
The Workman Keyboard Layout - weslly
http://www.workmanlayout.com/
======
skriticos2
I'm typing Dvorak since almost ten years now and from what I remember it'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.

I did not regret my decision (far from it), as Dvorak is indeed nice to type
and quite readily available out of the box.

Normally you don'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's definitely an advantage. Yes, it's also more fun to type.
But really, QWERTY is good enough in most cases. You don't really need to
bother.

~~~
gcb0
100% of alternative layout users i know are developers.

100% of the layouts still treat symbols as second class citizens.

my typing would vastly improve if a keyboard simply added another row for
symbols so they are one key press only.

changing layouts only help in a few cases and turns using somebodyelses
computer or a phone or a tablet or a virtual keyboard or remote vim sessions,
etc a royal pain in the ass, because they will be qwerty.

~~~
christiangenco
I've been using a keyboard layout I made with Ukulele that swaps the symbols
with the numbers and I couldn't be happier. You get used to it in less than a
day of typing and it makes all the () $ @ ! so much easier. It makes so much
sense as a programmer when symbols are typed so much more frequently than
numbers.

Here's a link to download my .keylayout file (goes in ~/Library/Keyboard
Layouts):
[https://www.dropbox.com/s/8hy5391ay2u0dta/US%20Symbols.keyla...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/8hy5391ay2u0dta/US%20Symbols.keylayout)

~~~
girvo
Whoah I never even thought of doing that. It seems like it would work, I mean
I really don't type numbers all that often these days... hmmm. I might chuck
it on my laptop and see how I dig it for dev. Tempted to swap _[]_ and _{}_ as
well. It's a similar concept to swapping F-keys for media keys, which I have
and much prefer.

~~~
alxhill
This is exactly what I've done with KeyRemap4MacBook. It has built in options
for switching around numbers and symbols, as well as changing {} and []. Makes
so much more sense for a programmer, and you can make multiple sets of options
so you can disable them if someone else needs to use your machine for a bit.

------
srgpqt
As a keyboard layout aficionado, I appreciate the thinking that went into this
keyboard layout.

I've been a fulltime dvorak user for over 10 years. I also tried Colemak but
found that many motions felt awkward while using it.

Anyways, I thought I'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.

Typed up this comment with the Workman-P layout, and seriously considering
switching to it now...

------
ricardobeat
The Norman layout [1] beats Workman at it's own metrics (or so it says on the
tin), and from brief experimentation makes more sense to me.

I've always wanted to try an alternate layout, and this post led me to find
minimak [2]. I'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.

[1] [http://normanlayout.info](http://normanlayout.info)

[2] [http://minimak.org](http://minimak.org)

~~~
eertami
I'm tempted to try out minimak. My only concern is that... do the numbers that
get thrown around about percentage improvement only apply to touch typists?

I've never been strict enough with myself to learn touch typing (I still hit
120WPM so speed isn't an issue) and worry that the benefit won't be as
obvious.

~~~
ricardobeat
I think the numbers given are relative to total effort|movement, not speed, so
it applies to anyone, but touch-typing should give you less strain.

~~~
deekayen
The metric I lean on the most is the one published by Andong at
[http://www.andong.co.uk/dvorak/Default.aspx](http://www.andong.co.uk/dvorak/Default.aspx).
I guess that's odd since I spent the least amount of time talking about it and
put it at the bottom of the page. It is focused on metrics of efficiency and
effort. If you wanted speed, you might want to look at things like finger
distance and home row usage more closely, in which case Arensito or Colemak
might have an edge.

------
blowski
An interesting read whenever the topic of keyboard layouts comes up:
[http://reason.com/archives/1996/06/01/typing-
errors](http://reason.com/archives/1996/06/01/typing-errors)

Summary of that article: The 'QWERTY was developed to slow down the typist'
story is a lie. There is no serious evidence that Dvorak is a 'better' 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.

One of the key quotes:

> 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'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.

I have no reason to believe that the Workman layout offers any other
advantages.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
For those unfamiliar with Reason, it's a libertarian publication. You might
then wonder why they are so concerned with typewriter ergonomics.

The reason is that it's a popular example of path dependence, where previous
decisions affect the best possible current choice. This undermines their
economic theories (the authors are economists). So don't expect them to be an
unbiased source on this.

They also, for example, claim that Windows is the best OS, and that network
effects have no impact on people choosing to use it

