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OK, I'm going ColemakDH

  • Started by acarlow
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I'm a reasonably fast typist (90-100 WPM) on qwerty and started my transition a couple days ago to ColemakDH using ANSI keyboards.  I've opted for the angle mod with 'Z' in the middle of the bottom row and the h<->m switch.  Currently, I'm getting around 20-30 WPM on 10fast random words test.  I have no experience with other layouts so I have no bias towards any (other than muscle memory on qwerty, obviously.)

Any advice or words of wisdom for a newbie?

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Just exercise every day and be patient.

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Welcome to the sweetness of Colemak-DH typing! ^_^

Any thoughts on why you prefer the Hm switch over Hk? I'm thinking about them these days, so any input is good.

I do feel these days that the down-and-in stretch may feel ever so slightly better than the down-and-out stretch I use for DH. So if I were totally free I'd prefer that on the left hand. However, the Dvbg mod messes up ZXCV which I don't quite like. On the right hand, I quite strongly feel that M deserves better than to be uprooted into the middle. I think that spot is quite perfect for K in my experience.

Bear in mind that you may learn Colemak-DH with Tarmak transitions should you wish for a smoother ride.

As for other tips, in my Big Bag I suggest taking a look at Amphetype and/or Typing Of The Dead. ;-)

Last edited by DreymaR (28-Apr-2017 08:46:59)

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acarlow said:

I've opted for the angle mod with 'Z' in the middle of the bottom row and the h<->m switch.  Currently, I'm getting around 20-30 WPM on 10fast random words test.

Congratulations, an excellent choice if I may say so!  The Z-in-the-middle option is a reasonable compromise for ANSI boards.

DreymaR said:

However, the Dvbg mod messes up ZXCV which I don't quite like.

I think as seasoned angle-mod users we sometimes forget that the angle mod is quite a significant change for newcomers. After all, if you are switching direct to DH from a non-angle-mod configuration, the choice is between messing up Z,X,C or messing up Z,X,C,V !!

Using Colemak-DH with Seniply.

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No Steve, I don't feel that's the case at all. The Angle mod done properly moves all the important lower-left-hand keys one step to the left, therefore changing nothing besides the wrist angle! The ANSI Angle-Z mod is a compromise because those keyboards don't have the spare key to the left; it isn't so bad only because Z is quite rare and Ctrl+Z a separate shortcut. Inserting the D between C and V changes the Cut/Copy/Paste block which belongs together mentally, so it's a much more intrusive step.

Even considering typing only, the insertion of D between C and V should be more dramatic than the pure wrist angle change.

Calling the Angle mod a significant change for newcomers is a bit of an overstatement I think. I think it's pretty much one of the smallest possible changes you can benefit from. I've had my wife type on my modded laptop without even noticing the Angle mod! Then again, she isn't an accomplished touch typist and my colleague who is one had to struggle a bit before typing with the Angle mod. But overall it's learnt very quickly and easily compared to most of the other stuff we're advocating. The Wide mod may be even simpler, but the Angle mod is more beneficial I believe (unless you have a spacebar that's too long).

Last edited by DreymaR (28-Apr-2017 13:05:42)

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I've tried AngeWide mod applied to the standard Colemak before moving to DH mod. It took me longer to adopt to the new angle than it took later to get used to the new letters position.
I look to the ZXCV issue from different angle.
In case of Steve's DH mod, V remains at the same key as in qwerty. And it is still at the same finger. So, I look to that as for the standard keyboard and DvbgHm mod it is messing up ZXC, and for the DbgHk mod (and Angle mod with no DH mod) it is messing up ZXCV. At least that was like that for me, I had relieve and less errors in Ctrl-V usage when I had V moved back to its qwerty-Colemak position. Because I often press shortcuts not in touch typing hands position but while glancing to the keyboard.
Regarding the M in the central column in home row. I do not think that two central columns in the home row are so bad that only less frequent K deserves to be placed there. This position is actually easy to find. I never have problem with misspressing the keys located in qwerty's GH position while touch typing. From that point, putting D and H in the Colemak in the center of home row is good (and we have 10 most frequent English letters all in home row now). This is the HE bigram that spoils everything. But central columns home row positions are still reasonably good and easy to find. Putting G and M there is a good move IMO. ME bigram is not as frequent as HE and so less damaging, but M is still easy to touch-type. It is my opinion.

