Colemak forum

Engram layout

dummy@example.com (binarybottle) — Sat, 23 May 2026 19:18:18 +0000

Hi — I'm the author of the Engram layout. After years of work, my open-access paper has just been published in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction: "Optimizing comfortable keyboard layouts using human typing preferences and language-dependent n-grams: the Engram Study" (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2026.2665409) describing a new approach to optimizing keyboard layouts in different languages.
Instead of assuming speed equals comfort (the paper shows speed explains only ~5.7% of preference variance, a poor proxy), I crowdsourced typing preference data from >500 people and used it to empirically derive ergonomics scoring criteria such as row separation, finger sequence, lateral stretch, and key preferences. I also validated which of Dvorak's original 1936 principles actually correlate with typing speed (spoiler: only 4 of 7 do).

These preferences drove multi-objective optimization over English and Spanish n-gram frequencies to produce new Engram-en and Engram-es layouts (https://engram-layouts.xyz/). All data, code, and layouts are fully open source. Please check out the article (and the Supplementary Material to see my Engram Halloween costume!). Happy to answer questions.

Cheers,
Arno
--
arnoklein.info

Colemak layout remap in Hyprland

dummy@example.com (VertingsXin) — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 14:30:36 +0000

I am using Hyprland on arch for the last 2 months. I recently switched to colemak-dh. I have custom kb_options as follows:

kb_options = caps:escape,ctrl:swap_lalt_lctl,altwin:swap_ralt_rwin

it basically makes my caps lock works as escape, swap my left alt and left ctrl, and make my right alt act as a windows key (since i do not have right win on my laptop, swap didn't swap it but just remapped it to windows)
but when i switched to colemak-dh, the right alt didn't work as the windows key anymore, when i checked on wev for the input being registered it showed
[ 16: wl_keyboard] modifiers: serial: 8923; group: 1

depressed: 00000080: Mod5

latched: 00000000

locked: 00000000

i've been trying for the last couple of hours to remap it back to windows key somehow, but i can't seem to find a solution. any help will be appreciated.

Removing the Caps->Backspace mod in XKB Colemak implementations

dummy@example.com (candrew) — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 01:42:14 +0000

Most people on the Colemak Discord were against this change, so I will not be going ahead with it.
If anyone else would like to pick this up, perhaps by offering two options in XKB with Caps Lock as Backspace and Caps Lock unchanged, they are more than welcome to.

Colemak in Ubuntu Without Caps Remap?

dummy@example.com (ghen) — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 21:42:42 +0000

The modern solution at the xkeyboard-layout level is `setxkbmap -option caps:capslock`.

BigBag newbie needs help with initial setup

dummy@example.com (Game9859) — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 11:51:15 +0000

Hi,

Note: Perhaps it might be better answer this one question instead of answering a thousand different questions of mine.

I used Colemak-DH fluently in the past but since now I use QWERTY because I use a laptop. I want the full BigBag experience with CAWS and Extend but don't want to mess up my old settings. What do I have to do? I am on Debian X11, so implementation is via xkb.

I have read on and on and have a few more newbie questions...

The section "## COLEMAK-DH ALIAS THE CURL ERGO MOD" is very, very confusing on https://dreymar.colemak.org/ergo-mods.html.

I want the full BigBag experience with Colemak-DH. The install notes on this page seem to suggest that I should have installed Colemak-DH layout somehow first before running the install script for the BigBag.

NOTE: These are ideal for most locale layouts, for instance. However, they overwrite and are overwritten by other layouts – even non-Colemak ones!

What does overwritten mean here? What's the effect of the overwrite? Like, changed mappings, `P` is where I expect `E` all of a sudden, etc, or what?

If you wish a "harder" solution, you can edit the xkb/symbols/colemak file, uncommenting the mod lines you want.
These are found in the xkb_symbols "cmk_ed_letters" partial, so they affect all locale layers, Tarmak etc. – but not non-Colemak layouts.

What is a locale layer? Is this a xkb feature?

If you wish a "harder" solution, you can edit the xkb/symbols/colemak file, uncommenting the mod lines you want.
These are found in the xkb_symbols "cmk_ed_letters" partial, so they affect all locale layers, Tarmak etc. – but not non-Colemak layouts.

I want my OLD current layout to stay safe and untouched and have the option to revert to it easily anytime while I am still learning and tweaking BigBag in case something goes wrong or I just need to get something done.

Please let me know if something is not clear. Any help is appreciated!

Colemak and an ergonomic keyboard

dummy@example.com (kie) — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 17:45:19 +0000

I hope that your hand recovers soon.
Yes, I also prioritise comfort; for me it's the combination of :
- Colemak layout
- thumb clusters
- orthogonal columns
- a split keyboard
- keyboard wells
that make all the difference.
I loved the keyboards that I made, but after some years they stopped working reliably (otherwise I would still be using them today).
Now that I can buy something similar, the time needed to build my own isn't worth it for me.

pinkyache said:

What happened to your funky keyboard?
The Kenesis looks good, I never commit properly to spend good money on a good keyboard and chair.

Open AI Chat's opinion and knowledge about Colemak

dummy@example.com (pinkyache) — Sun, 28 Sep 2025 06:58:26 +0000

Funny having a re-read of this. I asked gpt 5, about my left wrist contortion regarding the left handed stagger to see what the bot would conjure up. I then exclaimed something along the lines of why is this soo sucky? gpt 5 then went on to tell me the old one about Sholes designing Qwerty to slow down the typist etc etc. When I then corrected it with: that's debunked bollocks. The AI did agree. There's a problem with the damn thing being soo utterly agreeable at the moment.

