
5 Months After Switching to Colemak - MrGando
https://nicolasgoles.com/blog/2013/09/5-months-in-colemak/
======
christiangenco
I've tried switching to Colemak three times, and I just can't do it. Here's
why:

I can currently type 110-125 WPM on QWERTY, which I've projected would take
upwards of a year to re-achieve on Colemak, which is a total no-brainer if I
could reasonably expect positive long-term gains.

However, from what I've read (and heard from friends on Colemak), switching
_back_ to QWERTY is painful, so my typing speed on anyone else's computer
(which I realized, after trying to switch, I do fairly frequently) would go
down to 30 at best.

The primary argument for Colemak is that it reduces finger travel distance
from the home row. But my fingers don't naturally fall precisely in a line: my
left middle finger naturally drifts between the space of E and D, my middle
and ring finger on my right hand drift up closer to I and O.

Culturally, being on Colemak means the world is suddenly against you. It's
like choosing to be a left-handed person in a right-handed world: vim
keybindings don't make sense, applications and flash pages ignore your custom
keyboard layout and switch you back to QWERTY, and every single
keyboard|laptop|smartphone you buy for the rest of your life will require a
certain amount of tweaking before it's maximally usable (think iPhone
autocorrect).

Keyboard layout hacking in general, however, is fantastic. Here's a few tweaks
I've accumulated that have immediate benefits for little of the above
downsides:

1\. remap `caps lock` to `ESC`: goes without saying for vim, but extremely
useful in other situations too (like playing starcraft and de-selecting units)

2\. remap 1234567890 to !@#$%^&*(): as a programmer, I use these symbols far
more often than I use the numbers. Switching to shift to numbers with symbols
as default makes all the sense in the world. It no longer takes finger
gymnastics to surround something in () or negate a term with !.

3\. (optional) shift doubletap for caps lock: I missed caps lock after a
while, so I brought it back with a double-tap of shift.

~~~
tadfisher
Anecdotally, Android 4.2 and up comes with a Colemak layout that works with
all of the bells & whistles, including swiping and autocorrect.

~~~
wiml
Wow, so it does! (Along with the other more common keyboard layouts.) You have
to dig under the "advanced" settings but it's there. Neat!

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cecilpl
I've been typing exclusively on Dvorak for 12 years, since I was about 16.

Does colemak offer any significant advantages over dvorak that would make it
worthwhile attempting to switch?

~~~
semisight
It does, to a Qwerty typist, or to one who switches between for whatever
reason. Quite a few keys in Colemak are preserved between it and Qwerty (like
zxcv), making it both easier to learn and easier to jump back and forth.

Personally, when I play the occasional video game, I'll do so in Qwerty
instead of redefining every key. For typing and programming (aka daily life),
I use Colemak.

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bgar
Switching does have its benefits but I'm afraid it'll be a pain to deal with
it switching the vim keys around.

~~~
semisight
I never felt pained on switching layouts. If this makes any sense: learning
the muscle memory for Colemak almost seems to be on a lower "level" than vim
(to me), so I kept hitting 'i' and 'a' and so on without even noticing.

~~~
MrGando
Makes sense to me, I felt the exact same way.

I think that it's better to let the muscle memory of Colemak to develop and
you will eventually get used to vim.

When I use vim I'm constantly thinking about words, like 'ci' (change in) 'ya'
(yank around) etc.

So when you get your Colemak right vim is not a big hassle.

~~~
hadem
I do the same thing with Vim short cuts, think about their "meanings". I found
it helped a lot!

I'm curious about h, j, k, and l. Same story?

~~~
jvoorhis
When I switched to Dvorak, I adapted pretty quickly to vim. hjkl are
effectively exploded across the keyboard, and I had to adjust to that, but
adapting to the new locations for other commands was easier if I thought about
the semantic meaning of the commands, and the keys themselves as
abbreviations.

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thatthatis
Is there any quantified, credible (semi)scientific evidence that colemak or
dvorak is actually faster/easier/better? I've seen lots of theoretical stuff,
but mostly anecdote and/or poorly designed tests.

Thanks.

~~~
nether
I'm interested in what you consider "theoretical stuff" or "poorly designed
tests." If metrics like number of words possible from the home row alone or
total finger travel given some body of text do not satisfy you, then I doubt
anything will.