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Tony_VN said:

Just exercise every day and be patient.

Thanks for the encouragement.  I should probably apply that to other things as well...

DreymaR said:

Any thoughts on why you prefer the Hm switch over Hk? I'm thinking about them these days, so any input is good.

Well to be honest, I was swayed by the marketing material :-)  Having no experience in changing keyboard layouts, I figured to just go with the numbers presented and it seems according to the numbers presented that there is a small improvement with Hm.  I could have gone either way.  That said, I'm really liking the H position when typing "he" bigrams. It was easily the first muscle memory one I acquired.

However, the Dvbg mod messes up ZXCV which I don't quite like

Perhaps it's just me but I'm not at all bothered by this and the D position feels very comfortable.  I don't use copy and paste enough that it matters to me.  V staying in qwerty position is working out nicely. Of course G maintaining qwerty position is great and B stretching up instead of stretching down a la qwerty is, for me, mentally very similar.

Bear in mind that you may learn Colemak-DH with Tarmak transitions should you wish for a smoother ride.

This was an interesting thought, but the trouble of manipulating layouts in software amongst the OSs basically discouraged me from doing so.  I wasn't too worried about going cold turkey so I just went for it.

As for other tips, in my Big Bag I suggest taking a look at Amphetype and/or Typing Of The Dead. ;-)

Amphetype looks very interesting and I will be starting with that shortly.  Didn't know about Typing of the Dead and will be investigating that shortly.

Calling the Angle mod a significant change for newcomers is a bit of an overstatement I think

I think DreymaR's comment is true for me in the sense that while it was very odd at first, I got accustomed to it surprisingly quickly.
It was a bit weird for a couple days, but all of sudden I've noticed that when I switch to qwerty my left hand is misplaced!  I guess I've already gotten accustomed to the new wrist position.  It certainly feels quite natural now. 

ckofy said:

I look to the ZXCV issue from different angle....

For what it's worth, my current feelings are basically mirrored with everything ckofy has said regarding ZXCV and Hm.  Of course, as time goes that may change.  We shall see.

Thanks for everyone's advice thus far!

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Ok, so here was my first "problem".  It is a technical one.  I use LastPass with a YubiKey which masquerades as a keyboard.  Apparently, when I have the Colemak layout enabled in Windows and OSX (Not sure about Linux yet) the YubiKey authentication fails.  So, I have to temporarily switch to qwerty.  I mention this because others might run into this issue.

Also, the problem of setting a layout for Windows and Mac (never mind Linux!) is I think a big barrier to entry for most.  I'm an IT pro by trade so it's not really an issue for me (though it is an annoyance!), but let's face it the average Joe/Jane isn't likely going to go through the effort of Downloading MS Layout Creator, Ukelele etc. and modifying things.

Speaking of the MS Layout tool...Uh, well that will be a complete non-starter for most because it has a bug that prevents it's use on modern versions of windows unless it is installed in a path with no spaces (and the default path in the installer has plenty of them!)  I had to dig for a while to discover the solution.  I would recommend a note on the ModDH page discuss that.

And Ukelele for OSX ... well lets just say I couldn't get my "bundle" to work.  So then I tried just installing the plain layout file -- and that didn't work -- until I rebooted.  But even then I see multiple entries for my custom layout in System Settings and only one of them works and, well, UGH!  Imagine a regular user going though that.  They just won't I think.

And now Linux (Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, specifically) -- well I did look at the Bag of Tricks but the help wasn't totally clear about how to set the DH mode I wanted. I kind of figured out the "short" syntax but I couldn't figure out how to get the angle mod included.  Might have been just me, but I gave up.  I then decided to try the layouts and the generator from the ModDH site.  It was a fail -- the left arrow no longer worked.  Might just be a bug in the generator or Ubuntu but I thought there might be a better/safer way so I looked at the /usr/share/X11/..../symbols/us file and noticed the colemak entry there.  I just copied those lines in the file and made a new entry called colemak-dh and edited the few lines needed to change from straight colemak to my version of the DH mod.  It was pretty simple.  But again, not something a regular user would do.  Of course, this only solves the problem in XWindows, not the console.  I'm not usually at a regular console, so I'll probably just ignore that for now.  And even with this I still have to use the setxkb... whatever command (on my Mac now so not sure what it is at the moment).  Of course, we can just assume a Linux user is technical enough but, that might not always be the case.

