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The Workman Keyboard Layout

194 pointsby wesllyover 11 years ago

52 comments

skriticos2over 11 years ago
I&#x27;m typing Dvorak since almost ten years now and from what I remember it&#x27;s damn hard to re-learn the layout (was touch typing QWERTZ before). The hard part in not even the initial memorization of the keys, but the old reflexes that kick in once you stop actively focusing on each key and let your subconscious take over.<p>I did not regret my decision (far from it), as Dvorak is indeed nice to type and quite readily available out of the box.<p>Normally you don&#x27;t get much benefit from switching layouts though. Especially as developer. As an author or someone who is writing prolonged texts in plain English, yes it&#x27;s definitely an advantage. Yes, it&#x27;s also more fun to type. But really, QWERTY is good enough in most cases. You don&#x27;t really need to bother.
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srgpqtover 11 years ago
As a keyboard layout aficionado, I appreciate the thinking that went into this keyboard layout.<p>I&#x27;ve been a fulltime dvorak user for over 10 years. I also tried Colemak but found that many motions felt awkward while using it.<p>Anyways, I thought I&#x27;d give this one a try just for the hell of it. And... so far I am quite pleasantly surprised. I fully memorized the layout in about half an hour. It feels comfortable to type on, just like Dvorak does.<p>Typed up this comment with the Workman-P layout, and seriously considering switching to it now...
ricardobeatover 11 years ago
The Norman layout [1] beats Workman at it&#x27;s own metrics (or so it says on the tin), and from brief experimentation makes more sense to me.<p>I&#x27;ve always wanted to try an alternate layout, and this post led me to find minimak [2]. I&#x27;m typing with it right now and really enjoying the similarity to qwerty (only 4 keys changed) with reduced movement, plus 99% of my shortcuts remain the same.<p>[1] <a href="http://normanlayout.info" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;normanlayout.info</a><p>[2] <a href="http://minimak.org" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;minimak.org</a>
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blowskiover 11 years ago
An interesting read whenever the topic of keyboard layouts comes up: <a href="http://reason.com/archives/1996/06/01/typing-errors" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;reason.com&#x2F;archives&#x2F;1996&#x2F;06&#x2F;01&#x2F;typing-errors</a><p>Summary of that article: The &#x27;QWERTY was developed to slow down the typist&#x27; story is a lie. There is no serious evidence that Dvorak is a &#x27;better&#x27; layout. If you were starting from scratch, there would probably be no advantage choosing one over the other, except that QWERTY is the standard. Retraining is a waste of time.<p>One of the key quotes:<p>&gt; The study design directly paralleled the decision that a real firm or a real government agency might face: Is it worthwhile to retrain its present typists? If Strong&#x27;s study is correct, it is not efficient for current typists to switch to Dvorak. The study also implied that the eventual typing speed would be greater with QWERTY than with Dvorak, although this conclusion was not emphasized.<p>I have no reason to believe that the Workman layout offers any other advantages.
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Afforessover 11 years ago
&gt;<i>QWERTY was supposedly designed for typewriters to solve a very specific problem–to keep the types from jamming against each other. The most frequently used keys were placed apart from each other to prevent them from jamming. This results in a non-ergonomic layout. However, there are alternatives.</i><p>Nope: <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/the-lies-youve-been-told-about-the-origin-of-the-qwerty-keyboard/275537/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theatlantic.com&#x2F;technology&#x2F;archive&#x2F;2013&#x2F;05&#x2F;the-li...</a>
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4dl0v3-p34c3over 11 years ago
I am surprised no one has talked about the QGMLWY Layout, or the fully English optimized QFMLWY layout?:<p><a href="http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?full_optimization" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;mkweb.bcgsc.ca&#x2F;carpalx&#x2F;?full_optimization</a><p>Take not of the script you can download to pipe your scripts to, and learn what is the best layout you actually need:<p><a href="http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?requirements" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;mkweb.bcgsc.ca&#x2F;carpalx&#x2F;?requirements</a><p>Here&#x27;s a list of them:<p><a href="http://deskthority.net/wiki/Keyboard_layouts" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;deskthority.net&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Keyboard_layouts</a><p>There was another that was truly optimized for use Coders, that is not Dvorak based. It had the Option key (⌥) as part of its modifiers. I assume it was called something like the coders layout? I don&#x27;t recall. If any one can recall it, that would be awesome.
