Workman Keyboard Layout (2010)
workmanlayout.org
Workman Keyboard Layout (2010)
1–10 of 233 posts
Re: Workman Keyboard Layout (2010)
#2Is it just me or is it missing arrows entirely?
Re: Workman Keyboard Layout (2010)
#3Is it just me or is it missing arrows entirely?
Not all keyboard layouts use arrows.
Long time ago keyboards did not have arrows. Nowadays, some keyboards use function key to switch some keys to their alternative function, including arrows. This is true especially with 40% keyboards where there is just no real estate for arrows and to some extent with 60% keyboards.
Re: Workman Keyboard Layout (2010)
#4Is it just me or is it missing arrows entirely?
This isn’t a physical keyboard. The layout is just a mapping in software. The arrows are unchanged, so they’re not included in the diagram. Whether they actually appear on your keyboard is a separate question.
Re: Workman Keyboard Layout (2010)
#5This is dope, I love how the author took a rigorous approach towards analyzing how much effort could be saved through this keyboard
Re: Workman Keyboard Layout (2010)
#6Is it just me or is it missing arrows entirely?
Not all keyboard layouts use arrows. Long time ago keyboards did not have arrows. Nowadays, some keyboards use function key to switch some keys to their alternative function, including arrows. This is true especially with 40% keyboards where there is just no real estate for arrows and to some extent with 60% keyboards.
Vi was made for a keyboard without arrows, which is why it has hjkl instead.
Re: Workman Keyboard Layout (2010)
#7> Typing ‘HE’ (in Colemak) forced the hand to make a very unnatural sideways twisting motion from the wrist and then back again.
Perhaps I have larger hands than the average, but I don't experience this. I can even type DE with the index and middle finger of my right hand. Anyone have video of how this is uncomfortable? I'm having trouble imagining it.
Re: Workman Keyboard Layout (2010)
#8This is dope, I love how the author took a rigorous approach towards analyzing how much effort could be saved through this keyboard
Well, you are going to spend all the saved effort in ensuring you have the layout working everywhere.
I am contractor, most of the time working on corporate PC. I use dvorak and it is already a huge PITA to explain to yet another corporate drone I need to be able to set up my own keyboard layout. Windows does not have Dvorak layout with polish accents so I have to either use my own driver or, more likely, write without polish accents.
Another problem is that Windows can have different keyboard layout when logging in and different when unlocking the machine which might cause additional login failures. Some applications try to be smart (which rarely works) and control keyboard layout. At one bank the remote desktop app would switch keyboard layout periodically (like every 5 minutes) depending on my locale settings.
So this is with Dvorak, which is popular enough. Try with a completely unknown layout and you are pretty much screwed if you ever need to be able to use computer that is not your own.
Re: Workman Keyboard Layout (2010)
#9I'm using a similar layout (Norman) that was derived from the Workman analysis. https://normanlayout.info/about.html
It was a bit easier to learn because most of the keys are on the same finger as on qwerty, but with the rows swapped. For me the biggest problem with using an alternate layout is that the hjkl vim movement keys are scattered.
Re: Workman Keyboard Layout (2010)
#10> Typing ‘HE’ (in Colemak) forced the hand to make a very unnatural sideways twisting motion from the wrist and then back again. Perhaps I have larger hands than the average, but I don't experience this. I can even type DE with the index and middle finger of my right hand. Anyone have video of how this is uncomfortable? I'm having trouble imagining it.
I was stuck on that as well. For reference, this is typing the combination HK on a Qwerty keyboard. I shift my index finger over for the H, and then use my middle finger for the K. Watching my wrists, they don't move at all.
I thought the rest of the article and the approach very interesting and rigorous, though, although I thought the text-only effort results of all the different books impossible to grok as text, and would have appreciated a simple chart.