Learning a new Keyboard Layout - Colemak DH

[@patomackcodes4093]

Strongly agree with keeping separate keyboard types for separate layouts. I've been trying the same for Colemak DH and QWERTY.

[@davidbcg286]

I totally agree with keeping the staggered keyboards in QWERTY, I do that too and I don't touch type in that layout, same for my phone.

[@lightning_lensch]

I've switched to colemak-dh a year ago and also use colemak-dh only on custom keyboards and qwerty on my normal staggered ones. What I really advise you to try is to put the umlauts on combos. I have ä on "h" and ",", ü on "h" and "." , ö on "," and "." and ß on "h" and "/" and it just feels super natural when typing german. I had them on another layer before but felt like it really slowed me down. Now I'm at about 100wpm average and 150 top speed with both german and english.

[@danieljohnstone9102]

Have you thought about using stenography, instead of keyboard layouts I did start to learn Colemak DH but have decided to use that time to learn to use plover it is available on Linux and windows. It is possible to switch between qwerty and plover without changing settings on the computer using QMK as you can use steno keycodes. The downside is you do have to run an application on your computer. Thanks for some awesome vids.

[@GhostSamaritan]

TAP Strap 2 might be an even better implementation of stenography.

[@unpoliticallymillennial163]

Colemak is an amazing and pretty easy to learn. It took me about a month of 1hr a day to retrain my brain to get the new key layout. It's so much faster then qwerty. I'm so happy I did it. I jumped about 50% in WPM

[@maxxiong]

Regarding keeping the old keyboard layout, I have a funny experience actually: I switched to typing Dvorak a few years ago and don't type qwerty on my laptop at all. When I switched I was touch typing (or at least properly typing) at 70-80 WPM. Now I can still type at that speed with QWERTY if I look at the keyboard, probably just from using my phone.

[@ThatManFromGermany]

I just switched to an ergodone a week or so ago and the left hand drives me crazy (c, v and b), ortho slowed me down from 155 wpm to about 75 but it gets better. It's very interesting to hear about your journey; I type a lot of text every day and I think it's worth to switch to Colemak, your video is even more encouraging.

[@jacobtb1]

I now type in this format daily. I do really enjoy for some reason. just feels better

[@TheLinuxCast]

I just switched to Colemak as well. And I definitely have found myself making mistakes that would be wrong on both qwerty and Colemak. I've also found that I tend to miss capitalizing letters that need to be capitalized.

[@JanLunge]

very interesting to see that im not alone with that

[@computerfan1079]

Didn't expect to find you here.

[@theskydebreuil]

Yeah I've been using Colemak DH for about 8 months now on a split ortho keyboard and is great :)

[@AtomToast]

finally caught up with my sub feed from the last week. Very good and well researched video! having a layer to turn off homerow mods is an interesting idea that I somehow never considered. I will need to give that a try

[@peace2941]

To be precise this is the DHM.

[@MarkusBurrer]

I also used the Neo2 layout for many years, but I replaced the standard keyboard with a split ortholinear keyboard (currently the Redox keyboard). The problem with Neo was, that it doesn't fit on the 30 keys of a matrix keyboard because of the German umlauts as you mentioned. Now I use the PUQ layout from the ADNW website, that is optimized for matrix keyboards and uses a deadkey for German umlauts. It is also optimized for a 50/50 mix of German and English. So Colemak or Workman are no alternatives for me because I write both German and English, but they are normally optimized for English only. I also have shift on a thumb key because German needs a lot more uppercase letters than English, it is much more convenient to SCREAM ;-) and I always hated to use the pinkies for shift. Shift as a homerow key doesn't work for me at all, so the home thumb key on the right is space and the home thumb key on the left is shift.

[@skysi]

hey man. cool to see another NEO2 user. i switched from NEO2 to the KOY layout on my corne. Saw the PUQ layout too but it didnt look fitting for me. i must say im happy with my choice so far.

[@MarkusBurrer]

@@skysi Why it didn't look fitting?

[@skysi]

@@MarkusBurrer well i dont have a Matrix Keyboard for starters. I have a split keyboard. It's missing the on the main layer, which I was not ready to give up on the main layer. And the bigramm ei/ie had a huge role in switching away from neo. Having that on the middle finger and index finger felt like the way to go.

