• Angle was my invention, pretty much (I think). But it's an obvious one. Too bad so many people use ANSI keyboards which aren't as well suited for it.
• Wide was the work of several people, and it was done well before SteveP's time. There are minor variants, but the main principle is easy.
• DH-mod was SteveP's baby. I've made a less intrusive (imo) variant, so there's two to choose from now. I really like it.
Together, I call my ergo mod Colemak-CAW which stands for Colemak with CurlAngleWide mods. "Curl" is another name for the DH-mod, since it lets your fingers curl more naturally/relaxed than the straight home row does.
So, bigger on the inside, huh. Lessee... Typing Advancement – Row Displacement Increases Spaciousness (T.A.R.D.I.S.)? :-p
]]>I'd recommend giving Colemak a good hard try first, yes.
Have you considered your mod options yet? Check my signature topics if you're interested in knowing the possibilities. I can heartily recommend at least Extend! And if you have access to an ISO keyboard, Angle or AngleWide. For ANSI boards, Angle is more optional unless you're opting for a DH-mod flavor.
On a side note, if you make your own layout flavor, you're more on your own when it comes to implementations of other layout goodness. ;-)
]]>If you switch R and S, the main problem will be that words that contain FR will be more awkward to type. FR is quite a common pairing so that will happen a lot.
I know what you are saying though, I had a hard time with S too. Having bitten the bullet and accepted it though, it does eventually become rather pleasant, for example, words with the ST bigram (which are frequent).
]]>The older versions of Colemak, such as ASETION, were abandoned after careful consideration and much evaluation.
For the starting colemaker, the effect of efficient n-grams isn't always obvious as the typing hasn't reached full flow yet.
So while your version may seem more comfy to you now, I predict that you'll regret it in the long run. ;-)
[P.S.: FWIW, I'm left handed too. Go us, heh.]
]]>I offer this just as a note to anyone else who may be left-handed. I am truly brand-new to Colemak—I've only been using it for a week, and during that week I've done some shifting back and forth between it and other layouts, so I can really only claim to have done pure Colemak for about three days. I have no prior experience with touch typing, although like most journalists, I can do a fairly impressive hunt-and-peck. (I'm not sure how fast I actually am, but I clatter the keys loudly enough to fool most people.)
Reading around on this forum I discovered there was an older version of Colemak in which the 'r' and 's' keys were inverted, so the home row started 'asrt'. For some counterintuitive reason, the thing that's been bugging me the most is exactly that combination. It had occurred to me that it might be better for me if the 'r' and 's' were flipped—counterintuitive because one would think a left-hander would have less trouble with the ring finger on that hand than a right-hander. But to make a long story short, I created a keyboard layout that flipped that one element, and it's a lot more comfortable.
Could be it's just a personal idiosyncrasy. Your mileage may vary. But if you're left-handed and have this issue, it might be worth a try. I'll definitely stick with this. If you want to see the original discussion on the 'Old Colemak' that gave me the moral support I needed, here's the link:
https://forum.colemak.com/topic/93-a-ta … et-please/
Happy typing :)
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