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One year with Colemak

ruudvanasseldonk.com

21–30 of 43 posts

Re: One year with Colemak

#21

Anyone have any experience with minimak [1]? It seems like the 4 key layout would be much easier to handle within Vim than most other alternative keyboard layouts. 1 - http://www.minimak.org/

Very interesting, for the 4 key, k and cntrl-d are really the only keys that would impact my vim usage much.

For heavy vim/emacs (I use evil/emacs) making sure your esc/meta/control keys are large and cleanly accessible is probably a better investment. I resisted even remapping capslock for years but now I'm even working on using control-[ instead of esc (it's universal but may not be the optimum trade for the esc).

Thanks though, I'll put this away for later.

Re: One year with Colemak

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been looking at the Kinesis keyboards to try to get some relief from wrist pain. Which do you use? Have you tried the MS Natural, or did you go straight to Kinesis?

Kinesis can strain your thumbs. I used one for 14 years. Still got major wrist pain and really bad thumb pain. Microsoft Sculpt Mobile and that style of keyboard ended up being my best option.

I use the Natural. I bought a Sculpt, but took it back because of the top row of keys being so small, and a couple of other gripes. I bought another Natural, but I always ponder the Kinesis line. Besides the unknown experience, the price is also a factor.

Re: One year with Colemak

#23
post #7

If you're serious about increased typing speed you're probably better off switching to a two-handed chording system http://www.loper-os.org/?p=861&cpage=1#comment-16162 . Alternative layouts for conventional non-chorded typing don't seem to be worth the disruption.

Stenography might also be an option:

http://plover.stenoknight.com/

Here's a video by the stenographer half of the duo that started the project:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpv-Qb-dB6g

Re: One year with Colemak

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kinesis can strain your thumbs. I used one for 14 years. Still got major wrist pain and really bad thumb pain. Microsoft Sculpt Mobile and that style of keyboard ended up being my best option.

I use the Natural. I bought a Sculpt, but took it back because of the top row of keys being so small, and a couple of other gripes. I bought another Natural, but I always ponder the Kinesis line. Besides the unknown experience, the price is also a factor.

My cube-mate has a natural and I use a kinesis. We both thing the keys on the kinesis have noticily better action, but he just can't (doesn't want to) wrap his head around the grid layout. Unless you have very small hands, or you just absolutely hammer on your keyboard, it would be unlikely for the kinesis to make your thumbs sore. The space button on the ms naturl is junk compared to cherry mx brown switches.

Re: One year with Colemak

#25
post #7

If you're serious about increased typing speed you're probably better off switching to a two-handed chording system http://www.loper-os.org/?p=861&cpage=1#comment-16162 . Alternative layouts for conventional non-chorded typing don't seem to be worth the disruption.

Stenography might also be an option: http://plover.stenoknight.com/ Here's a video by the stenographer half of the duo that started the project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpv-Qb-dB6g

I mentioned Plover and steno in my linked comment. Basically, classical stenotype and other similar syllabic two-hand chording systems are a big bag of hurt, and probably not well-suited for anything except transcribing spoken English (or whatever natural language your steno system is designed for). A more orthographic system like Velotype http://www.velotype.com/en/ / Veyboard http://www.veyboard.nl/en_main.html is probably better unless you need to optimise for the last iota of transcription speed in one specific spoken language, especially since most of us will never reach professional real-time transcription speeds no matter what keyboard we use. (And OTOH, Velotype is apparently fast enough to be in use for real-time tasks in the Netherlands.)

EDIT: Also, most people would probably be better served doing something about the time they spend moving their right hand between keyboard and mouse than increasing their typing speed.

Re: One year with Colemak

#26

I switched to Dvorak about 7 years ago. In hindsight I probably should have stayed with Qwerty. Nobody can use my machines. My girlfriend already knows to Ctrl-Shift to change keyboard layouts, but that's on my PC where Windows is in English. On my laptop with Windows in Spanish it's Alt-Shift. Even I get confused sometimes. Most games I play don't recognize layouts, so WASD doesn't work. I have to Ctrl-Shift before…

I also use Dvorak in Spanish, but I modded it with Ukelele to make tilde (`) a dead key. ` followed by an n or vowel will return an ñ or accentuated vowel. I also swapped tag keys ( ) with the parentheses so I could write Lisp more easily.

