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I'm just going to ask this here since you seem to know your stuff: Just how do you learn such a multi-layer setup? I'm asking mostly from an initial productivit

I'm just going to ask this here since you seem to know your stuff: Just how do you learn such a multi-layer setup? I'm asking mostly from an initial productivity/motivation perspective: Right now I'm happily touch-typing on my QWERTY keyboard (technically it's QWERTZ, but that's close enough) based on muscle memory. If I started learning an entirely new layout, how could I ever be productive when always confusing different layers or keys for a few weeks? On the other hand, maybe switching keyboard layouts is less hard than I imagine. I can mentally switch from QWERTZ to QWERTY with a little effort nowadays (after opening Vim on terminals with misconfigured keyboard layout a few times, you quickly learn where to find the : key...) But then again, QWERTZ and QWERTY are quite close and rather simple.

nekdmrm 5y ago
It’s not as hard as you imagine, but it isn’t easy. You’ll be annoyed and feel stupid, at least for a week or so drastically you change the layout. A note about layers. You probably use “layers” everyday without thinking about it. Holding “shift” enables a whole new layer where the numbers send symbols and the letters are uppercase. Holding option on a Mac enables a whole new layer with a bunch of funky symbols. Holding “FN” on a laptop enables a whole new layer (or maybe just a numpad).
1MachineElf 5y ago
Hey there. I had typed up a longer response to this earlier when my screen suddenly went blank on what I assume is a very buggy corporate laptop. Here's a lesser response typed over touch screen. It's not like I train anyone to type with Dvorak or anything, so all my advice is really just personal anecdotes... At work I deal with RDP connections and various types of virtual machines. The keyboard layout settings don't persist across these various interfaces/consoles, so I have to switch between Dvorak and QWERTY very frequently, sometimes switching between both in just a minute or less. It takes me just one second to warm up to either. I attained this 3 years after learning Dvorak. I can this say without a doubt that switching can become second nature, just like QWERTY<->QWERTZ. In the beginning, a hardware Dvorak keyboard with blank keycaps makes a critical difference. It was painful to use for the first month, but sticking with it got me to where I am. I used GNU Typist to learn Dvorak. It was simple to pick up in just one week. The hard part is developing the muscle memory so that you don't need to think about typing before actually typing. Once you get over that hurdle, your performance will get better and better. Last point to make is that when most of us first began typing, it was hunting and pecking on QWERTY. Some of those early habits stick with us and we never realize it. Learning to touch type any other radically different keyboard layout, Dvorak or other non-QWERTY alternatives, requires intentional focus. If you excercise that focus properly, you will probably be better at typing whatever you've learned better than you typed any QWERTY variants. Not just because of a presumed inheritent advantage over QWERTY, but something to do with how when we get older, we learn how to learn better.
Arainach 5y ago
I do a fair amount of typing every day, but I'm not constantly typing. Being slower at it still leaves me at 80% productivity or so. I picked up a Moonlander (https://www.zsa.io/moonlander/ https://www.zsa.io/moonlander/) last year. Between the ortholinear positioning and the new layout, I dropped from ~130wpm to ~60wpm (a bit faster for just letters and numbers, a bit slower every time I had to remember where I put a symbol or modifier). The first week was slow, and in the process I quickly realized what keys I was dearly missing and a few I wasn't using, and I tweaked my layout a number of times in the first 2-3 weeks. That said, by the end of the first week I was no longer hunting for keys and becoming comfortable, and by the end of week 3 I was back above 90wpm comfortably. I haven't felt inhibited by the keyboard in a long time - it's been a while since I took a speed test, so no idea if I'm back at the full speed I was before - but I suspect I am. The old muscle memory doesn't fade either. I was concerned that I would have issues going back to laptops or other machines with staggered QWERTY layouts, but in practice I'm just as fast typing on my laptop as I ever was.
lawn 5y ago
For me there are different components to learn. A new base layer layout, like switching from QWERTY to COLEMAK, can be efficiently learnt with online typing tools. Keybr[0] is a good start as it records the relative miss rate of each letter and prioritizes the lessons after that. After that I personally moved to Monkeytype[1] as it has tons of configurations you can play with. I got back to ~50 wpm in under 10 hours of deliberate practice using this technique. Numbers and symbols you can do the same. Monkeytype has modes for that so you can target them specifically. Other "big" keys like Tab, Escape or Enter are so common that you'll learn them in no time. As for layers and other advanced techniques, it takes some getting used to. For me the first week felt really bad (even though I sort of knew the base layout), and I tweaked things for ~3 weeks, but after that it felt fine. The productivity will take a hit, but it's not noticeable after the first month I'd say. And I still use a regular keyboard with QWERTY on the laptop, and I can switch to it on the fly. (Even between US and Swedish layouts, which have almost all the symbols in different places.) Oh of course, you should always touch type. If you're having trouble, just use blank keycaps.