I will say one of the biggest misconceptions is that the Dvorak layout is for
speed. I've known people who type 80+ WPM with _two fingers_ on QWERTY. You
can be fast on _any_ layout, but Dvorak is way more comfortable. Once you can
type faster than you can think of _what_ to type, it doesn't really matter.

~~~
thatthatis
Metrics like: % of users getting RSI per year adjusted for age and number of
characters typed in a year on controlled hardware. Characters per minute of
typists who've used both layouts for a year plus.

Words typeable from the home row is what I'd consider a theoretical metric. It
should help with efficiency and health, but it is a leap of logic to say that
it definitely will.

"It's more comfortable" is what I'd consider to be a valid anecdotal data
point, but one that I fear has response bias as people who try dvorak and find
it less comfortable silently switch back to qwerty.

Absent well designed tests, qwerty/dvorak/coleman is a religious argument.

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V-2
Most of the keyboard layouts - alternative to QWERTY - are optimized for
English. (QWERTY itself is not optimized for any human language in existence).
It would be very interesting to see how well they work for other languages. Or
to try developing a "compromise" layout, optimized for two (or more) different
langauges at once and see whether it is at all possible to gain a significant
advantage over QWERTY in those several languages at once...

~~~
bjterry
It's likely that Colemak would be at least somewhat better for any European
language if only because all of the vowels are under the home row (except U,
which is under QWERTY's "I").

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V-2
I didn't find Colemak all that comfortable, but I experimented with carpalX
and I found it very pleasant. Even if you are not curious about trying new
keyboard layouts, the website is packed with very interesting theory and
research: [http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/](http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/)

~~~
V-2
I see now that MrGando posted that link already, I hadn't read all the
comments before making mine. I second that recommendation anyhow

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knightjp
I've been using Colemak cold turkey for 6 months now and I still can't type
properly to save my life. I barely make a proper sentence these days. I never
had this problem when I was trying to learn Dvorak. It seem the hand
alteration makes it easier and you more accurate.

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V-2
Another interesting link:
[http://www.andong.co.uk/dvorak/](http://www.andong.co.uk/dvorak/) (an online
analysis tool you can use to compare the efficiency of different layouts -
including Colemak)

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hetid
No mention of Carpalx?

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

If you're going to learn a new keyboard layout, why not make it the best?

~~~
portmanteaufu
I'm in the process of learning Colemak now. I'd love to use QGMLWB, but I
liked that I was able to use Colemak on my Macbook, Windows box and Android
devices without having to install anything extra. I figured that the few extra
efficiency points I lost by sticking with Colemak would be offset by its
comparatively broad availability.

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V-2
One great feature of Colemak is the idea of mapping capslock (useless as it
is) to backspace. Eg. it allows for quickly deleting last word with ctrl +
capslock combo - one hand instead of both.

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chissock
Very well written article; can you gauge the convenience on switching to
colemak instead of dvorak?

~~~
MrGando
Great question,

Dvorak is awesome, but the 'great' thing about Colemak is that the symbols and
numbers are unchanged (in contrast of Dvorak). So basically the learning curve
from QWERTY, should be shorter, and simpler.

Another personal thought, is that at least most of programming languages where
made with QWERTY in mind, so the symbol usage ([], {}, ; etc) in programming
languages is influenced by that too. A symptom of that is many foreign guys
using the American QWERTY layout to code.

Cheers :D

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thagat
Great article, ¿What are you using to measure your WPM in colemak?

~~~
MrGando
Hey there!

I'm basically using Amphetype... it's OSS written in Python.

You can feed it with text (like your favorite public domain novels in .txt,
Sherlock Holmes is one of my favorites) and then it extracts lessons based on
difficulty level.

Cheers & glad you liked it!

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marcelo_lara
How long does it take to reach around 40 – 50 words per minute ?

~~~
semisight
In my experience it took around 1-2 months to become fully "fluent" in
Colemak.

~~~
jvoorhis
It took me about 3 weeks to acclimate to Dvorak, but I actually used a copy of
Mavis Beacon to help with the transition (no joke.) I mean 80wpm. It felt both
faster and more comfortable after that.