I wonder how hard it would be to at least get the ModDH layouts into upstream Debian or Ubuntu.  Of course the first problem is that there are too many variants and the devs would wonder why there isn't just one.  This is perhaps the biggest problem for future adopters -- it means that it will likely never be included in the OSs.  Sad, but true. 

Well enough of my newb ranting.  Feel free to comment/challenge/correct or otherwise educate me :-)

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I may speak only for Windows as I not tried to install Colemak DH at Linux and I am not a Mac user.
I did play with installing new layouts in Windows and with MS Layout Creator, and my opinion is that it will be better to do not mess up with OS layouts and use key remappers like PKL or programmable keyboards. Leave OS layout in qwerty as the only option. Qwerty is so tightly intermingled with OS that it is almost impossible to remove it completely, and this is actually not required, we just need to send correct scan codes to key presses, which is PKL doing great and programmable keyboards even better.
Than you do not need to have your layout defined in OS and no installation troubles ever appear.
Colemak DH is a schism, and it will be hard to introduce it in Linux even because it is using Angle mod which is looking differently at ISO and ANSI keyboards.
IMO, to make Colemak DH mod a "commercial product" it should go the Workman way: have a name not resembling to Colemak (even though it is repeating Colemak for 75%), and have the only version applicable to the staggered ANSI keyboard.

Last edited by ckofy (29-Apr-2017 05:59:36)
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DreymaR said:

The Angle mod done properly moves all the important lower-left-hand keys one step to the left, therefore changing nothing besides the wrist angle!

I guess people's experience varies, but I resisted the angle mod initially and only eventually applied in conjunction with my DH mod. I found it rather hard to adapt to, especially the C. This is probably as I hadn't been using my middle finger for it previously, so it was effectively a changed finger. But that's the thing: for those who are experienced in using a well-trained, traditional typing technique, it may just be applying the improved wrist angle as you suggest... but, I would suggest, most people aren't in that category. The poor design of the standard keyboards encourages people do all sorts of non-standard and ad-hoc things, and that means changing the physical keys positions ZXCV can be quite tricky to relearn, even though it's worthwhile in the end.

In fact I'd say there is a case to argue that "Dvbg" should actually be called "zxcdbg" and "Dbg" should be called "zxcvdbg". From the perspective of a newcomer, that's how I imagine I'd see it. Obviously for those who are familiar with the angle mod already, "Dbg" represents the more simple change, but my reason for still wanting to promote the "Dvbg" option primarily, is that I think it's more natural choice for angle-mod and DH newcomers.

Regarding the right hand side though, I would acknowledge the M position is my least favourite thing about Mod-DH. I think Hm, Hk or even Hmk are all decent choices. That said, it's a minor issue in the grand scheme of things - M is not much more frequent than G and no-one complains about the G position! And I do love my H position so it all seems worthwhile.

Last edited by stevep99 (29-Apr-2017 12:15:00)

Using Colemak-DH with Seniply.

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acarlow said:

I use LastPass with a YubiKey which masquerades as a keyboard.

I'm not sure how Yubi key works, but could it be put in series with a hardware USB-USB remapper?

acarlow said:

Speaking of the MS Layout tool...Uh, well that will be a complete non-starter for most because it has a bug that prevents it's use on modern versions of windows unless it is installed in a path with no spaces (and the default path in the installer has plenty of them!)

I'm not sure I undestand what this issue is... but then, I haven't been using Windows much lately. As I recall, loading the .klc in and generating the exe produces an installer that worked OK in Windows last time I tested it. There again, as ckofy says, it's probably easier to just use AHK for PKL...

acarlow said:

I wonder how hard it would be to at least get the ModDH layouts into upstream Debian or Ubuntu.  Of course the first problem is that there are too many variants and the devs would wonder why there isn't just one.  This is perhaps the biggest problem for future adopters -- it means that it will likely never be included in the OSs.  Sad, but true.

