4 ms·

I wonder how this compares to switching to a Dvorak keyboard. I tried that for a while and was much faster (my vi keyboard motions getting screwed up is why I s

I wonder how this compares to switching to a Dvorak keyboard. I tried that for a while and was much faster (my vi keyboard motions getting screwed up is why I switched back).

biot 15y ago
From http://stenoknight.com/plover/ http://stenoknight.com/plover/: This means that stenographers can enter text at up to 300 words per minute (the world record is actually 360, but that's an outlier), making it the fastest and most accurate text entry method currently available. By comparison, top qwerty typists can do 120 WPM, top Dvorak typists around 140 WPM, and voice writers dictating to voice recognition software top out around 180 WPM.
akgerber 15y ago
As an aside, I use vim under Dvorak without too much trouble. I find that reciting the letters of keyboard commands in my head while executing them keeps them from becoming pure muscle memory, and I am able to do the same recitation when I need to work on a Qwerty keyboard.
jcrites 15y ago
I'd like to share some products and techniques which have helped me deal with daily intense computer use: I learned to type Dvorak and did so for months. It got to match my Qwerty, about 100 WPM. I didn't find that it provided much advantage overall. Note that you can type Dvorak on most modern keyboards with software settings -- in Windows for example, you can just change the key layout and it will start acting like a Dvorak keyboard. The best advantage I got from learning Dvorak wa san opportunity to re-learn proper finger positioning. As a result, my form in Dvorak is better than Qwerty (which developed organically and is not correct). I never saw much of a substantial overall improvement, despite months of use. If you'd like to speed up your typing, look to improve your finger positioning (primarily: not taking the index/middle fingers away from the home row under any circumstances). The biggest disadvantage from Dvorak is that it moves characters such as Z,X,C,V. I was not able to effectively re-learn the "undo cut copy paste" commands. I was not able to find a good way to categorically customize them across applications (which is really disappointing -- why can't the OS handle mapping physical keys to common logical commands like undo?) In the past year I got a Kinesis Advantage contoured keyboard: http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/advantage.htm http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/advantage.htm - once I got it, what a breath of fresh air! It took significantly longer than Dvorak to learn, because Space/Delete and all the control characters move to your thumbs. However, I was eventually able to achieve about a 25% speedup. Their customer service was also good. The keyboard is arranged so that finger movement distance is reduced. I feel much more "flow" typing on a Kinesis. The keys roll off your fingers in a long, continuous, fluid stream. Despite the long learning curve, if you type daily for your work, I highly recommend making the investment. I also highly recommend the 3M ergonomic mouse: http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/ergonomics/home/products/ergonomicmouse/ http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/ergonomics/home/... - together with the Kinesis, these two products and a standing desk entirely resolved some minor repetitive stress problems I had developed through years of daily intense computer use. I found that I needed to keep a regular mouse and keyboard for gaming and precision applications. My use of the 3M mouse has never approached the level of accuracy of a normal mouse, since it is deliberately designed to use the larger, stronger, but less accurate muscles of the arm to move it (rather than lower forearm/hand). But importantly, it has freed my hand from any repetitive stress problems. For precision mouse work, I prefer the Razor: http://store.razerzone.com/store/razerusa/en_US/DisplayHomePage http://store.razerzone.com/store/razerusa/en_US/DisplayHomeP... - I was skeptical about Razor products initially but took the plunge a few months ago. Razor's mouse is really excellent and has perfect feel. It really is an improvement on the standard vanilla office mouse. I think it has high measurement accuracy, and they seem to have greatly tuned the way velocity/acceleration/jerk translate into cursor movement; the cursor more closely matches my intention than with other mice (as rated by performance on http://dagobah.net/flash/Cursor_Invisible.swf http://dagobah.net/flash/Cursor_Invisible.swf ). My favorite "regular layout" is Das Keyboard: http://www.daskeyboard.com/ http://www.daskeyboard.com/ (I have no affiliation or commission with any of the providers of those products; I'm evangelizing them purely as a satisfied customer.)
- mkl 15y ago
  The biggest disadvantage from Dvorak is that it moves characters such as Z,X,C,V. I was not able to effectively re-learn the "undo cut copy paste" commands. I was not able to find a good way to categorically customize them across applications (which is really disappointing -- why can't the OS handle mapping physical keys to common logical commands like undo?) Colemak was designed explicitly to get around this problem. http://colemak.com http://colemak.com
- roryokane 15y ago
  “… why can't the OS handle mapping physical keys to common logical commands like undo?” Sadly, Mac OS X can’t do that either, but it does include two solutions to the problem you described where Z,X,C,V are in different places on the Dvorak layout. One is that it includes a keyboard layout called “Dvorak – Qwerty ⌘”, which lets you type text in Dvorak but switches to Qwerty temporarily while the ⌘Command key is held down. For instance, “⌘Q” according to the Dvorak labels would actually execute “⌘X” for cut, but you can still type a q by pressing the same key without Command. The other solution is that it lets you globally remap keyboard shortcuts of menu items, in System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Application Shortcuts. To fix Undo, for instance, without using the Dvorak – Qwerty ⌘ layout, you would add a new shortcut for “All Applications” with Menu Title “Undo” and Keyboard Shortcut “⌘;”.

