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Learning to Touch Type Again

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Re: Learning to Touch Type Again

#61

Post by bsder »

dietrichepp wrote: post #12
melling wrote: post #7

“As someone who easily spends more than 60 hours a week at the keyboard gaming, coding, working, and writing, I am no stranger to wrist pain. Particularly the part where my thumb and wrist meet on my right hand.” Patient: “Doctor, doctor, it hurts when I do this.” Doctor: “Then don’t do that!” Perhaps it would be a good idea to reduce typing in general? We’ve got voice input that’s getting much better. We had this a…

> We’ve got voice input that’s getting much better. Voice input for tasks like writing has been “solved” for at least twenty years now, you just need to get your software set up to use it. As I understand it, the improvements to speech recognition these days are making it easier to handle noisy environments, different accents, more languages, that sort of thing, but if you just care about accuracy and productivity in…

> Voice input for tasks like writing has been “solved” for at least twenty years now, you just need to get your software set up to use it.

So, where is the Linux writeup on how to do this?

The last time I tried to put my control keys on a footpad, it was a pain in the ass. The issue was you couldn't send a modifier from one HID device and a key event from a different one and have the OS pick them up and combine them. So, you had to get a special keyboard with a special footpad that you plugged into the special input on the keyboard.

I'd love to do a hybrid of voice/keyboard but I haven't seen any good writeups. I don't need everything on voice, but it would be nice to get some of the things that cause me to move my hands in the most contorted ways to be better. Hell, just putting scrolling on voice would be a big win given all the web "progressive scrolling" shittiness seems to require you to scrub the hell out of the scroll wheel nowadays.

Re: Learning to Touch Type Again

#62

Post by [deleted] »

bsder wrote: post #61
dietrichepp wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We’ve got voice input that’s getting much better. Voice input for tasks like writing has been “solved” for at least twenty years now, you just need to get your software set up to use it. As I understand it, the improvements to speech recognition these days are making it easier to handle noisy environments, different accents, more languages, that sort of thing, but if you just care about accuracy and productivity in…

> Voice input for tasks like writing has been “solved” for at least twenty years now, you just need to get your software set up to use it. So, where is the Linux writeup on how to do this? The last time I tried to put my control keys on a footpad, it was a pain in the ass. The issue was you couldn't send a modifier from one HID device and a key event from a different one and have the OS pick them up and combine them.…

[deleted]

Re: Learning to Touch Type Again

#63

Post by jakecopp »

nabogh wrote: post #60
TheRoque wrote: post #32

I learned Colemak a year ago so I could touch-type properly, because the regular layouts are so sub-optimal that the balance between fingers feel so weird, and being on the home row is actually not optimal. I definitely am happy with the change. I use Colemak mostly for coding, and writing short texts. I would switch to my native layout whenever I need to type fast and long texts (AZERTY, french layout). I definitely…

How does colemak work with the cardinal directions, hjkl?

I use Colemak on a Kinesis Advantage 2 and decided to keep the same vim keybindings (physical locations change/key letters stay the same).

I think it's less optimal than QWERTY but still really nice and I'm very happy with my choice. Of course I don't know what it's like remapping because I never went down that road.

I imagine it would get very confusing having to write vim commands in qwerty when your keyboard is Colemak. Almost like switching keyboards between insert and normal mode.

I agree with parent post of yours. I'm a much better touch typer on Colemak than QWERTY - partly because I had to learn again, partly QWERTY sucks for touch typing (try hitting the letter C with your middle finger while your first finger hovers on F!)

Re: Learning to Touch Type Again

#64

Post by dusted »

I learned to touch type from the movie hackers, specifically by emulating Dade when he chose to spray-paint his keyboard.

When it had dried, I realized I didn't know where everything was. But, being a kid with no money, I figured it out. Now I'm typing exclusively on blank keyboards. WASD makes some nice ones.

Re: Learning to Touch Type Again

#65

Post by wesapien »

I can already touch type and I think a split keyboard will be a lot more beneficial for ergonomics than learning qwerty alternatives.

