3 ms·

Instead of counting distance like Workman does (and totally ignoring weird+painful finger stretches), good `ol community-debate among layout experts, who have

Instead of counting distance like Workman does (and totally ignoring weird+painful finger stretches), good `ol community-debate among layout experts, who have collectively switched layouts thousands of times, was done to make Canary. Introducing Canaria (spanish for "canary"). This version moves the J to make it faster to type in Spanish, without sacrificing English speed or ergonomics. It's rare for an ergo key layout to be good in two languages. This one is.

yepguy 3y ago
Why is Canaria better than other alt layouts for Spanish? As a Spanish learner, Colemak-DH seems to be pretty good for both languages (although my usage is still overwhelmingly dominated by English).
- CanaryLayout 3y ago
  the inner columns are not great and you do need to get Z out of the same column as A to free up that SFB. Interestingly, Spanish might be easier to optimize as a solitary language if the punctuation keys are moved away from the vowel cluster. You can get insanely-low SFB scores. Spanish is a higher-syllable density language with better spelling conventions than English. What some of the alt-Spanish layouts have done is just take an EN-optimized layout and add diacritics (and Canaria is not an exception here either, it just restored some ergo sanity to Spanish vs. pushing Q and J to bad spots like most EN ergo layouts do). For those who work entirely in Spanish most of the time, EN-ergo layouts are not ideal.
000ooo000 3y ago
Could you clarify the 'weird/painful' remark? I have small/average hands, been on Workman for 6-7 years and I wouldn't say I've found anything weird or painful about it yet (assuming I have interpreted your comment as you intended it).
- CanaryLayout 3y ago
  It's noted in the README.md Workman has a bad vowel cluster and one of the more annoying bigrams is LY. The letter P in Workman is on the wrong side of the board. If you are making a vowel cluster (or close to one if you leave out A), then P goes opposite of where O and U go.
- CanaryLayout 3y ago
  Let's go into why P is on the wrong side of the board in Workman (and in QWERTY, too). It is true that P is a vowel-hugging consonant. A distance analyzer that the creator of Workman used to look at travel distance would of course conclude that it should be one with the vowels. But look how often P shows up as a double letter, which stops you from rolling the keys because of the double-strike: opposition oppression stopping appendage application applying appreciate --- there's a lot. So in Workman the word PEOPLE is a painful SFB-fiesta, and that is a Top 200 word in English, and it does not feel good at all! That's because P needs to be opposite of the vowel cluster, not just because of PEOPLE, but because you need to use one hand to take care of the double-letter strike while the other hand is setting up the vowel cluster roll that is coming.
  - 000ooo000 3y ago
    >But look how often P shows up as a double letter, which stops you from rolling the keys because of the double-strike: opposition oppression stopping appendage application applying appreciate --- there's a lot. Why isn't the location of a letter commonly struck twice only a problem when the finger used to strike the letter is also used for preceding and following letters? E.g. 'stopping' in Workman has right ring finger hit all of 'opp' which, yes, isn't great, but that's the only example I can think of - *opp* words.
    - CanaryLayout 3y ago
      apply application apprehension rapping snapping snooping double letters stop the rolling action, and P is one of the biggest offenders. Putting P next to a vowel cluster does nothing for rolls. It makes more sense to swap to the other side of the board so while you are dealing with whatever P is doing, your other hand is teeing up the rolling keys that will start after P. For instance: application. In Canaria your roll would look like this, with the keys being rolled in [brackets] opp[ortun][ity] Or, if you're slower: opp[or][tuni][ty]

yepguy 3y ago

Why is Canaria better than other alt layouts for Spanish? As a Spanish learner, Colemak-DH seems to be pretty good for both languages (although my usage is still overwhelmingly dominated by English).

CanaryLayout 3y ago
the inner columns are not great and you do need to get Z out of the same column as A to free up that SFB. Interestingly, Spanish might be easier to optimize as a solitary language if the punctuation keys are moved away from the vowel cluster. You can get insanely-low SFB scores. Spanish is a higher-syllable density language with better spelling conventions than English. What some of the alt-Spanish layouts have done is just take an EN-optimized layout and add diacritics (and Canaria is not an exception here either, it just restored some ergo sanity to Spanish vs. pushing Q and J to bad spots like most EN ergo layouts do). For those who work entirely in Spanish most of the time, EN-ergo layouts are not ideal.

000ooo000 3y ago

Could you clarify the 'weird/painful' remark? I have small/average hands, been on Workman for 6-7 years and I wouldn't say I've found anything weird or painful about it yet (assuming I have interpreted your comment as you intended it).

CanaryLayout 3y ago
It's noted in the README.md Workman has a bad vowel cluster and one of the more annoying bigrams is LY. The letter P in Workman is on the wrong side of the board. If you are making a vowel cluster (or close to one if you leave out A), then P goes opposite of where O and U go.
CanaryLayout 3y ago
Let's go into why P is on the wrong side of the board in Workman (and in QWERTY, too). It is true that P is a vowel-hugging consonant. A distance analyzer that the creator of Workman used to look at travel distance would of course conclude that it should be one with the vowels. But look how often P shows up as a double letter, which stops you from rolling the keys because of the double-strike: opposition oppression stopping appendage application applying appreciate --- there's a lot. So in Workman the word PEOPLE is a painful SFB-fiesta, and that is a Top 200 word in English, and it does not feel good at all! That's because P needs to be opposite of the vowel cluster, not just because of PEOPLE, but because you need to use one hand to take care of the double-letter strike while the other hand is setting up the vowel cluster roll that is coming.
- 000ooo000 3y ago
  >But look how often P shows up as a double letter, which stops you from rolling the keys because of the double-strike: opposition oppression stopping appendage application applying appreciate --- there's a lot. Why isn't the location of a letter commonly struck twice only a problem when the finger used to strike the letter is also used for preceding and following letters? E.g. 'stopping' in Workman has right ring finger hit all of 'opp' which, yes, isn't great, but that's the only example I can think of - *opp* words.
  - CanaryLayout 3y ago
    apply application apprehension rapping snapping snooping double letters stop the rolling action, and P is one of the biggest offenders. Putting P next to a vowel cluster does nothing for rolls. It makes more sense to swap to the other side of the board so while you are dealing with whatever P is doing, your other hand is teeing up the rolling keys that will start after P. For instance: application. In Canaria your roll would look like this, with the keys being rolled in [brackets] opp[ortun][ity] Or, if you're slower: opp[or][tuni][ty]