I wonder how this compares to switching to a Dvorak keyboard. I tried that for a while and was much faster (my vi keyboard motions getting screwed up is why I switched back).

biot 15y ago

From http://stenoknight.com/plover/ http://stenoknight.com/plover/: This means that stenographers can enter text at up to 300 words per minute (the world record is actually 360, but that's an outlier), making it the fastest and most accurate text entry method currently available. By comparison, top qwerty typists can do 120 WPM, top Dvorak typists around 140 WPM, and voice writers dictating to voice recognition software top out around 180 WPM.

akgerber 15y ago

As an aside, I use vim under Dvorak without too much trouble. I find that reciting the letters of keyboard commands in my head while executing them keeps them from becoming pure muscle memory, and I am able to do the same recitation when I need to work on a Qwerty keyboard.

jcrites 15y ago

I'd like to share some products and techniques which have helped me deal with daily intense computer use: I learned to type Dvorak and did so for months. It got to match my Qwerty, about 100 WPM. I didn't find that it provided much advantage overall. Note that you can type Dvorak on most modern keyboards with software settings -- in Windows for example, you can just change the key layout and it will start acting like a Dvorak keyboard. The best advantage I got from learning Dvorak wa san opportunity to re-learn proper finger positioning. As a result, my form in Dvorak is better than Qwerty (which developed organically and is not correct). I never saw much of a substantial overall improvement, despite months of use. If you'd like to speed up your typing, look to improve your finger positioning (primarily: not taking the index/middle fingers away from the home row under any circumstances). The biggest disadvantage from Dvorak is that it moves characters such as Z,X,C,V. I was not able to effectively re-learn the "undo cut copy paste" commands. I was not able to find a good way to categorically customize them across applications (which is really disappointing -- why can't the OS handle mapping physical keys to common logical commands like undo?) In the past year I got a Kinesis Advantage contoured keyboard: http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/advantage.htm http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/advantage.htm - once I got it, what a breath of fresh air! It took significantly longer than Dvorak to learn, because Space/Delete and all the control characters move to your thumbs. However, I was eventually able to achieve about a 25% speedup. Their customer service was also good. The keyboard is arranged so that finger movement distance is reduced. I feel much more "flow" typing on a Kinesis. The keys roll off your fingers in a long, continuous, fluid stream. Despite the long learning curve, if you type daily for your work, I highly recommend making the investment. I also highly recommend the 3M ergonomic mouse: http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/ergonomics/home/products/ergonomicmouse/ http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/ergonomics/home/... - together with the Kinesis, these two products and a standing desk entirely resolved some minor repetitive stress problems I had developed through years of daily intense computer use. I found that I needed to keep a regular mouse and keyboard for gaming and precision applications. My use of the 3M mouse has never approached the level of accuracy of a normal mouse, since it is deliberately designed to use the larger, stronger, but less accurate muscles of the arm to move it (rather than lower forearm/hand). But importantly, it has freed my hand from any repetitive stress problems. For precision mouse work, I prefer the Razor: http://store.razerzone.com/store/razerusa/en_US/DisplayHomePage http://store.razerzone.com/store/razerusa/en_US/DisplayHomeP... - I was skeptical about Razor products initially but took the plunge a few months ago. Razor's mouse is really excellent and has perfect feel. It really is an improvement on the standard vanilla office mouse. I think it has high measurement accuracy, and they seem to have greatly tuned the way velocity/acceleration/jerk translate into cursor movement; the cursor more closely matches my intention than with other mice (as rated by performance on http://dagobah.net/flash/Cursor_Invisible.swf http://dagobah.net/flash/Cursor_Invisible.swf ). My favorite "regular layout" is Das Keyboard: http://www.daskeyboard.com/ http://www.daskeyboard.com/ (I have no affiliation or commission with any of the providers of those products; I'm evangelizing them purely as a satisfied customer.)

mkl 15y ago
The biggest disadvantage from Dvorak is that it moves characters such as Z,X,C,V. I was not able to effectively re-learn the "undo cut copy paste" commands. I was not able to find a good way to categorically customize them across applications (which is really disappointing -- why can't the OS handle mapping physical keys to common logical commands like undo?) Colemak was designed explicitly to get around this problem. http://colemak.com http://colemak.com
roryokane 15y ago
“… why can't the OS handle mapping physical keys to common logical commands like undo?” Sadly, Mac OS X can’t do that either, but it does include two solutions to the problem you described where Z,X,C,V are in different places on the Dvorak layout. One is that it includes a keyboard layout called “Dvorak – Qwerty ⌘”, which lets you type text in Dvorak but switches to Qwerty temporarily while the ⌘Command key is held down. For instance, “⌘Q” according to the Dvorak labels would actually execute “⌘X” for cut, but you can still type a q by pressing the same key without Command. The other solution is that it lets you globally remap keyboard shortcuts of menu items, in System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Application Shortcuts. To fix Undo, for instance, without using the Dvorak – Qwerty ⌘ layout, you would add a new shortcut for “All Applications” with Menu Title “Undo” and Keyboard Shortcut “⌘;”.