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I tried and considered switching to dvorak as my main keyboard layout. I didn't stay with it because of two things: 1. The fact I'd have to keep both in my

I tried and considered switching to dvorak as my main keyboard layout. I didn't stay with it because of two things: 1. The fact I'd have to keep both in my muscle-memory due to swapping onto other people's machines 2. Vim keybindings

cxr 3y ago
Vim is perfectly usable with Dvorak.
- gorjusborg 3y ago
  Could you elaborate? My experience was that vim keybindings are tied to characters, not key codes (position). Insert is 'i', not the key at position of 'i' in QUERTY. Maybe I was doing it wrong, but Vim, for me, is all about the interface and muscle memory. Having keys move position due to the different keyboard layout was a deal-breaker.
  - rgoulter 3y ago
    e.g. I recall that blogpost titled "ZZ vs zz". I use both of these on both QWERTY and Dvorak frequently enough; although tbh I had to actually try typing 'zz' to recall what it did. My suspicion is that when I picked up using Dvorak with Vim, whatever association or motor-memory goes on gets some indirection added, so that 'letter and position' are not quite so tightly coupled.
rgoulter 3y ago
> Vim keybindings Dvorak's actually pretty good for vim keybindings. While 'hjkl' is positionally significant; Dvorak 'jk' are still adjacent and easy to reach in Dvorak, and 'h' is still to the left of 'l' on the same hand. Other keybindings are better remembered by the letter itself rather than by the position on the keyboard (e.g. "di'" or "gg"), so these aren't that much of an issue.
- gorjusborg 3y ago
  The issue is that w/ decades of muscle-memory, having vim keys change position is a no-go.
Faaak 3y ago
> due to swapping onto other people's machines I find it really easy to switch layouts though (either on linux with a `loadkeys dvorak`, or by quickly going to the menus).
- gorjusborg 3y ago
  Admittedly, my experiment was a while ago. It might be easier now.

cxr 3y ago

Vim is perfectly usable with Dvorak.

gorjusborg 3y ago
Could you elaborate? My experience was that vim keybindings are tied to characters, not key codes (position). Insert is 'i', not the key at position of 'i' in QUERTY. Maybe I was doing it wrong, but Vim, for me, is all about the interface and muscle memory. Having keys move position due to the different keyboard layout was a deal-breaker.
- rgoulter 3y ago
  e.g. I recall that blogpost titled "ZZ vs zz". I use both of these on both QWERTY and Dvorak frequently enough; although tbh I had to actually try typing 'zz' to recall what it did. My suspicion is that when I picked up using Dvorak with Vim, whatever association or motor-memory goes on gets some indirection added, so that 'letter and position' are not quite so tightly coupled.

rgoulter 3y ago

> Vim keybindings Dvorak's actually pretty good for vim keybindings. While 'hjkl' is positionally significant; Dvorak 'jk' are still adjacent and easy to reach in Dvorak, and 'h' is still to the left of 'l' on the same hand. Other keybindings are better remembered by the letter itself rather than by the position on the keyboard (e.g. "di'" or "gg"), so these aren't that much of an issue.

gorjusborg 3y ago
The issue is that w/ decades of muscle-memory, having vim keys change position is a no-go.

Faaak 3y ago

> due to swapping onto other people's machines I find it really easy to switch layouts though (either on linux with a `loadkeys dvorak`, or by quickly going to the menus).

gorjusborg 3y ago
Admittedly, my experiment was a while ago. It might be easier now.