[@Male_Parent]

I'm super tempted to learn a new layout. It already felt bad going from 100 WPM on staggered qwerty to 70 ish on ortholinear (planck) after a few months of getting used to it. The ortholinear was already way more comfortable and smooth to type on compared to staggered so I'm already super stoked about that. I can't wait for my corne 36 key wireless kit to come in the mail.

[@TheSilent006]

Ive come to find learning colemak dh is a necessity for any split/ortho boards. Great vid!

[@GT-tj1qg]

Colemak DH seems to be pleasing every user who tries it

[@azur1o]

This is a positive comment for the KZbin algorithm

[@Aleph-Noll]

this is also a positive reply for the all mighty algorithm

[@trentseymore7385]

What are comments for, if not for the algorithm?

[@thelastcube.]

doing my part

[@jermm2183]

On typeracer I average about 85-95 wpm with qwerty, I type really funny and don't use my pinkies nor the traditional typing method, instead moving my 6 fingers into common letters spots (maybe ese for example) and just doing those sounds fast, than the next ones. Since I wanted to start learning bash, I thought I'd try something new, it's definitely a lot harder than qwerty but it feels satisfying to type since my fingers are barely moving off home row

[@defipunk]

Interesting. It took me around 15 minutes to get back to 30wpm on tarmak 1, and about 1.5h to get back to it with tarmak 2. Dropped back to 23-25 with tarmak3, which I'll bring to 35 or so with good accuracy before doing the tarmak4 and final Coleman rotations

[@ThatManFromGermany]

Following up to my last post - switched to Colemak-DHm on said Ergodone and on my Planck (and Preonic), it's indeed very comfortable to type on, I share your experiences 100 %. There are some nasty words where typing on Colemak feels incredibly awkward: "doesn't, environment, start" (and more); I found it especially difficult if one has to altenate hands after each character, which requires an exceptional coordination between hands when typing fast (120+ wpm). Nevertheless I don't think I'll ever go back to QWERTY/QWERTZ (typing 85 % in German and the rest in English an Polish).

[@tuananhdo1870]

'Start' is one of my favorite word on colemak

[@tenplusten1116]

@@tuananhdo1870what about "stars"

[@blackTmsk]

Great video! Typing this with Workman-P layout, still not fully used to it, but it feels much better already.

[@natecook06]

I’m actually watching this because I’m planning to switch from Workman to Colemak-DH. For what it’s worth, I’m much faster on Workman than Qwerty (where I never learned touch typing) and mostly only use Qwerty with my thumbs on mobile. Colemak-DH seems slightly better for common bigrams, and I liked how it felt when comparing similar words to how I type on Workman.

[@realMrVent]

I've switched to Colemak-DH a couple of days ago, and even though I'm still struggling, I know it will be worth it.

[@mehmenmike]

How is it going?

[@realMrVent]

@@mehmenmike pretty good, actually! I'm still getting the hang of some bigrams, and the custom positions of some punctuation keys on my Dactyl Manuform cause some mistypes, but overall I've noticed a great increase of perceived and actual typing speed. Going back to QWERTY feels like I'm not even one third as fast, and several letters are in awkward positions. Colemak-DH gets my recommendation ^-^

[@mehmenmike]

@@realMrVent Cheers dude!

[@jebbish]

Thanks for the Qwerty and Colmak HD keyboard type distinction. I was thinking the same thing and you confirmed the solution. I am in IT and use LOTS of keyboards. I want to learn Colmak for my main computer where I will put a split keyboard.

[@supersnail5000]

Personally a nice twist on HRM I found was using shift as a hold modifier on my space key. I find it's really rare I need to hold it down in my use case and I think due to the relative strength difference of my thumb compared to my fingers I found that I would make fewer mistakes when using it compared to HRM (particularly as my fingers tired in longer typing sessions).