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adamnemecekover 11 years ago
Seems down, Google cache link <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SFeCVEfVPaoJ:www.workmanlayout.com/+&amp;cd=1&amp;hl=en&amp;ct=clnk&amp;gl=us" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;webcache.googleusercontent.com&#x2F;search?q=cache:SFeCVEf...</a>
xtractoover 11 years ago
I like the statistics of the different writings he writes at the end, however I would have liked a comparision of the different layouts while writing different programming languages (C, Ruby, JavaScript, etc).<p>I&#x27;ve seen two problems with alternative keyboard layouts: a) they are not done for programming (keys ~|!&lt;&gt;_-&#x2F;&quot;&#x27; are oddly laid out) or they are not made for international languages (Spanish in my case, for which ñ,á,é,í,ó,ú are difficult to find. Or worse yet (in case of Dvorak) when using an &quot;international&quot; version, the programming-related keys are horribly placed.
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kybernetykover 11 years ago
The statistics comparisons of classical texts (Moby Dick, etc) typed with each layout are pretty interesting. Though they are much irrelevant to me.<p>Could you please run the linux kernel sources through that statistics application?
reirobover 11 years ago
I am really happy and thankful for people working on improving the keyboard usage. I knew about Dvorak and Colemak but it&#x27;s the first time I am discovering the workman layout. The author went to a length of analysis and effort to come up with this layout - including trying dvorak and colemak - the end of that page contains many comparisons between qwerty, dvorak, colemak and workman.<p>As well by reading this article I learned about the TypeMatrix keyboards [1] - I must say I am very intrigued by this idea - I would definitely order one if it contained a good trackpoint.<p>I myself learned touch typing first QWERTZ (German layout), then after moving to France had to learn AZERTY (the worst layout ever, especially for programmers). In the end because I had to travel and work on keyboards in different countries a lot - I decided to learn QWERTY US International, I configured it with AltGr Dead-Keys and now I am able to use the same layout where ever I go (even Russia and CIS countries) and on my computer I have all the accents for French, German and Turkish. So yes, I know it is not optimal for the Finger usage, but I need a keyboard layout that (a) is available on ALL stock computers, (b) on my computer can be enhanced to allow writing ALL the accents of European languages by using key-combinations.<p>I think alternative keyboard layout researches should take into account international usage.<p>But this is just my opinion.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.typematrix.com/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.typematrix.com&#x2F;</a>
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stormbrewover 11 years ago
I&#x27;d really like a keyboard layout optimized for phone usage, particularly with swype or predictive keyboard styles in mind. In particular I think you actually want to go the opposite direction of things like dvorak with such a keyboard because you want to make common motions distinct from each other. With swype, dvorak would leave most common words having a very similar motion profile. Qwerty is perhaps better, but I suspect non-optimal from how often I have to guide it.
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alexandrosover 11 years ago
Can&#x27;t access the article due to database error, but since we&#x27;re discussing keyboard layout effectiveness for developers:<p>If we were indeed limited by input, why wouldn&#x27;t this come up in discussions about languages like CoffeeScript (or even Python&#x2F;APL) that save keystrokes to begin with? In the case of Coffee and Python, the keys saved are actually the hard-to-press symbols as well. And yet I&#x27;ve never heard the point come up.<p>Perhaps this is more about our need to feel superior by adopting a routine of cargo-cult efficiency than anything else. In the broader view of productivity, optimising keyboard layouts is more like optimising memcpy() in C. While it may bear some results, it&#x27;s rarely the actual bottleneck.
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beefsackover 11 years ago
It&#x27;s an impressively in depth and well reasoned analysis, and takes into account common bigrams which is something I&#x27;d never considered being important for keyboard layouts.<p>I tried switching to Dvorak many moons ago, I&#x27;m feeling it may be time to have another crack at an alternative layout, both out of interest in improving efficiency and reducing strain.
