Loving Colemak. It's the best for the fingers (I have tried other layouts like Carpalx, and others that shall not be named here, and they made my fingers hurt)
* Been a user on these forums already.
* Coming from qwerty
* Been using Colemak since 2012, some 6-7 years of using it 1-4 hours a day.
* Learned it cold-turkey.
* Linux, Android
* 65-70 wpm (according to www.keyhero.com)
* Recommendations: learn it cold turkey, you can buy stickers that fit the keys, write the new keys, stick them to the keys, and cover them with scotch tape. Also remap capslock to normal, and maybe remap AltGr to winkeys and Alt keys to Alt keys.
Now, the criticism:
1. It's a shame that I can't recommend Colemak to anyone, because I know how impractical it is not having a normal capslock key, and not everyone can, or want to, spend time remapping capslock every time they buy a new computer or, reinstall linux,...
2. In my opinion, having to write all caps text without the capslock is anti-ergonomical, I'm not an expert in ergonomics, but if you don't have the capslock key you have to make more hand, and finger movements (and wasn't the whole point of Colemak reducing finger movement?, ironic, isn't it?)
3. The way Colemak was created apparently involved optimization through a computer program. But, as far as I recall, that isn't explained to people. And the problem with this is, that people don't realize Colemak is a very well thought and very well designed layout, and they end up, like I did, buying into nonsense like the Workman layout design rationale, that involved manually switching keys, just because workman's author believed it was an improvement. You can't compare some manual key switching with an optimization by a computer program. And Carpalx, many people believe that it is a more optimized layout than Colemak, but is that even true? WE DON'T KNOW, BECAUSE IT ISN'T MENTIONED ANYWHERE THAT COLEMAK WAS CREATED ALSO THROUGH A SOPHISTICATED OPTIMIZATION BY A COMPUTER PROGRAM (I don't even know where I read about it, and if I even read about it!!) (and I happily typed this in a more ergonomical way using the normal capslock functionality)
2. I think there should be a Colemak version that has the Alt keys on the Alt keys. I mean, most of the US doesn't use the Alt Gr, do they? THIS IS ALIENATING PEOPLE FROM USING COLEMAK.
3. I know that I am not paying for using Colemak, and I love Colemak, and I wouldn't type in any other layout that I know. But I think feedback is useful, If I was Shai Coleman I'd like to get this type of feedback.
4. Sorry if I was harsh, and ungrateful, it's just my opinion.
Edit: Removed the South Park reference, because it was unnecessary
Edit: Striked a point because I was wrong. (I started reading the first posts in the general subforum... it was all in there!)