[@stoicfloor]

Hello Jan! As always, your video is visually pleasant and I love the editing. More importantly, your input and take on a new keyboard layout is very useful. In your "Keyboard Layouts" video, you said that you "use the Vim keys wherever they are." I tried Colemak for a week. It's not the layout that was bothering me; but the Vim usage. I can't live without jk (to escape back to Normal mode) and my Vim usage seems to be tied with the keys' locations rather than the mnemonics (like `ciw`). I believe you don't remap and just "use the Vim keys wherever they are", right? What's your take on this Vim issue now? Still the same as your "Keyboard Layouts" video? Thank you! Keep up the great work:)

[@JanLunge]

Yes i use the escape key in the capslock position and instead of vims hjkl arrows i use the navigation layer with the arrow keys on the left half. I use the default vim bindings but have tried the spacevim (also works in vscode) configs to use space as the leader key which i really like. This might be because i never used the vim keys on a qwerty board with touch typing and only got really comfortable with them on neo so the overall switch to colemak was not very different to me exept that i like the position of the d and y keys more than on neo.

[@stoicfloor]

@@JanLunge This video gives me the push to give Colemak another try. Thanks again:)

[@Cheesewiz247]

On Workman, I switch the navigation keys to make things easy. I do: h y ("yank" becomes "haul") j n ("next" becomes "jump") k e l o ("open new line" becomes "line") Whenever I use a new server, I just throw 8 lines into my vimrc before I do anything else.

[@GT-tj1qg]

Ah problem is using vim

[@davidminutti4903]

This is a comment for the KZbin algorithm.

[@gillsejusbates6938]

same

[@DaleKingProfile]

Personally, I am using a slight modification to ColemakDH with the S and R keys swapped, that I think is slightly easier to learn. It has the advantage of leaving S in the same spot as QWERTY and leaving R just to the left of T.

[@ignisimmensus2568]

Hey man, I really like your videos and I hope to see more

[@lukasbaumann8800]

Nice! You could also check out the vou layout. The blog you'll find is German but the layout is optimized for German and English typing (even beating colemak). And its based off of neo so you get all of that goodness. Repost due to deletion (I think, cant find my comment . _.)

[@lukasbaumann8800]

If you want something more accessible (while sacrificing the modifier keys) you can check the kou layout. If you want the most accessible (while sacrificing the mods and opimization) you can check out the koy layout. Both vou and kou are based off of koy based off of neo/adnw

[@robotdowning963]

I switched to colemak about a year ago and thought it was better but found it a little hard to mesh with some of the letter placement choices, so I gave colemak Dhm a try. Ran into the same issue found that reaching up for the top middle columns was a bit uncomfortable. As of now I'm strictly using commack dh as my go to layout and haven't looked back.

[@tuananhdo1870]

Commach dh

[@SylvainKlein]

I didn't know you stream, glad you mentioned it, I will definitely watch when possible. Can you activate VODs on twitch or upload them somewhere ? I would love to watch the lives in which you built your new 60% ! Is it possible somehow ?

[@JanLunge]

Vods are enabled on my channel i just havent streamed anything in 2 weeks while i was busy with the editing. I am currently checking for a more permanent solution I just dont want to spam this channel with a lot of vods

[@SylvainKlein]

@@JanLunge totally understand that, you're right. 👍 I thought your streams about the 60% was more recent than that ^^.

[@ignaciogonzalez3543]

its Hughie campbel!

[@skysi]

Nice video. did you check other german layouts at all? i switched from neo to the koy layout and never have looked back. and i also tried to maintain the two layouts but gave up after 3 weeks because i did have progress. i focused on koy and dropped neo completely. from there the progress was good. im at roughly 90 wpm. how is your quest about maintaining two layouts going, any updates yet?

[@PRISMA_X]

Gutes Video, hast du Rrfahrung mit den Umlauten im Colemak DH format ? Ich finde irgendwie nichts dazu, und würde gerne mal ein neues Layout testen.

[@JanLunge]

I always use the eurokey layout in the pc so that i can use alt + u for the ü etc i got really used to that but i could also add this to a single key but never felt the need for it

[@jh5401]

this had me thinking: is there an efficiency optimised phone keyboard layout?