~~~
krrrh
The article was from 1996, I think you'd be hard pressed to suggest an OS that
was better suited for the average user than Windows 95 was at the time. I say
this as someone who was still running OS/2 at the time (with a Dvorak layout
of course), but that was due more to me being ideologically driven (go Team
OS/2!) than Reason. Network effects are only one feature that appeals to end
users, but they aren't the first.

~~~
mistercow
In 1996 Apple's System 7 was extremely mature, and completely blew Windows 95
away in terms of reliability and ease of use for the average user.

------
Afforess
> _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._

Nope: [http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/the-
li...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/the-lies-youve-
been-told-about-the-origin-of-the-qwerty-keyboard/275537/)

~~~
mistercow
That paper presents a good case that the layout was influenced by feedback
from telegraph operators, but it doesn't really do much to refute the idea
that changes were also being made for the purpose of preventing jams.

Obviously the claim that it was intended to slow typists down is unlikely. If
the layout was rearranged in part to prevent jams, then it would have been
rearranged so that nearby letters weren't hit in sequence. Without careful
study of ergonomics, one wouldn't necessarily realize that that would slow a
typist down. But it would probably prevent jams.

I also found some of the claims made in the paper very odd. They claim that
because "SE" and "Z" are easy to mistake in Morse code, that those letters
were placed near each other. How this would be helpful eludes me.

------
4dl0v3-p34c3
I am surprised no one has talked about the QGMLWY Layout, or the fully English
optimized QFMLWY layout?:

[http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?full_optimization](http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?full_optimization)

Take not of the script you can download to pipe your scripts to, and learn
what is the best layout you actually need:

[http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?requirements](http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?requirements)

Here's a list of them:

[http://deskthority.net/wiki/Keyboard_layouts](http://deskthority.net/wiki/Keyboard_layouts)

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't recall. If any one can recall
it, that would be awesome.

~~~
V-2
I used it for some time and I quite liked it, more than Colemak. I was
reaching 80-90 wpm (I'm about 140-150 wpm on QWERTY). However English is not
my native language and since QGMLWY is optimized for English, it wasn't a
viable alternative for me in long run. Interestingly, even though I quit
typing on QGMLWY long ago, when I occassionally switch to that layout (I still
have it installed), I'm able to type on it. Muscular memory dies hard. I do
make typos, but I feel that if I returned to practice, I'd pick it up again
quickly.

------
adamnemecek
Seems down, Google cache link
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SFeCVEf...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SFeCVEfVPaoJ:www.workmanlayout.com/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

------
xtracto
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).

I've seen two problems with alternative keyboard layouts: a) they are not done
for programming (keys ~|!<>_-/"' 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
"international" version, the programming-related keys are horribly placed.

~~~
mharrison
I had a programming layer on my ergodox, but due to some bugs in the firmware
haven't bothered with it...

Ideally (when I get time to fix it), I'll have a thumb key to hold down and
get any programming symbol (optimized to Python for me) on or nearby the home
row.

------
kybernetyk
The statistics comparisons of classical texts (Moby Dick, etc) typed with each
layout are pretty interesting. Though they are much irrelevant to me.

Could you please run the linux kernel sources through that statistics
application?

------
reirob
I am really happy and thankful for people working on improving the keyboard
usage. I knew about Dvorak and Colemak but it'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.

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.

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.

I think alternative keyboard layout researches should take into account
international usage.

But this is just my opinion.