Yeah, like any open source project, it immediately splits into many variations. I think the best solution in theory would be to make it easier for people to define arbitrary layouts as simply as possible. Having a limited set of options you can choose from is always going to be too restrictive, especially when it comes to all the other bells and whistles which I now find to be essential, e.g. the Extend layer.

Last edited by stevep99 (29-Apr-2017 12:16:21)

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stevep99 said:

That said, it's a minor issue in the grand scheme of things - M is not much more frequent than G and no-one complains about the G position!

G is actually improved, at least for ING, which is very frequent. For M this is all just because of E position, whatever letter would be in former H position, it still forms bigram with E.  But ME is way less frequent than HE, and MY is even improved. I understand that KE even less frequent. But the major problem for mass adoption of both DH mods is the Angle mod, not the central keys rotation. As the qwerty's B position is less favorable by all means, removing angle mode from DvbgHm will move V in that bad position, but removing angle mode from DbgHk will move D to that position.Than, if to use sdothum's variant of DH mod with swapped V and B (DvgHm), B returns it its original position. This layout can be comfortably used without angle mod as it H is in very good position and D and V are in quite good positions, the only disadvantage is V in the top row.

Last edited by ckofy (30-Apr-2017 04:03:53)
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ckofy said:

But the major problem for mass adoption of both DH mods is the Angle mod, not the central keys rotation. As the qwerty's B position is less favorable by all means, removing angle mode from DvbgHm will move V in that bad position, but removing angle mode from DbgHk will move D to that position.Than, if to use sdothum's variant of DH mod with swapped V and B (DvgHm), B returns it its original position. This layout can be comfortably used without angle mod as it H is in very good position and D and V are in quite good positions, the only disadvantage is V in the top row.

Yeah, the angle mod is problematic for mass adoption, especially as the keyboard-geek community tends to like small ANSI keyboards.

Actually, in sdothum's version, the keyboard is a matrix type, so the B position is actually mid-way between the standard B and V positions, so I'd say those two letters have equal "claim" to that spot.

For people who want to use an ANSI board and are against applying the angle mod, there is always the Dpg option.

curl_dpghm_ansi.png

For me the main problem with this is it doesn't fix the B. The D is also not ideal (...but still better than default Colemak). Because it doesn't rely on the angle mod though, perhaps this variant would stand more chance - although I don't know of anyone actually using it. In the end, it just means there is yet another option to choose from! That's why I'd sooner the see the day where changing to an arbitrary layout on all OS's was a trivial task - for example but just dropping a config file in folder - rather than trying to get all the variants supported.

Last edited by stevep99 (30-Apr-2017 15:10:49)

Using Colemak-DH with Seniply.

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I did not know about the Dpg option, yes, it looks good for the standard board, and zxcv block is untouched.
Anyway, we all agree that all these mods are just variations of Colemak which trying to fix the main complain regarding its central columns position of D and H. All these mods are keeping major traits of Colemak, unlike the Workman where "the child was poured out with the bathwater".
So Colemak may serve as an "entry drug". It is quite well known and advertized and included in most operating systems, who knows, may be we will see the day when it will hit Windows :). People who wants to improve their Colemak experience may migrate to their DH mod of choice with minimal relearning time. It is much faster and smarter to do than going someware else if DH is your only concern. I went this way, I rejected the value and need of DH mod at first, but accepted it eventually, and full relearning to get the initial speed took 2 weeks, while during these two weeks the speed was dropped just for 5-7 WPM. BTW, variants of Dvorak fixing its major issues are also exists and serve the similar purpose (google for Algernon's ADORE, while he might went too far in his modifications out of original Dvorak).

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Interesting discussion y'all.  Keep it going.

-----

Thoughts on my own progress after one week:

1) This feels like slow going!
2) My accuracy really sucks, even trying to go slow. 80-85% usually.  I was 98-99% accurate on qwerty.
3) I find that R, U, L and I are my worst keys.
4) I really like typing "he" and "the" and anything containing them. Vast improvement over the qwerty position.
5) "ing" is also rather nice as is "ould".
6) I find I keep typing qwerty keys when under pressure, i.e. TypeRacer.
7) 10FastFinger speeds are in the low to mid 30's.

-----

I read in the Dvorak wiki that the bottom row keys are supposed to be harder to type than the top row -- My hands tell me the opposite.