[@zakariachahboun]

high quality video cool 👍

[@eXsoR65]

What did you use to memorize the key Positions? I see you used monkeytype but what else? I’m not mush of a typist on QWERTY, but Switching to a Ergo split so figure I learn Colmak DH

[@JanLunge]

for memorizing I turned on the keymap display in monkeytype and set that ro colemak dh then tried typing but only looking at the keymap after i tried guessing the position from my memory. I didn't try to type fast here but this helped a lot later on I still remember where the P and F keys are from that training as I sometimes mix those up. after that just having heard where each key is i trained that into muscle memory with keybr.com so yeah that was all tools i used but because i first checked all key positions i could already type with it for my daily use a bit

[@Z.DeAllen]

Love your content dude, keep it up! Prost mein freund!

[@NikolajMihajlenko]

In English - 26 letters, in Russian - 33. It's a problem. Please, see "фонематические клавиатуры Николая Михайленко"

[@sebastianm.2901]

Hi Jan, weißt du zufällig wie/ob man in VIA oder anderen Programmen ein ISO-DE oder ANSI-DE layout einstellen kann? ..oder wie ich mir zumindest Ü Ä und Ö auf das 2. layer von U A und O legen kann? von ISO auf ANSI wechseln währe kein Problem aber die Umlaute brauche ich doch im täglichen schreiben... Vielen dank schon mal :)

[@JanLunge]

ich würde dafür das eurokey layout benutzen dort dind dann die umlaute auf alt+u = ü sowas kannst du dir dann als shortcut auch in via an andere positionen legen. im wenn du im deutschen tastatur layout bist kannst du aber auch direkt die englishen equivalente benutzen also [ ] ' die würden dann einfach die äöü ausgeben bin gerade nicht sicher ob die auch schon übersetzte shortcuts drin haben aber gehen tut das auf jeden fall --- for everyone in english I would use the eurokey layout or just use the [ ] ' keys that would trigger the umlauts if you use the german keyboard layout on pc

[@SirDVV]

Hi Jan. How do you feel about Colemak for switching between English and German several times a day? You probably do that too. I’m Spanish and switch between three languages constantly. It would be great to have a layout that works well on all three languages. (Spanish and English work fine together). How does German fit in there? Thank you.

[@JanLunge]

I think it works well for that but I actually do not type much german currently. But for what i need its more than enough and it still feels a lot nicer than qwerty but i used neo2 before which was a bit nicer just for german but colemak dh is a very good compromise if I use more english than german

[@iAmTheWagon]

I love the idea but I've always been afraid to try a new layout in case I have to use someone else's system

[@JanLunge]

I think using both at the same time can be done without too much effort when you train with both of them but I'll do an update after using it like this for a longer time

[@leerv.]

You can do both pretty easily, honestly. I am learning Colemak DH at home but QWERTY at work. It does help that my board at home is columnar/orthoganal while the work board is plain staggered keys.

[@leerv.]

@jekennedy108 It would not surprise me if language-acquisition pathways and keyboard layout- acquisition pathways shared a few neurons. I've dabbled in a few languages, and would opine that learning a new keyboard layout takes far far less effort: no grammar, syntax, vocabularly... just adopting some muscle memory changes. I still use Colemak at home and QWERTY at work!

[@christophzika1573]

@JanLunge where can you download colemak dh?

[@jhanmarthng8532]

What about your vim key bindings ?

[@JanLunge]

Sorry for the late reply, i use the standard vim bindings and was used to those being in random positions from the neo layout i used before. As i sometimes use a laptop with qwerty i dont want to change the vim bindings there. Its not perfect but i dont see a big problem with this i normally use the movement with w or b and arrowkeys instead of hjkl the arrowkeys are mapped on a layer that are on the position of the qwerty hjkl keys so its almost the same

[@arthurnunesc]

I want to use Colemak-DH but you can't use(at least natively in Layout) the last row as ZXCDVKH, you either choose Colemak-DH ISO with ZXCDV*\|*KH or standard ANSI Colemak-DH with ZXCDV*Z*KH

[@tylerlyman7157]

What is this computer background? I love it...

[@JanLunge]

this is the wallpaper I use unsplash.com/photos/BzqaeA-hkkc

[@gagik7783]

How do you deal with the absence of the bumps on the F and J keys ?