barrkelover 11 years ago
<i>I realized [my fingers] were moving too much laterally [...] Just ask yourself, how often do you type ‘the’, ‘these’, ‘them’, ‘when’, and ‘where’, etc. on a day-to-day basis?</i><p>All of these words are typed in Dvorak without any lateral finger movement, and only two letters outside the home eight.<p>&#x27;ls&#x27; is, however, awkward to type. That&#x27;s why I alias it with &#x27;d&#x27;; problem solved.<p><i>It is much more efficient to ride the momentum of a single arm or wrist stroke and type a combo rather than just one key.</i><p>This is not my experience:<p><i>An example of this is the word OPERATION. If you were to type this in Dvorak, you could type it as o-pe-r-a-t-io-n where each grouping is a hand stroke–a total of 7 hand strokes.</i><p>The letters &#x27;pe&#x27; are the slowest typed for me when typing &#x27;operation&#x27;. I strongly prefer alternation, as the finger on the opposite hand can be lined up on the upcoming key just as the current key is being typed. Having to move the hand around for keys that are on one side slows things down.
thebossover 11 years ago
I don&#x27;t see what the point of changing your keyboard layout is.<p>I don&#x27;t know if QWERTY is even a good layout but what does it matter? Isn&#x27;t the best keyboard layout the one you already know?<p>Thinking about it now, I can&#x27;t think of any common digraphs or trigraphs that are inconvenient to type on a qwerty keyboard. Don&#x27;t fix what ain&#x27;t broke.
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programminggeekover 11 years ago
Keyboard layouts are a fun topic to be sure, and retraining your brain to use a different one is an awesome adventure. Where it always falls down for me is the whole experience of switching machines. It is just a massive fail when I need to remap my brain back and forth like that.<p>I enjoyed learing Colemak and I would probably enjoy Workman, but it isn&#x27;t the most practical thing for me to do long term.<p>Also, a lot of the keybinds in vim or emacs are designed around certain ergonomics and being efficient in an editor is often a more useful thing for me than being efficient when I am typing.
kefkaover 11 years ago
The problem with this keyboard and others (like Dvorak, Colemak) is nobody else uses them.<p>I have one of those old indestructible IBM model M keyboards with removable keycaps. I love that keyboard. I decided I&#x27;d try to learn DVORAK and work with it regularly, so I did so. And I realized something: every time I&#x27;d work with a keyboard, I _will_ be working with QWERTY. There&#x27;s no way I would request to an employer that I have a special keyboard just for me, or try to reconfigure software to support it.<p>So I went back to QWERTY. May not be ideal but I know everyone supports it.
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mluover 11 years ago
I don&#x27;t get the point why someone would learn a new keyboard layout.<p>- It is very hard to learn since muscle memory is very difficult to change.<p>- I think it would take me a while to be as fast as on my current layout QWERT[ZY].<p>- I see no real advantage for learning a new keyboard layout. None of my friends and coworkers ever complained about keyboard layout and the urge to change it.<p>- When you want to get things done, learning a new layout would be the last thing you want.<p>- You may not have your new keyboard layout available at different workplaces.<p>So I think this is just a hipster thing. Prove me wrong :)
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deckiedanover 11 years ago
I&#x27;ve been typing on Workman layout for almost 2 months. I&#x27;ve not been very disciplined about doing practice every day.<p>I&#x27;m only using it on my Microsoft Natural 4000 ergonomic keyboard, and still using a regular QWERTY bog-standard-dell keyboard at work, which means I can still type pretty effectively on colleagues&#x27; computers.<p>I quite like it. It does seem to make a lot of sense.<p>Switching back and forth between a normal QWERTY board and Workman-on-a-special-board takes at most one sentence of brain-mush, but then it&#x27;s fine.<p>The thing which slows me down the most I think is programming in VIM. I&#x27;m not going to remap anything, as all the commands I think of as sentences (c)hange-(i)nside-(t)ag, (d)elete-(t)il, etc. And there&#x27;s a lot of muscle memory to overcome. Also with sh commands.<p>Still, I do like it.<p>One of the reasons I decided to go for Workman rather than one of the alternatives is that the whole column-layout for physical keyboards seems like a better design in general, so one day, if I can afford it, I will try and get one.<p>I have been really struggling with RSI for a years now, so along with changing layout, I&#x27;m also trying to take more breaks, sit with a better posture, etc. It does seem to be helping.<p>After 2 months of very irregular typing on it, this also being my first time doing &#x27;formal&#x27; touch typing, I&#x27;m around 50wpm typing normal prose, which still feels a bit slow to me, but I am improving.
RWeaverover 11 years ago
It sounds like all of these layouts are just people taking guesses and reporting on their anecdotal experience.<p>Has anyone ever tried determining a fitness function (travel distance, priority finger use, sequential characters on nearby fingers) and running random layouts through a genetic algorithm?<p>For sample data use english, romance languages, open source code, etc, for a good general purpose layout.<p>If you&#x27;re going to relearn a layout it might as well be the optimum one.