-----

Here's an interesting post on reddit where a Dvorak 100 wpm typist is switching to Colemak due to right hand soreness:

https://www.reddit.com/r/dvorak/comment … nd_100wpm/

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This is an interesting discourse indeed! :-)

Agh, I don't like having even two DH-mod variants, let alone more (I don't think Dpg is good enough)! But I'm not happy about moving the M to the dethroned trench position, at the very least. M is a fairly common letter (≈2.6% in English, according to the Cornell page)! Regarding V I may be slightly swayed as I see that many have a different experience of it from mine (as I was very accustomed to the pure Angle mod beforehand). I do like the thought of keeping the not-too-common V (≈1.1%) just a little more out of the way.

It seems to me that the best mod in total may be DvbgHk on a staggered board. However, there's still the issue of non-staggered boards, which is irking. But at least, if we could harmonize the left side of the board something would be gained. My love of symmetry shouldn't get in the way of efficiency!

On the flip side of things... if I go to the step of moving K to the home row, M to the K, and H to the M position... that'll keep M in its original position when using a Wide mod! :-D Again, we have a key which would move by one standard but not by another, much like the V on the left hand. The cost is one more key moved, like in SteveP's current mod. But the benefit would be a better M position (on most boards) which it deserves.

On a staggered board at least, the Colemak K position really feels a lot better than the Colemak H position! And the M is a lot more common than K (2.6% vs 0.7%).

Might we after all be able to agree on a DvbgHmk mod as a common standard, you think? It'd be so awesome if we could sell one single DH-mod together.

 q  w  F  P  B  J  L  U  Y  ; 
  a  R  S  T  g  K  N  E  I  O     The Colemak-Curl(DvbgHmk) layout
 z  x  c  D  V  _  M  H 
 q  w  F  P  B  J  L  U  Y  ; 
  a  R  S  T  g  K  N  E  I  O     The Colemak-Curl(DvbgHmk) ANSI-Z layout
    x  c  D  V  Z  M  H 

SteveP said that this changes 3 right-hand keys from Colemak instead of 2. I think the more important point is changes from QWERTY. The above mod changes 3 keys from QWERTY positions (disregarding the Wide mod argument above), like SteveP's current mod does. That's one more than my current mod and two more than standard Colemak. I guess it's an acceptable price to pay for this mod, after all.

I do realize that matrix boarders would prefer M-in-the-middle. But after all they're a minority and I'm not sure the lower position is that bad on a matrix board – is it? Anyway, the benefits of having one main DH-mod would be tangible and if we mentioned variants of it as minor ones that'd be okay. That's how Tarmak works now: There's one Tarmak, and then some historical variants for the interested.

One somewhat ugly consequence of Dvbg is the splitting up of the XCV cut/copy/paste block, as repeatedly mentioned. What I'm primarily worried about with that, is Extend. With the plain Angle mod, Extend will just follow that. With this Angle-ZXCDV mod, the Extend cut/copy/paste keys should follow suit and it gets quite messy with the left mouse button between Copy and Paste. Argh. ;-)

Last edited by DreymaR (09-May-2017 16:37:45)

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DreymaR said:

Tell me more, please! What is unclear, and how may I improve it?

So, regarding the bag of tricks:

setxkb.sh
  • Where does the list of options for "-m" come from? What is meant by model?

  • Where is the list of options for "-l"? What is meant by layout?

  • What do the various options for the "-o" switch mean?

  • Is "ShortStr" in lieu of other options?

  • I have no real idea what "DbgHk" and "DvbgHm" mean -- there has got to be a better way of describing these mod layouts that is more obvious to the beginner.

  • Is there a setting for this layout:
    Colemak DH angle-x

I think that lists most of my confusion when I first tried it. I certainly don't want to imply a lack of appreciation for your effort!

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DreymaR said:

It seems to me that the best mod in total may be DvbgHk on a staggered board. However, there's still the issue of non-staggered boards, which is irking.

