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Workman Layout for Vim

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Re: Workman Layout for Vim

#31

Post by lawn »

lyall wrote: post #19

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.

Totally agree.

And I can use Vim without trouble on qwerty and on my own custom layout. The only adjustment to the layout I made when designing it was placing hjkl in reasonable positions (e.g. avoid the worst placements, but they're still not on the homerow).

Re: Workman Layout for Vim

#32

Post by rgoulter »

jbaber wrote: post #21
lyall wrote: post #19

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.

Yes. As a dvorak typist, hjkl being in eccentric locations hasn't bothered me.

In dvorak, 'hjkl' are still fairly convenient.

'jk' are adjacent. 'h' is to the left of 'l'.

Re: Workman Layout for Vim

#33

Post by rgoulter »

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 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.

Any alternative is going to have benefits and costs.

With learning alternative keyboard layout, "learn shortcut" mostly means you learn by the letter, not by the position on the keyboard.

It's least awkward for programs which you can drive with two hands on the keyboard (like vim), and most awkward for programs which want keyboard+mouse and have a bias for left-hand side of the qwerty layout for shortcuts.

Re: Workman Layout for Vim

#34

Post by eviks »

> as I remember Vim keybindings more on their associations (y = yank), than muscle memory of their original Qwerty locations

Seriously doubt this for such a frequently used key as yank, which is closer to hjk that require no word-based association at all

Re: Workman Layout for Vim

#35

Post by eviks »

lyall wrote: post #19

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.

How is it best when it's just bad? Why would you make the ergonomic of shortcuts worse when the big point of another layout is better ergonomics?

Re: Workman Layout for Vim

#36

Post by eviks »

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?

In reality there is very little meaning, there is just this false sense there is that keep all these bad defaults in place.

Like, is it word forward or word backwards? W doesn't tell you.

So if you're used to qwerty W it makes perfect sense to keep the much stronger muscle memory intact when switching layouts and use non-W in the same spot

Re: Workman Layout for Vim

#37

Post by eviks »

teo_zero wrote: post #28
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 think ctrl-x, ctrl-c, and ctrl-v should have never existed. So difficult to press, for such common operations! While we still have prominent keys for rarely used functions, such as capslock, insert, etc. I have fond memories of those Sun keyboards with dedicated cut, copy and paste keys...

What's th best alternative you've seen?

Re: Workman Layout for Vim

#38

Post by lawn »

eviks wrote: post #35
lyall wrote: post #19

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.

How is it best when it's just bad? Why would you make the ergonomic of shortcuts worse when the big point of another layout is better ergonomics?

Because the economics aren't "just bad".

The only shortcuts that might be worse on an alternative layout is hjkl, and you can argue that people way overuse them and it's better get into the habit of using other movement keys instead.

I've found that Vim ergonomics are way better on my own layout[0] than on qwerty, despite hjkl not being on the home-row.

[0]: https://www.jonashietala.se/series/t-34/

Re: Workman Layout for Vim

#39

Post by lawn »

eviks wrote: post #36
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?

In reality there is very little meaning, there is just this false sense there is that keep all these bad defaults in place. Like, is it word forward or word backwards? W doesn't tell you. So if you're used to qwerty W it makes perfect sense to keep the much stronger muscle memory intact when switching layouts and use non-W in the same spot

It does make sense because Vim by default is forward looking, so `w` moves forward a word and the secondary effect is to move backward with `W`.

As another example `diw` reads "Delete Inner Word", or `dap` reads "Delete Around Paragraph".

It's way easier to just learn the new new keys and rely on the mnemonics IMO.

Re: Workman Layout for Vim

#40

Post by lawn »

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…

> The other issue is that most of these alternate layouts are optimized for writing prose, and sometimes make other things, code, for example, more difficult.

Why would it make writing code more difficult? Code is mostly just English plus punctuation, which most layouts don't change.

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