[@JanLunge]

Actually the split board that I used to learn on has bumps on the colemak dh homing keys but on colemak these are t & n. For learning thats nice but I don’t really need them. My new wDactyl does bot have homing bumps but that might be because the shape really shows which keys are on the home row

[@raytsh]

Does it make sense to get into Colemak if one needs to type Umlaute on a daily basis? Also, is it a good layout to try if one only works with staggered row keyboards?

[@JanLunge]

Thanks a really good question, I do not use row staggered keyboards with custom layouts as I want to use normal qwerty keyboards and have the layout in the firmware of my ergo keyboards. Umlauts work fine if you use something like eurokey as the system layout and use them with the alt key.

[@shrugalic]

Colemak is nice on any keyboard, I have been using it for over 15 years. To be fair I almost exclusively use ortholinear or columnar keyboards these days, but on laptops and Beamer PC I still have classically row-staggered keyboards with Colemak, and it works well. QWERTY I only use on touch screens of phone or tablet, with two fingers or thumbs

[@HR-ve7mc]

Im also German and thinking of switching the layout. Are you now able to rope faster than on neo? I’m mostly using English as my main language but need German. Would be glad if you could respond. Thanks

[@JanLunge]

My typing is slightly faster with colemakdh now than what it was on neo but i never really went for speed with writing it can type german fine and i still use eurkey for the umlauts but colemak dh is way nicer with english and in my opinion code and the command line as well

[@juan888ize]

Do you use vim? If so, how did you change your bindings?

[@JanLunge]

I use vim but i dont rebind any keys for it. i do use custom arrowkeys from my navigation layer so the hjkl keys are not needed and everything else is positioned good enough by default for me. also this way i can use it normally on a qwerty board and other not configured vim editors on servers

[@blank-mq8ef]

man im trying to learn halmak and it feels so weird

[@torquebiker9959]

isn’t it better to stick to just one layout? i’m learning Colemak DH now and wanna use only this layout in the future.

[@JanLunge]

Technically yes but there are some issues with using software layouts (when you set it on the pc instead of a programmable keyboard itself) which made me stay on qwerty on internal laptop keyboards or when gaming so i don’t need to rebind every key on every game. And then I have a separate ergonomic keyboard and on all of them I use colemak dh. It would be way better to just use this one layout but you often run into edge case issues if your workflows need to stay flexible. If you know what you will be doing on your pc you can adjust for that and I would recommend it but many people think using 2 layouts doesnt work so I like to explain that its not an issue to just use both as that is what I do.

[@torquebiker9959]

@@JanLunge That's interesting. Thank you for your detailed answer.

[@developmentcourse9540]

How do you manage to use two layouts comfortably? I managed to use QWERTY since my childhood --more than 20 years--, averaging 100 wpm. I've been trying Colemak, still averaging 80 wpm. AND.. I'm now struggling typing with QWERTY (I'm touch typing, btw)

[@JanLunge]

I use them in different styles of keyboards, qwerty on the normal row staggered and colemak dh on ortho linears or the ergo keyboards. For some reason it is just a different category of muscle memory and even after not using one of them for a month or two its no problem switching between them. But also you have to use both of them for some time to let your brain know you didnt just replace the old one but its still needed. Worked really well for me but because of this i cant use colemak dh on my macbook’s integrated keyboard…

[@SridharKatakam]

Did you consider Norman layout?

[@JanLunge]

I personally did not like the layout enough to make it into my list of options, also from the comparisons on the official site I'm surprised they don't compare it to Colemak DH which has a similar weighting for the key positions except for the index finger upwards position which is a bit more frequent that in Norman and I like it this way

[@mvargasmoran]

Very good, but I'm nowhere near switching layouts.

[@user-wh6sp6st8s]

where do you go to get Colmak DH on a Windows computer?