I think the same. But columnar and ortholinear boards becoming more popular among keyboard enthusiasts who are interesting in alternative layouts most.
(I am typing this using my Planck now :) )

DreymaR said:

Might we after all be able to agree on a DvbgHkm mod as a common standard, you think? It'd be so awesome if we could sell one single DH-mod together.

 q  w  F  P  B  J  L  U  Y  ; 
  a  R  S  T  g  K  N  E  I  O     The Colemak-Curl(DvbgHkm) layout
 z  x  c  D  V  _  M  H 
 q  w  F  P  B  J  L  U  Y  ; 
  a  R  S  T  g  K  N  E  I  O     The Colemak-Curl(DvbgHkm) ANSI-Z layout
    x  c  D  V  Z  M  H 

This is interesting idea! Seems like not the new one, but I hear it for the first time. So basically it is swapping M and K in the Steve's DH mod. This may work. As I told already, whatever letter would land in qwerty's H position, it will have an awkward stretch with colemak's E. So K might be the best candidate for that position. The only disadvantage in the M new position is that the MY become more stretchy, but IMO it is not worst than in standard Colemak.

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acarlow said:
DreymaR said:

Tell me more, please! What is unclear, and how may I improve it?

  • Where does the list of options for "-m" come from? What is meant by model?

  • Where is the list of options for "-l"? What is meant by layout?

  • What do the various options for the "-o" switch mean?

  • Is "ShortStr" in lieu of other options?

Thanks for the feedback, it is much appreciated! I see that XKB is confusing and full of terrors for the newcomer. I wrote something to flesh out the already too long Big Bag for XKB topic (in chapter 6.2 which is about configuration, and a new chapter 6.3 about XKB terms); let me know if any of that is helpful!

As for the Curl-DH terminology I've found it necessary to invent a way of discussing its variants. DbgHk which is my current variant (although I'm trying a new one as we type!) changes the keys DBGHK from Angle-modded Colemak; SteveP99's DvbgHm variant keeps the V key in its unmodded position and moves M instead of K. I think we may shortly agree on a default (DvbgHmk) to end the confusion. Maybe you'll want to use that? :-) It's not quite implemented yet though, I'm afraid, so stay posted.

As I say in my topic, it's not entirely simple to choose DH mods in my XKB implementation... yet. The variant schism being one of the reasons for that. If you want a US layout and not any locale variants, then you can quite simply choose the "English (Colemak[eD], Curl-Dvbg/Hm ergo)" in the GUI settings or "us(cmk_ed_dvbghm)" as your layout with setxkb(map). Bear in mind that you'll have to choose an Angle mod with the DH-mods, so in your case you'll want Angle-Z.

The setxkb shortstring for an ANSI board with Steve's DH-mod would be '4v' or '4vw' for non-Wide vs Wide mods. :-)

Last edited by DreymaR (09-May-2017 16:38:51)

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Progress Update:

So it's been 3-4 weeks since I embarked on my Colemak-DH journey and I've made slow steady progress.  Currently I get about 50 WPM in Amphetype (using Melville's 'Typee' -- great read by the way) and around 60 WPM in typeracer.  I used keybr extensively until last week.

Interestingly, I seem to be slower when typing my own material however.  It still isn't what I would call "natural".  It seems there is some kind of context shift that occurs when I'm retyping something I'm seeing versus typing something that I'm thinking.

My worst letters (accuracy) now are 'v' (I am constantly typing 'd' for 'v' unless I really think about it), 'f', 'u' and 'b'.  Accuracies for all those letters are sub 95% (Amphetype) and a pitiful 87% for 'v'.

I think that I am probably typing too fast, and find that a string of short easy words encourages this but then as soon as the harder stuff pops up I try to keep that pace and accuracy plummets.  My goal for this week is a steady pace and higher accuracy.  Maybe I should give keybr.com another round.

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50wpm is well within the "comfort zone", it should be feeling pretty good already, despite the errors.

It's funny that V should be a problem, as it's unmoved from its Qwerty location. But then, I remember having some trouble with keys which hadn't moved when I learned too - the relearning process must have all sorts of subtle disruptive effects.

Last edited by stevep99 (18-May-2017 13:23:25)

Using Colemak-DH with Seniply.

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acarlow: Are you using the new Curl(DH) mod now? With HMK moved from Colemak positions?

If you come from moving V with the other keys in the Angle mod, moving V back to its unmodded position is every bit as confusing as any other key movement. To me, at least.

