Keyboard layouts

Has anyone ever tried using a keyboard layout other than QWERTY, like Dvorak or Colemak? Which variation? Any recommendations? Is there even a point in learning any of them? I've recently started to feel pain in my right arm when using my navi for long hours. So I've been trying to learn Dvorak for the last couple of days, and it kind of feels "smoother" when typing imo.

>>83525 I have tried Colemak twice. Once for a month+half, two years later, another month+half. Colemak was more comfortable, it retains common keyboard shortcuts. It was nice. That said, I found I actually would "forget" Qwerty. Whenever I'd type with it, which I have to on occasion, I was a mess. 15 WPM and making mistakes constantly. Can't swap my laptop keyboard, and haven't quite reached touch-typing levels... I reached 50 WPM on Colemak easily, but for some reason just stayed there. Didn't get faster. I can do 70-95 on Qwerty. I am a programmer and a writer. A new keyboard layout just wasn't worth it for me. Might give it a third try when I inevitably get carpal tunnel.

>>83528 I got into this whole layout thing from watching a couple of Xah keyboard related videos, and he seems to be favoring Dvorak over Colemak. I want to maintain my QWERTY too, but I don't think it's remotely possible if I'm not inputing 100+ words per day on QWERTY.

I've been a Dvorak user for years now. Un-learning your mechanical hand memory from using QWERTY for years is tough, but well worth it. I type faster then I ever have, and it's much more comfortable on my hands and wrists. And as an emacs user I think a lot of the keybindings actually work better in Dvorak (although I recommend remapping C-x to C-t).

I tried BÉPO (French Dvorak) at some point but I gave up before being able to type without the visual aid. It was quite an experience being able to type whole words without moving my hands.

>>83528 >That said, I found I actually would "forget" Qwerty. Whenever I'd type with it, which I have to on occasion, I was a mess. This is my situation. I'd really like to try out some alternative layouts, but it would just trip me up on occasions where I'm forced to use QWERTY.

Due to fact you can't always connect your own keyboard to public devices or when using someone else's computer I feel it may be a problem learning other layouts. Id rather use a completely unique input system so there is no overlap

>>83578 Theoretically speaking, it shouldn't be an issue to retain your qwerty skill if you're foreced to type on it frequently enough, right? But again, I feel like it's more of a "hobbyist" thing than being an universally applicable solution, unless you've got severe problems.

doesnt even need to be as big a change as qwerty vs dvorak, every time I change from my main to an alternate keyboard I get a little thrown off.

I don't get all the complaints about the difficulty of maintaining different layouts. If you want it, you just learn it and get decent. I use two types of script (so two completely different layouts) for ANSI, ISO, 58 keys split and dumb phone 9 button. All blind typing. Used to have even more weird stuff, but less devices now. It's usually hard for the first week or two of learning. After that it takes several seconds to get into the mode and you're good to go. One tip thought: in my experience the more the layouts differ from each other, the easier it is to switch between them. So I'd say using Dvorak and QWERTY is easier, than QWERTY and Colemak. The brain messes up less if they are not similar. So if you want it, just go for it. P.S. You might actually get a keyboard that has Dvorak layout, but produces default output. So you don't need to change anything on the OS side. I think any keyboard with QMK or Vial can do it.

i use arno's engram. absolutely rules and i barely have to move my fingers when i type. on a standard staggered i can do about 50wpm tops and on my custom ortho i can get 75. i can still touch type on qwerty as well. defo worth checking out if you want a highly optomized typing experience. ive also tried colemak and dvorak, just not my thing. if you wanna try something even more optimized go for home row mod keys as well.

>>83585 >Theoretically speaking, it shouldn't be an issue to retain your qwerty skill if you're foreced to type on it frequently enough, right? That sounds reasonable on the face of it, but reality is different. I tried a Colemak desktop and Qwerty laptop, it just made me suck at both. Maybe it's just how my brain works.

I used to work desktop support, and got very good at switching from QWERTY to DVORAK on the fly. I still wasn't super fast at QWERTY, and couldn't blindly touch-type, but I could still type faster than most of the old folks I had to help with their computer problems. I hate the word filters on this site

>>83525 Colemak user for about 7 years here. No intentions of switching back to QWERTY any time soon. I have considered trying other layouts but Colemak serves me for my purposes perfectly, and I'd rather not go through the excruciating month or so of adapting to a brand new layout.

I've been using Dvorak for years now. It took a few months to get used to, even more than that to actually get as good as I was on QWERTY. Nowadays my record is at around 220 WPM, which is a whole lot faster than what I had before. Would I recommend it? For speed, probably not, because I think it's easier to get at your own layout anyway. For comfort, absolutely. My fingers stay in the home row most of the time, and Dvorak seems to require much less movement for typing in general. If I were to voice any complaints, it would be that I don't think that Dvorak is quite as perfectly optimised as it could be, but I think the only reasonable alternatives in that regard are obscure layouts that nobody uses anyway. I can still type on QWERTY as well, and at a reasonable speed, though it does take about half an hour for the muscle memory to come back. I'd say that the main issue here is whether you actually *had* that muscle memory on your original layout. If you had a good WPM on it for years, you probably won't forget it entirely even if you stop using it completely. Anyway, good luck with the switch!

>>83528 You gotta practice both at the same time to retain. >I am a programmer and a writer. A new keyboard layout just wasn't worth it for me. So you type a LOT and typing ergonomically wasn't worth it? Then for whom would it be of worth if not you?

>>83569 Dvorak is ancient and predates the invention of computers. The letter frequency data it was based on was generated by interns tallying up letters in a handful of books on note cards. On top of that, language and typing have both changed substantially since the 1930s. Dvorak is much better than QWERTY ergonomically, just about everything is, but the ease of compiling statistics on massive corpuses of text using computers means that it's trivial to make something better than Dvorak these days without really knowing anything about keyboard layouts at all. If you want to try something other than QWERTY but need help deciding, try Canary. It's a modern layout that actually has a handful of users, and it's about as good as you can get without overly optimizing for a specific corpus. >t. Once a Dvorak user for ten years, currently using a thumb-alpha layout of my own design