Recently AI seems to have excelled itself on some problem solving tasks. So I am hoping that you might be able to put one to work on a difficult problem such as the keyboard layout or even completely redesigning input mechanisms. There's lots of skill required in prompting workloads. If you can prompt well for specific problems you can get it to do some good work for you.

Permutation problems are just so wild, you need a quantum computer to tackle them. AI seems to be doing much better at distribution problems these days. I have had two of my jobs replaced by AI so far. And yesterday I got it to script me something in minutes that would have taken me 1/2 a day in the past. There's certainly an angle for them here.

Typing From Thought (Not a Screen)

dummy@example.com (pinkyache) — Sun, 28 Sep 2025 06:33:47 +0000

I remember it kind of being the other way round. When copying prose, I went slower (it's quite an odd thing to do really, I hope it unconsciously has helped improve my spelling), when typing from my mind it felt a little more liberating and faster. But there's always the bottleneck of thinking speed. The reality is, that when I am just spitting words on the page, I can go relatively fast, but then thinking, editing and reformulating - everything gets slowed down anyway. It's great if you can get it out quick on a first draft or for instant messaging (that's a good way to practice too as it's likely more fun backing and forthing between friends). Remember speech is about 150 wpm (unless you are Italian or Spanish, where it's about 500 wpm). You might have a lightning fast brain where you think faster than you can talk or one like mine that crawls along like a tortoise.

It took me absolutely ages (as in years) to build up my WPM, I edged forward from 30 wpm to 80 wpm very, very slowly. I haven't bothered to practice typing over the last couple of years, and I have even gotten to the point where I probably couldn't even tell you which finger hits what key anymore! I occasionally fire up monkeytype where I burst at about 100 wpm on a good day. Don't forget the default for monkeytype are the common words in the English language, and while they are worth practising you'll inevitably be faster on that word set through natural repetition so it is is skewed.

I think I used dvorak7min/gtypist to learn. Or some other variant or fork of one of those. Gtypist laid on heavy punctuation and random capitalisation, that was a complete drag from what I remember when starting out. I shifted to software like Klavaro where I could paste in my own texts: alphabetical sentences, common words, bigrams, trigrams, news stories, books etc.

Try chat. You might find it's a little easier/faster/less restrictive.

I know when I am really going for it trying to type as fast as possible my brain feels like it can hardly breathe. The thought of edging beyond 120wpm or doing that for normal text entry just seems unfathomable.

How to integrate Colemak with a keyboard installed from Keyman?

dummy@example.com (DreymaR) — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 17:52:22 +0000

Once you enter the (paid?) world of Keyman, I believe there's few options. You could check if it plays well with the EPKL program for instance, but I kind of doubt it.

On a side note: I've wanted to make a SIL layout for EPKL for quite a while, but I haven't really needed it so it hasn't been done (yet). It'd use some different principles from Keyman, such as phonologically based dead keys.

Colemak remapping for Japanese IME, Pinyin etc.

dummy@example.com (Kaveh) — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 16:17:42 +0000

DreymaR said:

Of course, the registry hack would mess up your computer for other users so if that's your use case I'd understand.

Yep, pretty much what you guessed.

Adding Russian layout to EPKL

dummy@example.com (DreymaR) — Mon, 21 Jul 2025 12:58:33 +0000

So you don't want the Rulemak layout, which is based on the Colemak layout then? Fair enough.

The best way for you would be to make your own BaseLayout and a layout that points to it. To do this, why not use Rulemak as a starting point since it does have Kyrillic characters and whatnot.

Then, study this page:
https://github.com/DreymaR/BigBagKbdTri … er/Layouts

Tell me if you have problems.

Modification of Dead Key

dummy@example.com (DreymaR) — Sat, 31 May 2025 10:42:13 +0000

This has been asked at the Colemak Discord too. I started answering there, so I suggest we take any further disourse at the Disco!

( のvの) c[_]

Hungarian colemak layout

dummy@example.com (DreymaR) — Sat, 17 May 2025 09:37:54 +0000

I have a Hu locale variant in my BigBag. If you're on Windows, try it out with my EPKL program. If on Linux, the BigBag for XKB has it.

It uses a Wide ergonomic mod to make the locale keys more accessible, but it's useable without.

Learn Typing Skills of Any Colemak Layout

dummy@example.com (Fazal Zubair) — Sat, 17 May 2025 05:42:26 +0000

Big News for Colemak Enthusiasts!
We’ve officially launched full typing courses for Colemak layouts – including:

=> Vanilla Colemak (ANSI, ISO, Ortholinear)
=> Colemak DH (ANSI, ISO, Ortholinear)

With this, our platform becomes the first in the world to bring such a wide range of Colemak layouts together in one place—with dedicated, structured typing courses for each!

But this is just the beginning.
Unlike typical typing platforms, Ustaad Typing Academy is built on a vision—to support any keyboard layout and any language from around the world. ?

? Before sharing your thoughts or feedback, we kindly request you to explore our courses first. Your insight means a lot—but we believe it should come after experiencing what we’ve built. ?

?️ Check it out here: USTAAD Typing Academy

Let’s redefine typing—one layout at a time.

Created educational typing games for kids - Need Feedback

dummy@example.com (DreymaR) — Wed, 14 May 2025 20:36:31 +0000

Can confirm (using EPKL)! Congratulations, that's awesome! And those games play well too I think, using real quotes.

Now, the perfectionist in me would still love to see a couple more developments...
– Full-screen mode
– Fully keyboard-driven user interface

But for now: Yay, this is good news! And kudos for adding new games, too! Keep up the good work, guys.