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fractallyteover 11 years ago
From the article: <i>&#x27;However, I believe that the way that alternative layouts focus on just the home row for optimization is somewhat misguided. We should optimize the keys inside the hand’s natural range of motion and not just strictly the home row.&#x27;</i><p>While alternative layouts strive to make typing easier, they invariably come up against the constraints of a <i>grid-based</i> key placement.<p>Using a genuine &#x27;anatomic&#x27;&#x2F;&#x27;ergonomic&#x27; placement would put reset the whole layout argument: how to optimize for a given language, with human-friendly placement of keys (say, using the Kinesis Advantage keyboard or equivalent). Now <i>that</i> would be an interesting experiment in layouts! (Would there even be a home row?)<p>And, BTW, I&#x27;ve &#x27;forked&#x27; my usual Dvorak layout to make it easier for Lisp programming. We (particularly Linux users) tweak our window managers and screen accessories to individual perfection; why not our keyboard layouts too?
msoadover 11 years ago
Situation for keyboard layout is even worse now that we have a lot of keyboards that we work with. For example I use these keyboards on daily life:<p>- My laptop keyboard<p>- My iPhone keyboard<p>- My iPad keyboard<p>- Car navigation keyboard<p>- Keyboard on my Google TV remote control<p>- Keyboard on copy machine at work<p>It&#x27;s somehow impossible to change all those keyboard layouts and if you change a few of them then you will be confused when typing.
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hrktbover 11 years ago
I like the research that went into all this before deciding on the layout. I don&#x27;t think it would fit many people&#x27;s use pattern, instead anyone seriously typing for a living could take the same approach and come out with a personalized layout. Now, if only it could be easier to remap a set of devices keyboard with an arbitrary layout.<p>That&#x27;s a kind of pet peeve, but if you are a programmer, depending of the language you use the most at a given time, the most used keywords and special characters won&#x27;t be the same (i.e optimizing for lisp or perl would make wildly different layouts). For people also speaking non english languages, the most used letters won&#x27;t be the same depending of the language as well. To try to come out with a new layout supposed to be efficient for everyone is a fool&#x27;s errand.
keyleover 11 years ago
8 votes and &quot;Error establishing a database connection&quot;... I thought those days were over :(
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jgillmanover 11 years ago
The Workman layout sounds interesting, though I don&#x27;t have the brain-cycles to try switching. The Shift + Capslock = Escape seemed interesting though (especially for a vim user).<p>If you want to use it with KeyRemap4MacBook this should save you a bit of time:<p><pre><code> &lt;item&gt; &lt;name&gt;Change Shift + Capslock to Esc&lt;&#x2F;name&gt; &lt;identifier&gt;private.shift_and_capslock_to_esc&lt;&#x2F;identifier&gt; &lt;autogen&gt;--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::CONTROL_L, ModifierFlag::SHIFT_L, KeyCode::ESCAPE&lt;&#x2F;autogen&gt; &lt;autogen&gt;--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::SHIFT_L, ModifierFlag::CONTROL_L, KeyCode::ESCAPE&lt;&#x2F;autogen&gt; &lt;&#x2F;item&gt;</code></pre>
raimueover 11 years ago
The QWERTY layout has been around for so long that it is difficult to just change to something else. People are used to the well-known keyboard interface to the computer&#x2F;smartphone&#x2F;tablet&#x2F;... and actually expect it that way, no matter how inefficient it may be.<p>Of course, you may switch personally to an alternative layout, but the overall design used by everyone else will not change. It&#x27;s just a burden for yourself to be able to type two different layouts with comparable speed as you cannot change the layout everywhere you use computers.
koloronover 11 years ago
I&#x27;m a happy user of the Neo layout. It&#x27;s very different from QWERTY (or rather German QWERTZ) but optimised for English and German bi- and trigrams as well as programming.<p>Read about it here: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout#Neo" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Keyboard_layout#Neo</a><p>Or take a good look at its multilevel layout here: <a href="http://neo-layout.org/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;neo-layout.org&#x2F;</a> (&quot;Ebene 3&quot; is especially interesting for programmers…)
msluyterover 11 years ago
I used to use dvorak, but ironically, I switched to querty because I was having RSI issues and I reverted to two finger hunt and peck for a while (not a fun time). Now that things are better I&#x27;ve considered going back, but the sticking point for me is ctrl-c&#x2F;ctrl-v. These were always awkward for me under Dvorak, and at the time almost impossible to remap.<p>This has perhaps inspired me to give colemak (which retains the usual c&#x2F;v positions) a shot.