[1] [http://www.typematrix.com/](http://www.typematrix.com/)

~~~
Codas
You might also want to take a look at the ergodox:
[http://ergodox.org/](http://ergodox.org/) It's not so easy to buy as its just
a DIY project. Massdrop organizes some group buys [1], next one should be due
anytime this year.

[1]
[https://www.massdrop.com/buy/ergodox](https://www.massdrop.com/buy/ergodox)
unfortunately, requires an account even to see the offers

~~~
lake99
Thanks for the pointer for ergodox.

For those who did not want to sign up for Massdrop just to check the prices,
this is what it says at the moment:

    
    
        This group buy is no longer available!
        We can remind you when the group buys is back on: Requested!
        1027 users requested this product

------
stormbrew
I'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.

~~~
andrewflnr
While not exactly what you're looking for, on Android I've had a good
experience with the MessagEase keyboard. The key idea is to have fewer, bigger
buttons, and use swiping motions within those to distinguish other characters.
Even after getting used to predictive typing, I quickly came to prefer the
MessagEase keyboard, in part because I tend to type weird characters, which
are much more bother with the regular keyboard. With all the times I would
have to correct swype, I might be as fast or faster with MessagEase. Oh, it
also has cursor movement built in.

~~~
tsm
Fellow MessagEase user here. It's absolutely fantastic. It's great at non-
dictionary words and special characters (there's no need to press a magic
option key to switch to the symbol set), as mentioned above. Two other things
I like: a) It has built in arrow keys, perfect for going back to insert a
skipped letter or similar. b) Typing errors occur at the character level, not
the word level. And are hence easier to fix. (Or, if left unfixed, are usually
still legible.) No damnyouautocorrect moments.

Edit: I forgot to mention one of the most important parts: it's incredibly
fast once you know what you're doing.

------
alexandros
Can't access the article due to database error, but since we're discussing
keyboard layout effectiveness for developers:

If we were indeed limited by input, why wouldn't this come up in discussions
about languages like CoffeeScript (or even Python/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've never heard the point come up.

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's rarely the actual bottleneck.

~~~
vanderZwan
> _since we 're discussing keyboard layout effectiveness for developers._

We're not, at least not in the way you think.

> _In the broader view of productivity, optimising keyboard layouts is more
> like optimising memcpy() in C. While it may bear some results, it 's rarely
> the actual bottleneck._

This article is a solution developed by a someone in response to his own RSI
problem, optimised for writing _English_ with _minimal strain_ , and
presumably tested based on "how much do my arms hurt." So it's a
solution/optimisation to a different problem altogether (which may or may not
be relevant to you.)

------
beefsack
It's an impressively in depth and well reasoned analysis, and takes into
account common bigrams which is something I'd never considered being important
for keyboard layouts.

I tried switching to Dvorak many moons ago, I'm feeling it may be time to have
another crack at an alternative layout, both out of interest in improving
efficiency and reducing strain.

------
barrkel
_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?_

All of these words are typed in Dvorak without any lateral finger movement,
and only two letters outside the home eight.

'ls' is, however, awkward to type. That's why I alias it with 'd'; problem
solved.

 _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._

This is not my experience:

 _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._

The letters 'pe' are the slowest typed for me when typing 'operation'. 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.

------
theboss
I don't see what the point of changing your keyboard layout is.

I don't know if QWERTY is even a good layout but what does it matter? Isn't
the best keyboard layout the one you already know?

Thinking about it now, I can't think of any common digraphs or trigraphs that
are inconvenient to type on a qwerty keyboard. Don't fix what ain't broke.

~~~
veidr
QWERTY is deeply, gut-wrenchingly broken. (Kind of like British electric
outlets, or Christian death metal.)

However, just switching keyboard layouts doesn't fix things. I once switched
to Colemak for a couple of months. My hands felt better, and typing on my own
machine was way more comfortable. But every other keyboard I interacted with
made me look like a dude twice my age with some kind of senility disorder.