nekdmrm 5y ago

It’s not as hard as you imagine, but it isn’t easy. You’ll be annoyed and feel stupid, at least for a week or so drastically you change the layout. A note about layers. You probably use “layers” everyday without thinking about it. Holding “shift” enables a whole new layer where the numbers send symbols and the letters are uppercase. Holding option on a Mac enables a whole new layer with a bunch of funky symbols. Holding “FN” on a laptop enables a whole new layer (or maybe just a numpad).

1MachineElf 5y ago

Hey there. I had typed up a longer response to this earlier when my screen suddenly went blank on what I assume is a very buggy corporate laptop. Here's a lesser response typed over touch screen. It's not like I train anyone to type with Dvorak or anything, so all my advice is really just personal anecdotes... At work I deal with RDP connections and various types of virtual machines. The keyboard layout settings don't persist across these various interfaces/consoles, so I have to switch between Dvorak and QWERTY very frequently, sometimes switching between both in just a minute or less. It takes me just one second to warm up to either. I attained this 3 years after learning Dvorak. I can this say without a doubt that switching can become second nature, just like QWERTY<->QWERTZ. In the beginning, a hardware Dvorak keyboard with blank keycaps makes a critical difference. It was painful to use for the first month, but sticking with it got me to where I am. I used GNU Typist to learn Dvorak. It was simple to pick up in just one week. The hard part is developing the muscle memory so that you don't need to think about typing before actually typing. Once you get over that hurdle, your performance will get better and better. Last point to make is that when most of us first began typing, it was hunting and pecking on QWERTY. Some of those early habits stick with us and we never realize it. Learning to touch type any other radically different keyboard layout, Dvorak or other non-QWERTY alternatives, requires intentional focus. If you excercise that focus properly, you will probably be better at typing whatever you've learned better than you typed any QWERTY variants. Not just because of a presumed inheritent advantage over QWERTY, but something to do with how when we get older, we learn how to learn better.

Arainach 5y ago

I do a fair amount of typing every day, but I'm not constantly typing. Being slower at it still leaves me at 80% productivity or so. I picked up a Moonlander (https://www.zsa.io/moonlander/ https://www.zsa.io/moonlander/) last year. Between the ortholinear positioning and the new layout, I dropped from ~130wpm to ~60wpm (a bit faster for just letters and numbers, a bit slower every time I had to remember where I put a symbol or modifier). The first week was slow, and in the process I quickly realized what keys I was dearly missing and a few I wasn't using, and I tweaked my layout a number of times in the first 2-3 weeks. That said, by the end of the first week I was no longer hunting for keys and becoming comfortable, and by the end of week 3 I was back above 90wpm comfortably. I haven't felt inhibited by the keyboard in a long time - it's been a while since I took a speed test, so no idea if I'm back at the full speed I was before - but I suspect I am. The old muscle memory doesn't fade either. I was concerned that I would have issues going back to laptops or other machines with staggered QWERTY layouts, but in practice I'm just as fast typing on my laptop as I ever was.

lawn 5y ago

For me there are different components to learn. A new base layer layout, like switching from QWERTY to COLEMAK, can be efficiently learnt with online typing tools. Keybr[0] is a good start as it records the relative miss rate of each letter and prioritizes the lessons after that. After that I personally moved to Monkeytype[1] as it has tons of configurations you can play with. I got back to ~50 wpm in under 10 hours of deliberate practice using this technique. Numbers and symbols you can do the same. Monkeytype has modes for that so you can target them specifically. Other "big" keys like Tab, Escape or Enter are so common that you'll learn them in no time. As for layers and other advanced techniques, it takes some getting used to. For me the first week felt really bad (even though I sort of knew the base layout), and I tweaked things for ~3 weeks, but after that it felt fine. The productivity will take a hit, but it's not noticeable after the first month I'd say. And I still use a regular keyboard with QWERTY on the laptop, and I can switch to it on the fly. (Even between US and Swedish layouts, which have almost all the symbols in different places.) Oh of course, you should always touch type. If you're having trouble, just use blank keycaps.