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mistercowover 11 years ago
I feel like improvements over Colemak are going to be pretty incremental at this point. In this case, there&#x27;s a pretty big trade-off on leaving home row for the sake of not reaching for the H.<p>What I&#x27;d like to see is some proper innovation like good programmer-usable chorded layouts that work with existing inexpensive hardware (I don&#x27;t mind buying a good non-ghosting keyboard, but I don&#x27;t want to pony up a few grand for a Velotype).
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PLejeckover 11 years ago
I love the idea of alternative keyboards, and I spent a few months trying to learn Dvorak, but no matter what I stop because it screws all my keyboard shortcuts.<p>OSX&#x27;s &quot;Cmd Qwerty&quot; feature was nice, but didn&#x27;t help in Inkscape (since it uses Ctrl) or Vim.<p>I wish the Programmer&#x27;s Layout of this would take HJKL into account at least. That&#x27;s and :wq being a nice &quot;roll&quot; down the top left of my keyboard are what keep me on QWERTY.
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6renover 11 years ago
Optimize for Java? (it needs this more than other languages do).<p>But, to be fair, typing is (or should be) a tiny fraction of your coding time. Even in Java.
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dontmakemelaughover 11 years ago
I switched to Dvorak a few months ago. It&#x27;s much better than I expected. The switch was painful and it took like 3 months to get fast enough.<p>Compared to Qwerty writing Dvorak is so much easier on the hands. I would say the strain is reduced by 50% at least and it&#x27;s potentially faster to type (less movement, less way).<p>I will never switch back to Qwerty unless someone forces me to do so.
eksithover 11 years ago
One thing that struck me is that this layout is immediately intuitive. Unlike Dvorak and of course QWERTY or any other popular layout, I can already picture myself typing in it (of course I learned on QWERTY, so I wasn&#x27;t in-tune with key familiarity before that).<p>I can&#x27;t explain why exactly, but this layout just makes sense. Can&#x27;t wait to try this out.
infinity0over 11 years ago
As well as the &quot;typing out a novel&quot; tests, he should also do a &quot;typing out the Linux kernel&quot; test.
mharrisonover 11 years ago
I&#x27;m surprised no one has mentioned the norman layout here. I consider it to be an improvement over colmak and workman. Using it on my ergodox (and I know another relatively prominent geek doing the same), and really enjoying it.<p><a href="https://normanlayout.info/" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;normanlayout.info&#x2F;</a>
borplkover 11 years ago
I&#x27;d love to learn something like this but my problem is that I&#x27;m scared I&#x27;ll disable myself from being able to use a regular QWERTY keyboard without looking like an idiot.<p>Changing keyboard layout of library or university computers or basically any other computer than your own comes with a lot of trouble.
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DavidWanjiruover 11 years ago
Maybe what really needs to happen is for someone to make a &quot;software keys&quot; keyboard, where the characters are not imprinted on the keyboard, but are displayed on the keys instead. That way when you change stuff around, as is variously suggested here, WYS remains WYG, as it were. Rad or dud?
ryeonover 11 years ago
Frankly, I don&#x27;t have the time or patience to re-learn the keyboard. I&#x27;ll stick with QWERTY.
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gkyaover 11 years ago
Just started using this and can say that it is awesome. I used to use Turkish Q keyboard previously, because it is the layout of my laptop; albeit I write in English primarily, and have already reached ~5 wpm, in fifteen minutes. I strongly suggest giving it a try.
jswansonover 11 years ago
Switched to Dvorak after plateau-ing in typing speed and experiencing pain in my hands and wrist. Helped immediately, but what also hleped almost as much was:<p>- Aliases for frequent shell commands - Remapping &#x27;caps lock&#x27; to &#x27;control&#x27; (on US keyboards)
mertyover 11 years ago
What about tracking everything you type for a month to see which letters you use the most as well as their frequency and then generating a keyboard layout that will actually work for you?<p>These keyboard layout wars seem just too subjective to me.
