Yes, it's been asked now and again. But I don't blame you for not finding it in the forum clutter. ;-)

MS have a policy of implementing keyboard layouts based on requests from nations. This has been a problem for people without a nation that are oppressed by the nation in control of the areas they live in, such as the Uighurs and Kurds. So the chances for getting Colemak in unless MS change that policy somewhat are hinging on the US government (or ANSI) becoming interested enough to include it in their recommendations as they did with the dvorak layout eventually – if I've understood this right. I may well not have. At any rate, no they're not very interested it seems.

We've had some chats with Michael Kaplan in MS who is deeply into the keyboard stuff, but I think we got off on the wrong foot. Not sure what he thinks of Colemak these days, but it's probably just a dust speck on his horizon like all the other alternative layouts. And he doesn't decide which layouts are accepted either (I think). He does however mention that for Colemak to be included in Windows there would at the very least have to be Colemak hardware. Well, there is now – don't know whether that matters though.

It is a real concern to some, like user Fox who might not be able to type Colemak on her exam because of IT limitations. So the MSKLC install or PKL don't solve everything.

Can you share that link?

That is rather bizarre. His only legitimate point is about the user being called "asdf" :-P

Wow, his reasoning to exclude it is that people are asking for it. Sound logic, sir.

I thought it was weird that there is no Colemak article on Wikipedia. What's the issue with that? It's not "original research" to say "this thing exists and here is some stuff about it."

I don't like the fact that this developer bases a lot of this blog entry on a single user..

And I never knew the colemak-article kept getting added and removed. Why would you keep on removing such an article?
There even is a article about colemak on the Dutch wikipedia!
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colemak

EDIT: just read the discussion about the deletion of the page, which was documented in 2008(!), over 7 years ago. It basicly comes down to: because there isn't any peer reviewed scientific research on this layout, it shouldn't be a wikepedia page. Not the best argument I've ever heard.

EDIT2: it's mildy ironic how a keyboard layout with several thousand users (how many exactly?) is not worth to be mentioned on wikepedia, but the guy who is making blogs about how stupid colemak is, IS mentioned on wikepedia. Only because he is a 'blogger' and 'guru', which are, in my humble opinion, not the most scientificly chosen titles.

Why do so many develop an acute and horrible case of aggressive stupidity when it comes to Kaplan? Think, people! You sound like religious bigots or something.

Kaplan works for Microsoft, among other things having made the Keyboard Layout Creator (but not being in charge of what layouts MS chooses to include by a long shot). He has a private blog (which isn't a MS blog by any definition). He's a Unicode guru, has a disability that he's written about, writes well and from the heart and does lots of really cool stuff (if you're a massive nerd who likes that brand of really cool stuff of course) so he's rightly famous in some circles for that; people do get on Wikipedia for that sort of thing. And thanks to some aggressive Colemak nuts bombing his private blog a few years back (sounding pretty much like you guys do now, a la "you're in charge (but he's not), you have to do what we want (but he doesn't) blah blah!" he's wary of aggressive Colemak nuts.

Pipe down guys. Honestly. And do your research properly before spewing swill, or just don't. Think about that you're sullying the name of what you love and making everything a lot more difficult. It's in fact people like you who made Kaplan take an unnecessarily negative stance towards the thing you love – and he is in fact fully entitled to that stance as a person! If you wish to convert him for some reason it certainly won't be by confirming his worst suspicions.

But yeah, it's sad that Colemak doesn't have an entry on Wikipedia. The first attempts ran afoul of some misunderstandings about the "new research rule" or whatever it's called. I'm no expert but it's about posting articles about a new product that isn't established yet, and making new claims. Maybe a new article could succeed now that Colemak is more of an established entity, but it'd have to be made according to the Wikipedia fine print by someone who can keep a level head and not throw out too much evangelizing. Definitely not by shouting and clashing.

That's not the other way around, that's exactly the way I too think it is. On the other hand, it kinda makes me want to make an Esperanto "locale" layout in return. ;-)

Anyone up for the challenge of publishing a sensible article without too tall claims? From what I gather, one needs to point to the fact that Colemak has been around for a while and is in use. Not to its proposed benefits, except where sources can be found. Those sources need not be better than, say, the ones in the Keyboard Layout article (and those should be included too).

Sorry, my friend, but I'm not up to it. Right now I'm trying to figure out how to use GitHub and that's all I can do. The last big challenge I tackled was learning your Curl-DH mod, you rascal you! ;-) Then I learnt and compiled a list of some new Extend shortcuts (I like that new trick of "Ext+6, ?<search string>, Ext+A+Spc"!). After GitHub hopefully gets conquered, I'll see what I can do about PKL...

Sure, ideally it should be someone with a publishing history on the Wikipedia, but it isn't witchcraft either. Getting an account there, reading up a bit on the rules and being generally well-behaved should get anyone a long way I hope. And not putting too much stock in how the last article fared – that's past history now. One should read up on that article's edit history of course!

Yes, well, seems. It's a long shot from hard science! And that's my point: The claims shouldn't be any taller than their backing allows. Enthusiastic pro-/diagnoses will be blown out of the waters.

Welcome Kiltannen! I made the switch last November-December and I will never go back. I had also tried Dvorak in the past, but found the transition too difficult. I highly recommend the Tarmak transition steps (https://forum.colemak.com/viewtopic.php?id=1858). It changes a few keys at a time to allow you to easily transition in steps. Also, DON'T change your keyboard caps. It's easier to learn by training your fingers and not your eyes.

Above we were talking about a dedicated article about Colemak on wikipedia.

Windows is not for learning! Colemak is similar to QWERTY, and there is no reason to include minimak, colemak, asset, norman, etc...
And, they split language layouts.

This has been mentioned before, but the dilemma is that nations apply to Microsoft for layouts, or rather, 'locales'. This has been a problem for ethnic groups without their own countries and under non-acceptant governments, such as the Uighurs (but it seems that Turkey did speak up for its Kurd populace?). So here in Norway, the Norwegian government has decided which Sápmi groups to apply for.

I think that ANSI at some point after deciding on a standard Dvorak layout, applied and got it accepted. But it's a bit of a mess since Dvorak isn't really a locale! So there's a bit of shoehorning involved.

This said, I agree that Microsoft should've included Colemak by now as it is a fair bit larger than any of its contestants and I should think not much smaller than Dvorak in practice now? (Hard to say though!) But I guess they're loath to do so as then the next twenty contestants will start clamoring. Linux includes just about everything and the kitchen sink so it's a right mess of personal peeves. Apple look to Linux with a critical eye but they're trying to be avantgarde and cool and Colemak is just that. ;-)