To really get the benefits of a better layout, you have to not switch, but
rather _add_ a new keyboard fluency, while maintaining QWERTY proficiency.
That made the cost-benefit equation very different for me... and I went
crawling back to my old abusive partner, QWERTY.

~~~
Afforess
> _QWERTY is deeply, gut-wrenchingly broken._

Source?

~~~
LanceH
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TsL0DO-c1E#t=0m15s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TsL0DO-c1E#t=0m15s)

------
programminggeek
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.

I enjoyed learing Colemak and I would probably enjoy Workman, but it isn't the
most practical thing for me to do long term.

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.

------
kefka
The problem with this keyboard and others (like Dvorak, Colemak) is nobody
else uses them.

I have one of those old indestructible IBM model M keyboards with removable
keycaps. I love that keyboard. I decided I'd try to learn DVORAK and work with
it regularly, so I did so. And I realized something: every time I'd work with
a keyboard, I _will_ be working with QWERTY. There'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.

So I went back to QWERTY. May not be ideal but I know everyone supports it.

~~~
jcoder
I've worked several programming jobs since switching to Dvorak, and it has
never been an issue---it takes < 10 seconds to change the layout OS-wide. No
need to request a special keyboard (and I leave my keycaps as QWERTY because I
touch-type anyways).

~~~
SkyMarshal
Touch-typing is the key, if you have to look at the keys regularly then
switching to a new layout will be an order of magnitude more difficult.

~~~
leif
I learned dvorak by printing out the layout and glancing over at the paper
while typing back in high school. It took me about a month to get comfortable
and I'm now basically a touch-typing bilinguist (though I'm slower at qwerty,
it's more mental effort to do the conversion on the fly since my muscle memory
is dvorak).

~~~
read
I did the same thing! And I'm embarrassingly slower at qwerty now.

The best part for me was when I first started having dvorak reflexes on a
qwerty keyboard.

------
mlu
I don't get the point why someone would learn a new keyboard layout.

\- It is very hard to learn since muscle memory is very difficult to change.

\- I think it would take me a while to be as fast as on my current layout
QWERT[ZY].

\- 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.

\- When you want to get things done, learning a new layout would be the last
thing you want.

\- You may not have your new keyboard layout available at different
workplaces.

So I think this is just a hipster thing. Prove me wrong :)

~~~
joemccall86
I don't get the point why someone would learn to ride a motorcycle.

\- It is very hard to learn since your muscles are trained for driving a car

\- I think it would take me a while to be as confident as in my current Monte
Carlo LS

\- I see no real advantage for learning a new automobile. None of my friends
and coworkers ever complained about driving a car and the urge to change it.

\- When you want to get from point A to point B, learning a new vehicle would
be the last thing you want.

\- You may not have a motorcycle available at different car rental places when
you travel

Didn't really prove you wrong, and maybe I am a hipster :-)

I found it enjoyable learning a new layout. Maybe it was just for the sake of
trying something new. My productivity didn't suffer since I never really
abandoned QWERTY. I didn't utilize colemak in my work until I was relatively
fluent. Learning workman might be an interesting weekend excursion, but I have
no plans to use it for work until I'm fluent, if it is as fun to type on as
colemak.

~~~
MarcusVorenus
I don't get the point of agriculture. It's just so hard to learn!

What? We have to wait till next year for a new harvest?!

Guys, we should just stick to moving around and hunting prey.

------
deckiedan
I've been typing on Workman layout for almost 2 months. I've not been very
disciplined about doing practice every day.

I'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' computers.

I quite like it. It does seem to make a lot of sense.

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's fine.

The thing which slows me down the most I think is programming in VIM. I'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's a lot of muscle
memory to overcome. Also with sh commands.

Still, I do like it.

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.

I have been really struggling with RSI for a years now, so along with changing
layout, I'm also trying to take more breaks, sit with a better posture, etc.
It does seem to be helping.