[@JanLunge]

I only add the layouts to my custom programmable keyboards usually. You can install colemak dh on windows directly with klc files or use autohotkey scripts github.com/ColemakMods/mod-dh

[@dominicmutzhas6002]

can you maybe link to your new layout for the ergodox? i found your neo layout but i really want to use colemak dh. I'm really curious to see what you did about ö,ä,ü !! I kinda dont want to make my oun layout because i find it kinda comlex and dont want to spend toooo much energy and time

[@JanLunge]

sure here you go configure.zsa.io/ergodox-ez/layouts/rDlj4/latest/1 I currently type the umlauts with alt+a alt+u etc with the eurokey layout and have no macros setup for this as I just use them rarely

[@dominicmutzhas6002]

@@JanLunge thanks for your answer

[@dominicmutzhas6002]

@@JanLungewait, do you use the layout that you linked to? i am asking because i cant find eurkey there

[@JanLunge]

@@dominicmutzhas6002 eurokey (eurkey.steffen.bruentjen.eu/layout.html) is the layout that is installed on the pc and then im using the linked ergodox layout on my keyboard i use the alt+a combinations for umlauts but you can also add this as a seperate key on yor ergodox config as a keypress with the right alt modifier

[@startobytes]

Hello, the problem I see with this layout is that I need the Umlaute (ä,ö,ü) for typing in German and I don't see how I could fix that or what layout I should use other than qwerty (DE Layout)

[@JanLunge]

Use the eurKey layout on the pc and a hardware programmable keyboard with colemak dh this way you can use alt+a for ä. This is how I use it but it does require a keyboard with a firmware like qmk or kmk for adjusting the keys on the keyboard

[@startobytes]

thanks for the help@@JanLunge

[@Mixail747]

7:30 How do you enable that on-screen keyboard layout?

[@JanLunge]

when you press escape you can search for the option "keymap mode" and set it to anything other than off, i then set "keymap layout" to colemak dh and "keymap style" to matrix to match my keyboard

[@Mixail747]

@@JanLunge There is even a split matrix mode, noice! Thanks!

[@quiricotursi3162]

Sorry for being a noob here, but which app is that? I mean, the one 2 5:30, for example.

[@JanLunge]

that is monkeytype.com which has a lot of customisable ui things to modify it to your liking eg. the keyboard viewer

[@trentseymore7385]

So, I know it's a long shot, but does anybody know how I might be able to use commack DH in a way that keeps the z on the left on a work computer? I found a pkl that I can get on my work computer, but it's only vanilla colemak, and I can't figure out how to edit it.

[@JanLunge]

i think the most failsafe way would be using a programmable keyboard with qmk and have the layout on the keyboard so you dont need to change any settings on the pc itself this way i use the pc with the us keyboard layout but my ergoboards all use colemak dh also you can modify any key on the keyboard so it is fully customizable

[@reykjavik9187]

As I live-long QWERTY layout user I feel really bad about myself typing at a speed of 55 WPM 😔.

[@Mojo_DK]

Have you tried the Noted layout?

[@JanLunge]

Layouts with umlauts on the base layer don’t work for me as i don’t type enough german for it to be useful. So no haven’t tried that one.

[@b25671]

Hi all, great video. I want to adjust my keyboard with a navagtion layer, how can I do this? - It's a regular windows keyboard - I'm looking for to change the caps-key ... > to a toggle for activating a navigation layer - so not holding the caps-key but tapping it. Can anyone get me started? Thanks in advance!

[@JanLunge]

I think on windows you would do that with autohotkey on capslock you set a variable and then define with that variable active hotkeys on the other keys. I haven’t worked much with ahk though

[@b25671]

@@JanLunge HI, thank you for the reply. I've come across the internet that ahk is a bit of a risk to use... Because possible malware abuses the active ahk program. Do you think this is a reasonable concern? Also, I might be willing to pay for quality software to create custom layers / functionality to a regular keyboard. You might have any suggestions? Thanks for the reply.

[@akarion9917]

I've used colemak-dh for nearly a month now and I hit 110 wpm on monkeytype english (default word list) and I average around 70 wpm otherwise

[@JanLunge]

Thats impressive for such a short time, was your typing speed at a similar level on qwerty? Thanks for sharing

[@akarion9917]

@@JanLunge the last time I used qwerty was 4 years ago. I was in intermediate school and I was pecking at the keyboard at 110 wpm, and I decided to switch layouts because I wanted to get faster. I've been touch typing in Dvorak for the past 4 years, and I've managed to get speeds up to 180 on 15 seconds and 230 on 10 words, and this might be because I have been playing piano for a long time and my fingers are quite agile. This month I decided to try colemak and see how it compares to Dvorak, and I'd say it's going pretty well, and I'm getting faster every day. I practice about half an hour to 45 minutes every day on keybr and monkeytype.