rjzzleepover 11 years ago
as a dvorak user i find his measurements very interesting.<p>has anyone noticed that while the distance traveled in dvorak is higher than both other alternatives, it alternates hands much more frequently (23% vs. 31%+ same hand frequency), and moves towards the top row more frequently than to the bottom one. I don&#x27;t know about you but for me it&#x27;s easier to extend my fingers top than it is to flex them towards the bottom row.<p>there is also less time spent on the number row, but repetitions with the same finger are more likely.<p>i still think there ought to be a better way to deal with special characters than shift keys
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jarek-foksaover 11 years ago
If you are going to learn Workman layout, check my app Type Fu: <a href="http://type-fu.com" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;type-fu.com</a>. It has full support for Dvorak and Colemak layouts as well.
latravelerover 11 years ago
Thats an interesting idea. I&#x27;m sure the QWERTY could be improved but it would be tough trying to switch back and forth until it was fully adopted.
bbxover 11 years ago
On a sidenote, I never found out why French keyboards switched both the Q and W keys to turn it into AZERTY (and why the M was moved next to the L).
brentmover 11 years ago
The idea sounds interesting but it would likely turn into one of the greatest drains of my productivity of all time.
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WalterSearover 11 years ago
The novel analyses were nice, but seeing various programming languages analyzed would be even cooler.
gcb0over 11 years ago
typical faster horses solutions.<p>sadly all alternative keyboard solutions are spoiled by riding the health bandwagon and are utter crap.<p>and the ones that aren&#x27;t turn out to be so expensive they die (datahand) or get bought out and turned in non keyboard replacement products (fingerworks)
sneakover 11 years ago
The &quot;all books combined&quot; distance figure for the qwerty layout seems wrong.
pmover 11 years ago
Best part is that now you can play FPSs using the mouse and DASH keys.
TerraHertzover 11 years ago
Although I completely agree that QWERTY is poor and Workman looks like a very good system, I&#x27;m in my late 50s and think it would be a painfully slow process to get used to a different key layout. And I don&#x27;t seem to get RSI.<p>But what does really steam me about keyboards in general, is the numeric keypad. I&#x27;m right handed, so the mouse sits to the right of the keyboard. And of course the mouse gets used a lot. Which means my right hand is always swinging back and forth from RH keyboard home and the mouse.<p>Now it happens that I _never_ use the numeric keypad. Never have to enter large blocks of numeric data, and so am quite happy using the numeric top row. Used to it that way, and don&#x27;t see anything wrong with it. So to reach the mouse I&#x27;m moving much further than I should have to, across the wasted space of the numeric keypad. Also if desk space is a bit tight I keep hitting the mouse on the RH side of the keyboard - again because of that extra length to the right.<p>It&#x27;s a workspace centering thing too - the main area of the keyboard should sit on the centerline of the screen, to avoid small but persistent twisting of the spine and neck. But then the keyboard R end sticks way out, and the mouse movement field gets pushed further to the right.<p>It&#x27;s been bugging me increasingly for years. I&#x27;ve found a few &#x27;small&#x27; format keyboards without the numeric pad, but the designers always go overboard and think that &#x27;small&#x27; means everything on the keyboard ought to be small - smaller keys, thin base therefore short key travel and terrible touch feedback, flat keytops (another pet hate - you get no tactile feeling of centering, and so have to keep watching your fingers type), compressed layouts of the existing keys (arrrgh!), and so on.<p>What I really, really want, is something like an old klunky and reliable IBM (like I&#x27;m typing on now) but with no numeric pad. No other change.<p>I&#x27;d long ago have simply taken a hacksaw to a standard keyboard and cut the numeric pad off, except guess where the controller IC _always_ is in keyboards? Right above the numeric keypad, of course.<p>It&#x27;s so annoying! Why does no one, that I&#x27;ve ever been able to find, make a full size, heavy, long-key-travel, concave key-tops, easy-typing, standard layout (or Workman layout!) keyboard without that stupid numeric keypad?<p>In these days of USB it&#x27;s especially dumb, since if someone really wanted a keypad as well they could just buy a separate keypad and plug it into a USB port. There&#x27;s NO reason why it must be included in every damned keyboard in existence.<p>If anyone knows of such a thing for sale, I&#x27;d very much like to hear it. I&#x27;d buy several.
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NAFV_Pover 11 years ago
Would a multi-layout keyboard be possible?