As for nobody using my machines, I see that as a plus :)

Re: One year with Colemak

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a person with RSI in both wrists, I'm glad I changed to Dvorak last year, including a change to the kinesis keyboard. That being said, I can never apply to grad school anymore because I can no longer type in qwerty and won't be able to take the way portion of those electronic tests very well. (And that would affect my performance in other sections)

I've been looking at the Kinesis keyboards to try to get some relief from wrist pain. Which do you use? Have you tried the MS Natural, or did you go straight to Kinesis?

[deleted]

Re: One year with Colemak

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been looking at the Kinesis keyboards to try to get some relief from wrist pain. Which do you use? Have you tried the MS Natural, or did you go straight to Kinesis?

Kinesis can strain your thumbs. I used one for 14 years. Still got major wrist pain and really bad thumb pain. Microsoft Sculpt Mobile and that style of keyboard ended up being my best option.

I initially had rsi pains in my wrists and pinkies, after I recovered I switched to a Kinesis and was convinced it helped keep the rsi away for 2 years or so.

Recently the pain came back worse than ever, this time accompanied with quite serious thumb pains, I certainly do not blame the Kinesis as it is most surely a combination of many factors (poor habits, stress, workload, etc.), but the layout does increase the load on the thumbs so I think that contributed.

For now I have switched back to a cheap Microsoft dome keyboard as it is easier to type with using only my forefinger and middle finger (and easily allows me to avoid using thumbs and pinkies).

Of course this is all just my personal experience, for years the Kinesis was lovely and I may still go back to it, as always YMMV.

Re: One year with Colemak

#29
post #14

I'm using Colemak for 2-4 years and I have the same Experience(helping someone using another layout, non-blind typing previous layout, games) as you have. I used Azerty 95% and Qwerty 5% before the switch. Because I don't type much French anymore, I'm not missing Azerty layout. I'm even using Colemak on Android.

I still use Qwerty on my phone, because I always type with two fingers. Does Colemak have any real advantage there? The muscle memory for two-finger touchscreen typing is different from that for ten-finger blind typing, so that is not an issue for me.

The official FAQ recommends against using colemak on smartphones:

http://colemak.com/wiki/index.php?title=FAQ#Is_Colemak_suita...

Re: One year with Colemak

#30
I'm a full time dvorak typist after years of having used qwerty. I re-learned vim's shortcuts for dvorak. The transition took approximately one month. My wrist used to ache after 10+ hours a day typing querty. The fire finally died after I switched and became comfortable with dvorak.

My first impression when revisiting qwerty is a revulsion at the placement of the "t". What a horrible location for such an oft used key. However, most qwerty users will have a similar response when typing "ls -l" on dvorak. Actually, a lot of unix commands were clearly written with qwerty in mind, their letters centering on qwerty's home row. The unix monikers get easier with repetition for dvorak typists, but dvorak's true power comes in writing English, which in my case is most of my typing. Vim works well with either layout, luckily. Most of the programming languages I use - SQL, golang, python, and c# - seem about the same in either layout.

Once you become fluent with dvorak it "rolls" off your fingers. You'll know what I mean once you're there. "The", "another", "masticate", "friend", and most other words with vowels and common consonants spend most of their typed lives on the home row. Both hands share evenly in typing. The common punctuation and quotes are right where you need them.

If you use RDP for most of your remote work the transition is surprisingly easy. Switching between layouts is simple in Windows and Unix. Hell, even my copy of Amiga 3.1 supports dvorak out of the box.

Some here seem to switch their keycaps to a dvorak arrangement. I did this in the past with my Model M but eventually set it back to querty. I'm not embarrassed to admit that I need to look at the keyboard now to type qwerty, thus having the keycaps set to querty serves as a convenient reminder. When typing dvorak I never look down.

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