What's it like to be able to type in Dvorak or Coleman or any other layout? Is it like being bilingual. If I ever put the effort into learning something else, it's whenever I get a split keyboard.

Re: Learning to Touch Type Again

#66

Post by afarviral »

jakecopp wrote: post #63
nabogh wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does colemak work with the cardinal directions, hjkl?

I use Colemak on a Kinesis Advantage 2 and decided to keep the same vim keybindings (physical locations change/key letters stay the same). I think it's less optimal than QWERTY but still really nice and I'm very happy with my choice. Of course I don't know what it's like remapping because I never went down that road. I imagine it would get very confusing having to write vim commands in qwerty when your keyboard is Co…

You use your index finger to type C on a Qwerty row-stagger board. Its actually an advantage of row-stagger that the most dextrous fingers have access to multiple keys less than a key unit away. In saying that I just learned colmak-dh on a columnar 36 key board and I am happy typing C with middle finger. I would say there are some factors that were not considered with these supposedly ergonic column-stagger and alternative layouts, such as something I term psychological contrast; the more distributed layout of qwerty (not optimised for home row) enhances the distinctness of movements, compared with pressing keys next to each other where the differences betweem them (contrast) is low. I also think that alternative layouts and ergonomic boards tend to discourage overall motion or encourage holding muscles in spasm, rather than the more chaotic/increased motion of less efficient layouts which provides opportunities to release tension via more varied motion to avoid injuiries! For anyone with RSIs, I would suggest working on ways to release muscle spasms (e.g. with hand stretches or subtle motions that can be incorporated while working, or by using the mouse sometimes! I know, blasphemy right?).

Re: Learning to Touch Type Again

#67

Post by afarviral »

1MachineElf wrote: post #28
Zambyte wrote: post #23

A few years ago I also got a split + columnar keyboard (ZSA moonlander). When I made the switch, I also switched to Dvorak from QWERTY. It was a brutal first month grinding typing practice, but I'm really glad I did it. My posture has felt much better with the split keyboard, and my hands have felt much less strained with the columnar + Dvorak. I don't think I type much faster than I did before switching (maybe from…

I'm also a happy Dvorak convert. Yes, it's tough at first. Switches back to Qwerty also take some getting used to.* I believe there is a universal benefit of learning a non-QWERTY layout. Many people learn QWERTY first when they are young, and as a side-effect, they carry with themselves the baggage of bad typing habits. While making an intentional effort to touch type with QWERTY can help significantly, I believe it…

Right, so it may not be so much about the supposed superiority of an alternate layout but about learning the layout well, which is hard to do once you have a decade or more of bad habits. That's a new take for me, having switched to colmak-dh (and training qwerty and even getting much faster on it at the same time).

Re: Learning to Touch Type Again

#68

Post by dingleberry »

i write my own typing practice program (just a simple dowhile read loop while spitting out preprogrammed stream of characters)

not counting wpm etc, don't want bloat.

my focus is practicing accuracy on difficult pieces like 4567, $%^& etc

Re: Learning to Touch Type Again

#69

Post by afarviral »

samsquire wrote: post #5

I bought a split keyboard but when I realised I had to relearn everything after trying to use it, I abandoned it. I once used DVORAK but I abandoned that too (not overlapping the split key keyboard). I also really liked vimperator, the firefox plugin that let you manipulate firefox and click links through the keyboard and scroll with vim bindings. My tastes have completely changed. I no longer want to optimise how I…

You are absolutely right.

Re: Learning to Touch Type Again

#70

Post by skribanto »

rgoulter wrote: post #6

For emacs, I've found that putting the modifier keys on home row works well. i.e. tapping the key works as normal, and holding the key acts as Alt/Win/Ctrl/Shift. An advantage to doing things this way is reducing hand movement/stretching. Another advantage to that technique is it'd work with pretty much any keyboard. (Even keyboards which have large spacebars).

For me, tap hold is kind of iffy. If I set the hold delay short enough that it doesn’t feel sluggish, it becomes too easy to misfire it while trying to type. That’s just my experience though, I’ve come to prefer dedicated keys for each in a thumb cluster
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