I Switched to Colemak - My Journey Away from QWERTY

Today I talk about my few days with the Colemak keyboard layout, and why it's just not for me.
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[@compangit1524]

Switch to Colemak-DH, it's so much better than original colemak. I use it :D

[@MantasJurkuvenas]

Just have a layer key that activate qwerty layout. So for shortcuts you click layer key and just click what you always clicked. Then back to colmak.

[@erikalind972]

I switched to Colemak. After about 40 days i am typing 90-100 consistently and it’s way more comfortable.

[@japhethjay4880]

I use him heavily didn’t change nothing and doing just fine. People just lazy out.

[@TheRealFrankWizza]

I wouldn't be able to try learning this without at least switching the keycaps around.

[@TheLinuxCast]

I did. Didn't really help

[@ZaneyOG]

@@TheLinuxCast LMFAO

[@Pikachu-vj5jr]

@@ZaneyOG ?

[@ZaneyOG]

@@Pikachu-vj5jr Yes?

[@yggdrasil9039]

You don't need to. Have a card with the layout in front of you until your muscles learn the memorised position.

[@nivedmorts]

I switched to dvorak for this last month. Its been a rough 4 weeks. Thought i might switch back to qwerty. Kid you not, i forgot almost all the qwerty keys. Now im stuck in this no mans land between the two and not particularly strong at typing with either (better at dvorak at this point). What have i done? 😢 my wpm before switching was average 70s.

[@jhonasn]

i switched to colemak dh and i use twm too, i created a script to toggle to qwerty for some special cases, but in vim i just reconfigured hjkl, it is a hard trasition, and i agree with your points, but i value most the ergonomy

[@TheLinuxCast]

I kind of want to switch back but I'm still scared off by the time commitment to do it. Maybe some day

[@jhonasn]

@@TheLinuxCast nice, thanks for the answer

[@pdubs5899]

The moment I swapped to Colemak, I changed all my keybinds to answer to their original key. Zero relearn on them. But that's my experience. I'm not a coder.

[@aryakiran256]

I use emacs so most binds didnt change for the most part other than find file which i remapped to C-z d d

[@techbrunch3946]

DT: oh qtile how I missed you TWC: oh qwerty how I missed you

[@debmalya6144]

So my physical keyboard is qwerty -- and changed to colemak in softwere - And it is always pain in the ass to change the shortcuts - so that the physical location is not changed - Eg = cntrl+J would be cntrl+N

[@armeli]

Programmable keyboard with a vim normal mode layer and vim insert mode layer is my solution to the vim problem. Whenever I start vim I switch to the normal mode layer, when I start writing I go to vim insert layer which has a macro on escape that automatically returns to normal mode layer. This requires setup and training but I found it better than sticking with qwerty just because of one software I like to use.

[@JamesSmith-ix5jd]

it's pain in the butt to have multiple layers AND multi modal edito at the same time. the constant switching neglects any advantage you might have from more ergonomic layout.

[@armeli]

@@JamesSmith-ix5jd Agreed. I used the setup I described for a few months and stopped because it was cumbersome. Now I just use colemak with vim without extra layers. Hjkl binds are not optimal but I have tried to minimize their use and learn better movement commands.

[@samueltremblay275]

I switched to Colemak 2 weeks ago and I'm at 40 wpm. I'm a programmer so keybindings are essential for me too but I prefer to have a hard time with the position of the keys instead of switching back to qwerty. I use an Ergodox EZ with no printing on keys so I really have to know where the keys are. I change the keys to Colemak with the Qmk firmware just because I want to keep my keyboard in Canadian French because I still have to write a lot in french and type accents with Autohotkey or with Altgr combination is real pain in the ass. I like the Colemak layout but I still use qwerty with my android phone. I think the author of Colemak layout uses qwerty too with android. I don't like Colemak DH because there is no real quick solution to install it on a new machine compared to Colemak. Also, they recently change the layout to put the Z at the center which I don't like. My biggest nightmare is me totally switched to Colemak and then having a technical interview and having to ask my interviewer if I need to install Colemak because even though you are supposed to be able to switch to qwerty back and forth if you practice regularly, I don't think you will be as fast as if you stay only with qwerty.

[@rafaelcarvalho-sd2bc]

What about now, are u still using Colemak??

[@yggdrasil9039]

Colemak vanilla is more supported than DHmod, but reportedly DH is better. I use Colemak vanilla and I really don't have any problem with the reasons that DH was invented for.

[@Michael-Martell]

Loving colemak. Week 3 22wpm

[@rafaelcarvalho-sd2bc]

I am switching to Colemak for comfort. Is it worth considering I desire more comfortable and not more speed?