After 2 months of very irregular typing on it, this also being my first time
doing 'formal' touch typing, I'm around 50wpm typing normal prose, which still
feels a bit slow to me, but I am improving.

------
RWeaver
It sounds like all of these layouts are just people taking guesses and
reporting on their anecdotal experience.

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?

For sample data use english, romance languages, open source code, etc, for a
good general purpose layout.

If you're going to relearn a layout it might as well be the optimum one.

~~~
deckiedan
Did you actually read the OP?

He actually did do quite a lot of research of exactly this.

Also you should check out the carpalx project.

[http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/](http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/)?

~~~
RWeaver
Thanks for the link.

He definitely did quite a good job with the fitness function (bigrams, finger
priority, etc), I just didn't see quite how he came up with the workman layout
specifically. If he manually evaluated a few layouts and made tweaks, then
surely there is further optimisation to be done for any given body of text.
For something as central as a keyboard layout it seems like even those small
gains could have huge effects.

------
fractallyte
From the article: _' 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.'_

While alternative layouts strive to make typing easier, they invariably come
up against the constraints of a _grid-based_ key placement.

Using a genuine 'anatomic'/'ergonomic' 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 _that_ would be an interesting experiment in layouts! (Would there even be
a home row?)

And, BTW, I've 'forked' 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?

------
msoad
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:

\- My laptop keyboard

\- My iPhone keyboard

\- My iPad keyboard

\- Car navigation keyboard

\- Keyboard on my Google TV remote control

\- Keyboard on copy machine at work

It's somehow impossible to change all those keyboard layouts and if you change
a few of them then you will be confused when typing.

~~~
verisimilidude
At my desk, I use a Dvorak keyboard. However, I often need to rip my laptop
away from my desk for meetings, emergencies, etc. When I'm typing on the
laptop, I use Qwerty. It's not a problem at all. I don't need to think about
it; my hands just do the right thing depending upon where I'm typing.

~~~
to3m
I've been pretty consistent about only using dvorak on split keyboards, and
only typing QWERTY on non-split keyboards. This has done a pretty good job of
keeping my muscle memory for both separate. My QWERTY typing is a bit rusty,
but I can still manage up to 60wpm when using my laptop, and I don't have to
pay too much attention to what my fingers are doing. Though when I use QWERTY
on a split keyboard I have to watch my fingers.

(These environmental cues can be funny sometimes - if I use emacs for editing
C++, which I do only very rarely, I keep missing out semicolons. Because most
of the time, if I'm programming, and my eyes can see emacs, my fingers know
I'm using python.)

------
hrktb
I like the research that went into all this before deciding on the layout. I
don't think it would fit many people'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.

That'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'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'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's errand.

------
keyle
8 votes and "Error establishing a database connection"... I thought those days
were over :(

~~~
beefsack
Cached version:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.workmanlayout.com/blog/?p=21)

------
jgillman
The Workman layout sounds interesting, though I don't have the brain-cycles to
try switching. The Shift + Capslock = Escape seemed interesting though
(especially for a vim user).

If you want to use it with KeyRemap4MacBook this should save you a bit of
time:

    
    
      <item>
        <name>Change Shift + Capslock to Esc</name>
        <identifier>private.shift_and_capslock_to_esc</identifier>
        <autogen>--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::CONTROL_L, ModifierFlag::SHIFT_L, KeyCode::ESCAPE</autogen>
        <autogen>--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::SHIFT_L, ModifierFlag::CONTROL_L, KeyCode::ESCAPE</autogen>
      </item>

------
raimue
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/smartphone/tablet/... and actually expect it that way, no
matter how inefficient it may be.

Of course, you may switch personally to an alternative layout, but the overall
design used by everyone else will not change. It'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.

------
koloron
I'm a happy user of the Neo layout. It's very different from QWERTY (or rather
German QWERTZ) but optimised for English and German bi- and trigrams as well
as programming.

Read about it here:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout#Neo](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout#Neo)

Or take a good look at its multilevel layout here: [http://neo-
layout.org/](http://neo-layout.org/) ("Ebene 3" is especially interesting for
programmers…)

------
msluyter
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've considered going back, but the
sticking point for me is ctrl-c/ctrl-v. These were always awkward for me under
Dvorak, and at the time almost impossible to remap.

This has perhaps inspired me to give colemak (which retains the usual c/v
positions) a shot.