I've seen that my typing efficiency after a switch varies a lot with context. I think that when training with Amphetype, I learn to type effortlessly with Amphetype so it becomes a kind of "gestalt". When typing in other contexts, I may fall back to my previous layout "gestalts" at first. The Amphetype training is certainly useful, but it may take a little while to get used to switching contexts. :-)

Last edited by DreymaR (17-May-2017 19:45:13)

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DreymaR said:

Are you using the new Curl(DH) mod now? With HMK moved from Colemak positions?

Sorry, I'm still totally confused about the naming of the variations. I never used standard Colemak and don't know off the top of my head what the difference is.  I would humbly submit that the naming schemes are not useful to those who start directly with the DH mod because they seem to presuppose knowledge of standard Colemak.  Perhaps if they were named on what their positions actually "are" as opposed to which letters had been shifted it would make more sense.  Of course, if you believe that most of the users would be coming from standard Colemak maybe it makes sense.  Just bear in mind they really are totally opaque names for someone such as myself who never learned standard Colemak.

To answer your question -> My middle row is: [A R S T || G M || N E I O '], and my bottom row is: ["Shift" X C D || V (Z) K || H < > /] on an ANSI board.

If you come from moving V with the other keys in the Angle mod, moving V back to its unmodded position is every bit as confusing as any other key movement. To me, at least.

Yes, I concur. It certainly seems that the insertion of the letter 'D' between 'C' and 'V' is confusing to muscle memory.  since I'm using the same fingers for 'X' and 'C', even though their shifted left one position, my fingers expect 'V' to have shifted as well. In other words, it seems there is no benefit to keeping the QWERTY position of 'V' because from a fingering standpoint it is more akin to the position of QWERTY 'B' if one is using the angle mod as I am.  In time I'm sure it will come more naturally, but it is somewhat surprising to me that a letter that didn't move from QWERTY would be so problematic.  Of course, If I wasn't using the angle or "curl" mod I imagine it would have been perfectly natural.  I'm very comfortable though with the angle mod position so I will just keep fighting it out until 'V' submits.

I've seen that my typing efficiency after a switch varies a lot with context.

Yes, this seems very much to be the case with me.  The hardest part of the transition will definitely be the actual creation of my own content rather than just retyping what I'm reading.  it's almost as if my brain power is consumed with content creation and expects the fingers to be on auto-pilot which at this point is really just an abomination of QWERTY/Colemak and God knows what else.  Re-typing things I am looking at requires no creative energy and thus all my faculties are available to concentrate on correct typing.

I'm finding the way my brain is adapting to this rather fascinating.  It would be wonderful if Amphetype or something similar could aggregate all users' data so that layout creators had better hard data on the specific difficulties of transition and could use that in the creation of their layouts.

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I'm having the same experience that retyping something I see on the screen is much easier and faster, than typing my own thoughts. Some people report opposite. It might depends of personal traits.
While discussing in your thread, we came up with unified Mod-DH layout, which is combination of Steve's Mod-DH (which you are currently using), and DreymaR's Mod-DH. Position of M is the major difference between these two mods. Difference of unified layout with your current layout is swapped M and K. Benefits: eliminating lateral stretch for ME bigram (the major complain to the original Colemak having H in the central position, and so uncomfortable stretch for HE bigram, second most frequent in English). Also the K and M remains in their qwerty rows.
Check the https://colemakmods.github.io/mod-dh/ , Steve already updated the page. This is up to you which Mod to use, but you may give it a try because you did not went too far in learning.
Personally, for me this is fourth modification within a year. I went through Colemak, Angle(Z)Wide applied to Colemak, Mod-DH, and now using unified Mod-DH.

Last edited by ckofy (18-May-2017 04:27:09)
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acarlow: Okay, so in terms of our terms you're using the old Steve DH(DvbgHm)-mod (nowadays I just call it DHm) with the ANSI-Angle(Z) mod. Sorry about the naming complexities, but that's what we're trying to cut through in unifying the Curl(DH)-mod! So there will be one DH-mod, and one main solution each for ISO and ANSI boards. There's still a little variation in Wide mods, but that can't be helped and it's not too aggravating.

I recommend moving on to the new mod which is on both Steve's and my pages now. It's the future. ;-) Unfortunately, most of my actual files aren't updated yet but I'll get there soon I hope.

Last edited by DreymaR (18-May-2017 09:49:59)

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