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    Colemak DH-mod thoughts

    • Started by Phill
    • 6 Replies:
    • Reputation: 1
    • Registered: 16-Sep-2017
    • Posts: 1

    I swapped to a DH variant of colemak a few months ago

    qwfpbjluy
    arstgmneio
      zxcdvkh

    ^this to be precise

    I have surpassed my QWERTY speed and typing feels more comfortable than ever before so everything is all good there. I have however lost my fluency with QWERTY so that sucks a bit (I may make an effort to get it back soon and see if that's hard).

    I've hit 100 wpm a couple times on typeracer now and the one critique I have of my current layout is the rolls using the ring and pinky finger. I.E. a-r r-a o-i i-o. I find the inward rolls to be worse than the outward ones but both types tend to slow me down and feel uncomfortable. I'm not sure if this is a common complaint or if any effort has been made to create a mod that changes those outer keys but if it has i'd love to take a look. If not I may start trying to work something out, obviously the rest of the layout would suffer a little bit but right now I feel it would be worth it. If anyone has any ideas please send them my way.

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    • From: Viken, Norway
    • Registered: 13-Dec-2006
    • Posts: 5,343

    That's the old DH-mod from SteveP99. The current one has M and K switched from that, and is better for staggered boards but not necessarily for matrix boards.

    I think the frequency of such rolls may be okay, but if you have weak fingers you may feel it. My best tip would be to train a little! ;-) If you can, play the piano. It's great.

    One further tip if your right pinky gets tired is using a Wide mod. That moves some load from the right pinky to the index fingers, and increases hand separation a little which is also comfy.

    Last edited by DreymaR (16-Sep-2017 14:08:53)

    *** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
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    • From: UK
    • Registered: 14-Apr-2014
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    Phill said:

    I swapped to a DH variant of colemak a few months ago

    qwfpbjluy
    arstgmneio
      zxcdvkh

    ^this to be precise

    From the way you have spaced the bottom row, it looks like you're not applying the angle mod there. For best results, you want to be allowing the left index finger to curl down-and-inwards to reach the D.

    But yes, I also find AR a little troublesome from time to time. I don't think there's an easy way around it though, and it's a very minor complaint when you consider all the terribleness of Qwerty that I lived with for many years.

    Last edited by stevep99 (16-Sep-2017 14:40:05)

    Using Colemak-DH with Seniply.

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    • From: Chicago
    • Registered: 27-Apr-2016
    • Posts: 221

    I can give you example of layout which does not have a heavy pinkies utilization, this is the Russian JCUKEN (ЙЦУКЕН). Most of Russian users share your idea that pinkies are weak and should not be routinely used and should not be involved in frequent rolls. And they are weak indeed without a regular training. Now, side effect of JCUKEN, most of frequent letters are concentrated in the middle of keyboard including the two middle columns. It is not rare in Russian to have 3 or even 4 same finger combos with index fingers. I believe that pinkies are trainable and using them is home row and in home row rolls is for good. After all we have not so many fingers and two many letters to cover to under-utilize either of them.

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    • From: Viken, Norway
    • Registered: 13-Dec-2006
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    Extreme index finger prioritizing is also known as "hunt-and-peck typing". ;-)

    I haven't seen any ergonomic studies evaluating whether the Russians had the right or wrong idea there. But as you can see gains in one field will cost in others, and I personally think that my index fingers are definitely busy enough as it is! And the Wide mod only accounts for a tiny fraction of their overall load, so it's not that.

    I hate and loathe same-finger combos, so I think it's a very wrong idea to promote them. I see that some think differently, but i think they're wrong. ^_^

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    • From: Chicago
    • Registered: 27-Apr-2016
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    Russians did not contribute in that layout the same way as American and the rest of the world was just given with qwerty. The JCUKEN layout was invented at the end of 19th century in the USA, as the Russia did not have its own typewriters manufacturing at that time. As a main idea for letters positioning the typographic box with led letters was taken, bigger cells containing more frequent letters is placed in the middle of the box, so the same was done for the layout. This is the "qwerty" of Russian. Many Russians believe that jcuken is ergonomic and it is "not like that awful qwerty", but a little analysis clearly shows that this is a delusion.

    Last edited by ckofy (19-Sep-2017 20:21:45)
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    • From: Viken, Norway
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    Thanks for the info, Ckofy! Interesting stuff.

    *** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
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