[@InfamousPeanut]

I switched over Christmas break. I'm currently up to around 60 wpm. I built a few ortholinear keyboards that have colemak support. That way I can work on whatever computer. For me I like the feel of colemak. I compare it to the feeling of driving a luxury car. It takes a lot less effort. I can type for long periods of time with little or no fatigue. I use vim. I haven't changed any of the bindings. Just gave myself time to get used to their new locations. I3 wm can be configured for colemak so all its bindings are sensible. I will personally never go back to qwerty. No good reason to. Besides that, I'm not going to wait for repetitive stress injury or carpal tunnel syndrome before I do something about it.

[@TheLinuxCast]

I've been thinking a lot about switching back to Colemak or perhaps trying out the DH version. I just don't know if I have the time to dedicate myself to learning. I write 100,000+ words a week for my job and I can't really slow myself down. I still like the idea of colemak though.

[@ricardorien]

Damn, thanks for share your experience.

[@tokimaheryramarozaka2116]

Switched to Bépo, then MTGAP, tried Colemak DH, Dvorak, Semimak, Engram, APT. Overall, I stick with MTGAP, I think the "rolls" of that layout are simply too comfortable for me to get back to AZERTY. I don't use Vim, but I heard it's pretty good with VIM, currently building new layouts as well for French. I still type in AZERTY once like every month, it's just not comfortable anymore.

[@Oswee]

I'm pretty much in your shoes. Same motivation. Same environment (Sway), same issues. Colemak-DH. The only thing I have is custom split programmable keyboard with thumb cluster. So i am trying to come up with more friendly motions. But it's really hard for a daily tiling WM, Tmux, Vim, Ranger and NerdTree user. I am just loosing point of it. But i will stick with it for some time. Btw, in Colemak-DH hjkl is not THAT bad.

[@boxerfencer]

Switching and remapping boils down to how serious you are about RSI and related issues. Guess it wasn't all that much of an issue.

[@music123music9]

Can anyone suggest me a website to buy colemak physical keyboard??. I don't need a software for mapping the keys. My company won't allow to install them. Thanks in advance

[@DeltaInsanity]

Anything that's fully programmable. It will allow you to set the keyboard to any layout you want.

[@VolodymyrMasliy]

the thing is that you don't need a special keyboard. the best way to learn colemak (or any new layout) is to memorize it without looking at the keyboard. So it really doesn't matter if the keycaps are qwerty or even blank

[@music123music9]

@@VolodymyrMasliy that's not my question though. I need a colemak physical keyboard to use in my office, where they won't allow any mappings/installation of software for colemak layout.

[@VolodymyrMasliy]

@@music123music9 ah, are you on windows? On mac and I believe on linux, colemak can be addes as lang. layout in OS itself.

[@music123music9]

@@VolodymyrMasliy obviously on windows, as colemak can be directly added in Mac and Linux.

[@JamesSmith-ix5jd]

qwerty master race

[@aryakiran256]

I switched to workman just yesterday lmao

[@TheLinuxCast]

Good luck my friend. I hope it works well for you. I've heard good things about workman.

[@aryakiran256]

One day in i can type hello world in 5 seconds lol

[@TheLinuxCast]

@@aryakiran256 Try a website called keybr.com. It did a great job of helping me learn the position of the keys. At least for typing.

[@aryakiran256]

@@TheLinuxCast ok

[@nevoyu]

You only went for a week, so really that's too short of a time. Ot took me a month to get used to dvorak.

[@TheLinuxCast]

I'll freely admit, and I think I do in the video, that I didn't give it enough time. Though I think the keybindings would never get to the point where I could use it without redoing all of them, which I wasn't wiling to do. Not when so many apps I use, use the vim bindings. I'd have to change them all.

[@nevoyu]

@@TheLinuxCast I use the regular vim bindings myself.

[@milohoffman274]

The problem with alternative layouts tbat most people forget is that qwerty is ALREADY a very optimized layout. Sure, It's not most optimized in the world, but it is still pretty optimized. But what that means is that all these other ideas are not going to be hugely better, at most they are just a small incremental improvement in efficiency. If you were talking about going from something unoptinized to something that is optimized maybe,, but to me those small improvements in other layouts are not worth the effort. This is essentially why qwerty is still around and still the most used.

[@tokimaheryramarozaka2116]

It is the worst layout in terms of distance, same finger bigrams, finger usage and any other metric which tries to mathematically quantify how good a layout is. But in terms of speed, only practice matters. Since QWERTY has been around for nearly a century, lots of people have years and years of practice with it. But the real selling point of alt lyouts, is comfort.