[@nizexlizzy]

Are you still using this layout?

[@JanLunge]

Yes and no regrets, it does exactly what I wanted it to. Also I still switch between colemak dh and qwerty on regular basis.

[@OneStepToday]

the fking monkeytype site doesnt even allow us to practise colemak DH or any other ones, i thought it would automatically change my keys from that site itself, but i guess we have to install or manually change shit to give colemak dh input ; the site doesn't allow free automatic practise of alternate keyboards.

[@Oswee]

Are you a tiling window manager + Tmux + Vim user? Curious how software shortcuts works for you. For example, Vim motions was developed with Qwerty in mind.

[@JanLunge]

i have my window manager shortcuts on another layer and dont use the hjkl vim navigation but just the arrowkeys i have mapped to a layer on the left hand. i might try remapping some vim keys in the future but currently im using the default bindings and as i mostly use the w or b keys for navigation and not the arrow keys it hasnt been much change for me i still use the normal j and k keys for up and down movements and didnt had any issues with that even when the j to move down is above the k key that moved up, but i think most of the vim functions are just placed randomly on the keyboard except the hjkl nav keys so just remembering the letters instead of the positions worked fine for me

[@Oswee]

@@JanLunge Got it. Thank you! It could be interesting to see your typical navigation workflow in this context. Mby idea for some video. :)

[@bienvenidovillabroza351]

Any halmakers here?

[@leerv.]

I'm giving it a whirl. Currently learning Colemak DH as in the video but lately starting to feel annoyed at reaching across for the inner column letters. To be fair, QWERTY has this problem too. Halmak mostly avoids that. On the other hand, there is basically no muscle memory from either of the two layouts I know that I can use, so it's like starting at level one all over again. Still, it's intersting and I intend to keep trying it.

[@tuananhdo1870]

@@leerv. how is your progress now

[@leerv.]

@@tuananhdo1870 I actually paused it and have been sticking with Colemak DH(m). I need to practice some more, so thank you for the question on my progress it reminded me!

[@alpacamale2909]

Why would I use something designed for Engllish when I speak 2 languages?

[@JanLunge]

It depends on which language you type more but for me it was also very important that a lot of coding related keywords are just english words so they worked better than with the layouts optimized for german for example.

[@alpacamale2909]

@@JanLunge it'd be fun trying to find what's the best language for qwerty. I bet it's polish.

[@alpacamale2909]

@@JanLunge I like that qwerty hates us all equally

[@logicallyaqua]

4:03

[@constantinosschinas4503]

and then you switch in a normal keyboard and you can't type i guess.

[@JanLunge]

actually as long as you keep using both from time to time you wont unlearn it. I switch to a laptop keyboard or a 60% from time to time and my typing speed is better than ever even on qwerty but i was never happy with typing fast on qwerty before as they do sometimes chnages some key spacings that really throw me off

[@wiegraf9009]

I just hunt and peck and it's fine

[@EduardoRodriguezRocks]

all people doing this spend years and are still underperforming

[@JanLunge]

Many people try different keyboard layouts not for the speed or easier workflow but because qwerty gave them joint pain or RSI because of its bad metrics when it comes to hand and finger movements. But yes a lot of people are looking to switch a keyboard layout because of typing speed and they will likely not find it with a new layout, this is not the goal of alternative keyboard layouts though we still measure our progress of switching a layout with our usual typing speed compared to the current typing speed on the new layout.

[@rsjrx]

This is what a .5x developer looks like. Focuses on learning multiple layouts, barely can type more than 50 words per minute, probably gets 0 done a day.

[@listeningwithangel]

where I can buy the Colemak DH?

[@WeirdBrainGoo]

The Colemak DH is a free keyboard layout. You can search for a youtube video that shows how to enable it. 🙂