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    Little Colemak findings: "ien" as in "science" and "friend"

    • Started by ckofy
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    • From: Chicago
    • Registered: 27-Apr-2016
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    I started to get taste of Colemak rolls. Sure I've noticed the "st" "rst" "io" "ar" "ra" "en" long time ago.
    But today's finding is "ien". It might be silly but I've noticed it just today while typed "science" followed by "friend" in exercise. It is so nice! ien ien ien ien ien ien ien

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    • From: Viken, Norway
    • Registered: 13-Dec-2006
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    You can type it ien and ien. ;-)

    *** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
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    • From: UK
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    There are also some quite nice non-home row ones:
    - "ft" e.g. in often
    - "un" e.g. in stun or tuna

    If you are using my DH mod, then I'd add "the" and "nds" are lovely trigrams!

    Last edited by stevep99 (08-Feb-2017 12:51:42)

    Using Colemak-DH with Seniply.

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    @steve99 can you remind me what finger you use for your mod-dh 'd' and 'v'

    both left index or middle and index?

    what was the argument for swapping the v and the d again?

    (i'm using dreymar version so have vd rather than dv)

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    bph said:

    @steve99 can you remind me what finger you use for your mod-dh 'd' and 'v'

    both left index or middle and index?

    what was the argument for swapping the v and the d again?

    (i'm using dreymar version so have vd rather than dv)

    D and V are both left index.

    With the left hand attacking the keyboard angle-mod style, the index finger naturally slides down from the home key (T) to the key left-and-below of T (i.e, the Qwerty C key). So, my argument is that this key is much superior to the V key and deserves a frequent letter, hence the D. This makes words which end -DS excellent to type. In fact typing DS is almost the same as TS.

    In other words, to me, the best keys are the ones highlighted in red:
    mod_dh_main.png

    Last edited by stevep99 (09-Feb-2017 10:40:32)

    Using Colemak-DH with Seniply.

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    The idea behind both DH mods (and a few others) is to rearrange index finger key placements without changing the de facto fingering of anything. A bit like the Angle mod.

    The argument for Steve's DH mod vs mine is whether you think the down-and-in positions are about as good as the down-and-out (haha!) ones. I do. That's on a normal staggered keyboard obviously; on those matrix boards the down-and-in positions are even worse than the inwards trench positions so Steve's mod is a no-brainer on those. But I don't like matrix keyboards anyway, unless they have finger curvature incorporated; even then, I prefer to work with my existing laptop keyboard etc.

    *** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
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    • From: Chicago
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    As I am the OP and this is the Experiences section, I'll tell a little about my experience with Colemak and Mods.
    I started with original vanilla Colemak and added Colemak layout as input language in Windows. Then I discovered PKL and found out that it is much more convenient to use it than to install new input language in each new computer. I'm also using rulemak and it is easier to do that via PKL. Remote desktop works good as well, just need to run PKL on both computers.
    Then, DreymaR convinced me to try Angle-Wide mod, and that finally reconcile me with the standard staggered keyboard. I'm using ANSI keyboard, it is hard to find ISO  keyboard in US, honestly in 15 years I haven't seen a single one. But even moving Z and / inward is not a big deal, they are used quite rare and I did not have problems with learning their new position. What is good about Angle-Wide at ANSI keyboard is the symmetrical and easy to access position of Shifts.
    I also have ortholinear keyboards at home (Ergodox and Planck) and using them sometimes, although not so often as the standard ones.  These ortholinear keyboards use the standard position of Z, /, and ', and I'm switching easily from Angle(Z)Wide to regular and back.
    Regarding DH mods. I never felt the need to use them as I'm quite comfortable with the original DH position, but I definitely see the point typing "the" and "he" (and "ing") all day long. While "he" and "ing" are my fastest grams and "h" is a fastest key. :)
    I might be ready to try DH mod now and my choice will be the Steve's DH mod just because of its optimization for ortholinear keyboards. I'm still planning to use to use Ergodox as my daily driver in future. Without staggering, D in place of V and H in place of M looks much better then D in place of B and H in place of K.

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    Best of luck with that, ckofy! I'm sure you'll be happy with the mod, even if it confuses you a little at first. ;-) It only took me a couple of weeks to feel fairly confident again. And yes, some n-grams are far more comfy now.

    Good point about the LShift with Angle-Z! It's in fact somewhat of a selling point. I'll see if I can use it.

    *** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
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    Thank you DreymaR! I appresiate your contribution, you are the soul of this forum.

    Last edited by ckofy (10-Feb-2017 15:25:52)
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    DH mod is great! I have to admit that. After just several hours of training I'm typing with almost no errors and just about 5 wpm slower.
    Index fingers feel great relief. Most awkward words for now are: home, them, hand, had. But new "the" and "ing" flies out already. Reliefs of the day are: the, going, thing.
    "me" is now typed like "he" before, but I never realized that letter "m" is actually quite rare in English. It is sure happens rarer than "h" and "d" and feels like it is rarer than "g" (while it is actually not :)) Anyway the classic Colemak D and H position is quite good, so putting G and M which are more frequent than V and K looks reasonable. What is about B in former G position, this is no-brainer, I got used to it already.

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    ckofy said:

    DH mod is great! I have to admit that. After just several hours of training I'm typing with almost no errors and just about 5 wpm slower.
    Index fingers feel great relief. Most awkward words for now are: home, them, hand, had. But new "the" and "ing" flies out already. Reliefs of the day are: the, going, thing.
    "me" is now typed like "he" before, but I never realized that letter "m" is actually quite rare in English. It is sure happens rarer than "h" and "d" and feels like it is rarer than "g" (while it is actually not :)) Anyway the classic Colemak D and H position is quite good, so putting G and M which are more frequent than V and K looks reasonable. What is about B in former G position, this is no-brainer, I got used to it already.

    Glad to hear about your positive experience, ckofy!

    The M is the only key I had slight misgivings about, but is easily outweighed by having the H in the far superior position. So many bigrams/trigrams are improved, as you have found! You are right about "ing", even though the G is in the central column, it's somehow is easier to access it when the previous key was on the other side, making "ing" quite comfortable. M and G have similar frequencies (around 2-3%), which is about right for centre column keys. I found B being on the top row took a while to get used to, but it certainly beats having it in the default (non-angle-mod) position!

    Last edited by stevep99 (12-Feb-2017 14:00:53)

    Using Colemak-DH with Seniply.

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