just become more mental overhead to typing, and I am kind of stuck. I guess I am waiting to have some time to think about what I want to do, but balancing two layouts doesn't seem practical, or reasonable, or efficient.

[0] https://colemakmods.github.io/mod-dh/

Re: Workman Layout for Vim

#18

Post by 000ooo000 »

johncoltrane wrote: post #2

This makes no sense. It is _meaning_ that bounds certain Vim commands to certain keys, not the position of the keys on your keyboard. Moving the keys around doesn't change their meaning—"w" is still "w", for "word"—so making all those mappings is utterly pointless. Unless one uses a layout different from that of their physical keyboard, in which case WTF?

I'm not the author but have been on Workman and Vim for about 8 years. I don't think the meaning matters at all outside of the initial learning phase. Now it's all completely "muscle memory"; having to think "I want to move a word along, word starts with 'w' and 'w' is the key for moving a word along" would annihilate any efficiency modal editing gives. When I'm using Vim, it's just a matter of "I want the cursor there and I know this particular finger movement does that".

I remapped probably Vim 10-15 keys 8 years ago, no issues so far.

Re: Workman Layout for Vim

#19

Post by lyall »

In my experience as a Colemak typist and heavy vim (or vim-emulation) user, the best solution is to bite the bullet and _not_ remap any of the keys. This is obviously annoying for hjkl navigation at first but you get used to it pretty quickly. Plus there's the added benefit of being able to easily use hjkl for navigation everywhere that uses them but _doesn't_ let you remap, which is a lot of places.

Re: Workman Layout for Vim

#20

Post by 000ooo000 »

000ooo000 wrote: post #18
johncoltrane wrote: post #2

This makes no sense. It is _meaning_ that bounds certain Vim commands to certain keys, not the position of the keys on your keyboard. Moving the keys around doesn't change their meaning—"w" is still "w", for "word"—so making all those mappings is utterly pointless. Unless one uses a layout different from that of their physical keyboard, in which case WTF?

I'm not the author but have been on Workman and Vim for about 8 years. I don't think the meaning matters at all outside of the initial learning phase. Now it's all completely "muscle memory"; having to think "I want to move a word along, word starts with 'w' and 'w' is the key for moving a word along" would annihilate any efficiency modal editing gives. When I'm using Vim, it's just a matter of "I want the cursor the…

If anyone is interested on what I remapped, I deviated from HJKL for motion to JKLI (NEOI on Workman). I use space/shift+space for insert entry/exit, so losing I to a motion command was a nonissue. I then just mapped what NEO was to JKL. Wasn't a big deal surprisingly.
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