~~~
fusiongyro
Can't speak for other OSes but Mac OS X has a Dvorak layout that switches to
Qwerty for hotkeys. I leaned on this pretty heavily when I first switched to
Dvorak.

------
mistercow
I feel like improvements over Colemak are going to be pretty incremental at
this point. In this case, there's a pretty big trade-off on leaving home row
for the sake of not reaching for the H.

What I'd like to see is some proper innovation like good programmer-usable
chorded layouts that work with existing inexpensive hardware (I don't mind
buying a good non-ghosting keyboard, but I don't want to pony up a few grand
for a Velotype).

~~~
xiaomai
have you seen plover?
([http://plover.stenoknight.com/](http://plover.stenoknight.com/))

~~~
mistercow
Yeah. It's a good start, but steno feels pretty kludgy to me, and a ton of
work needs to be done to make it usable for programming.

------
PLejeck
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.

OSX's "Cmd Qwerty" feature was nice, but didn't help in Inkscape (since it
uses Ctrl) or Vim.

I wish the Programmer's Layout of this would take HJKL into account at least.
That's and :wq being a nice "roll" down the top left of my keyboard are what
keep me on QWERTY.

~~~
chowwesley
I use the cmd qwerty mode and program just fine.

In terms of vim, I actually like it a lot more. j and k are typed with the
left hand (coincidentally j is still on the left side - same as qwerty). The
right hand does h and l (again, h is on the left side and maps to going left).

On the other hand, Eclipse is super annoying because it seems half the
bindings are cmd qwerty and half are dvorak but that's another issue. I've
started using Vrapper to get vim bindings in eclipse and that seems to be
working out okay so far.

------
6ren
Optimize for Java? (it needs this more than other languages do).

But, to be fair, typing is (or should be) a tiny fraction of your coding time.
Even in Java.

~~~
andrewflnr
Think of it this way: typing is a distraction from thinking, and minimizing it
is a good thing. When I type much slower than I think, make mistakes or
otherwise have to think about the keyboard, it pulls me out of flow.

------
dontmakemelaugh
I switched to Dvorak a few months ago. It's much better than I expected. The
switch was painful and it took like 3 months to get fast enough.

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's potentially faster to type
(less movement, less way).

I will never switch back to Qwerty unless someone forces me to do so.

------
eksith
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't in-tune with
key familiarity before that).

I can't explain why exactly, but this layout just makes sense. Can't wait to
try this out.

------
infinity0
As well as the "typing out a novel" tests, he should also do a "typing out the
Linux kernel" test.

------
mharrison
I'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.

[https://normanlayout.info/](https://normanlayout.info/)

------
borplk
I'd love to learn something like this but my problem is that I'm scared I'll
disable myself from being able to use a regular QWERTY keyboard without
looking like an idiot.

Changing keyboard layout of library or university computers or basically any
other computer than your own comes with a lot of trouble.

~~~
JamesNelson
I've been using Colemak for a couple years now - but instead of learning it
with my laptop's keyboard, I learnt it with a new Kinesis Advantage Pro. I now
find that if I'm using a standard keyboard, I can type qwerty without much
more difficulty before, but if I'm using the Kinesis, I have no trouble touch
typing Colemak. My guess is that the massive difference in the actual
keyboards stops my brain from getting confused.

------
DavidWanjiru
Maybe what really needs to happen is for someone to make a "software keys"
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?

------
ryeon
Frankly, I don't have the time or patience to re-learn the keyboard. I'll
stick with QWERTY.

~~~
quink
I've only ever been able to hunt and peck QWERTY, not having learned it
through touch typing, nor did I ever pick it up.

So when I learned Dvorak, through touch typing, it affected my QWERTY skills
exactly not one bit. The only way in which my QWERTY skills are now bad is
through attrition, but it's still no problem to accomplish a reasonable
percentage of my previous speed. It just comes up pretty rarely that I have to
type on QWERTY these days, and if I do for a few minutes it's no problem.

It's as if the two are in completely different areas of my brain, and for
anyone wanting to learn Dvorak, then this is a very easy way indeed.

------
gkya
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.

------
jswanson
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:

\- Aliases for frequent shell commands \- Remapping 'caps lock' to 'control'
(on US keyboards)

------
merty
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?

These keyboard layout wars seem just too subjective to me.

------
rjzzleep
as a dvorak user i find his measurements very interesting.

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't know about you but for me it's easier to extend my
fingers top than it is to flex them towards the bottom row.

there is also less time spent on the number row, but repetitions with the same
finger are more likely.

i still think there ought to be a better way to deal with special characters
than shift keys

~~~
vanderZwan
> _i still think there ought to be a better way to deal with special
> characters than shift keys_

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6541910](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6541910)

(make the number keys hide under the shift keys, as they are used much less
frequently)

------
jarek-foksa
If you are going to learn Workman layout, check my app Type Fu: [http://type-
fu.com](http://type-fu.com). It has full support for Dvorak and Colemak
layouts as well.

------
latraveler
Thats an interesting idea. I'm sure the QWERTY could be improved but it would
be tough trying to switch back and forth until it was fully adopted.

------
bbx
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).

------
brentm
The idea sounds interesting but it would likely turn into one of the greatest
drains of my productivity of all time.

~~~
thrownaway2424
Yeah, even if this has some average benefits, _you_ only live once and that
benefit has to be weight against the time it takes to learn it.

------
WalterSear
The novel analyses were nice, but seeing various programming languages
analyzed would be even cooler.

------
gcb0
typical faster horses solutions.

sadly all alternative keyboard solutions are spoiled by riding the health
bandwagon and are utter crap.

and the ones that aren't turn out to be so expensive they die (datahand) or
get bought out and turned in non keyboard replacement products (fingerworks)

------
sneak
The "all books combined" distance figure for the qwerty layout seems wrong.

------
pm
Best part is that now you can play FPSs using the mouse and DASH keys.

------
TerraHertz
Although I completely agree that QWERTY is poor and Workman looks like a very
good system, I'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't seem to get RSI.

But what does really steam me about keyboards in general, is the numeric
keypad. I'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.

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't see anything wrong with it. So to reach the
mouse I'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.

It'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.

It's been bugging me increasingly for years. I've found a few 'small' format
keyboards without the numeric pad, but the designers always go overboard and
think that 'small' 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.

What I really, really want, is something like an old klunky and reliable IBM
(like I'm typing on now) but with no numeric pad. No other change.

I'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.

It's so annoying! Why does no one, that I'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?

In these days of USB it'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's NO reason why it must be included in every damned keyboard in
existence.

If anyone knows of such a thing for sale, I'd very much like to hear it. I'd
buy several.

~~~
bchallenor
Both the [Leopold
Tenkeyless]([http://elitekeyboards.com/products.php?sub=leopold,tenkeyles...](http://elitekeyboards.com/products.php?sub=leopold,tenkeyless))
and the [Filco Majestouch-2
Tenkeyless]([http://www.keyboardco.com/keyboard/usa-filco-ninja-
majestouc...](http://www.keyboardco.com/keyboard/usa-filco-ninja-
majestouch-2-tenkeyless-nkr-tactile-action-keyboard.asp)) are "full size
[except the numpad], heavy, long-key-travel, concave key-tops, easy-typing,
standard layout". I have the Filco.

------
NAFV_P
Would a multi-layout keyboard be possible?

