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    Colemak's progress?

    • Started by Viper
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    06-Dec-2020 16:35:57#1 Colemak's progress?

    I wonder, how much more popular has Colemak become this year? And do we have some new records/speedy typists? How do we compare with Dvorak and other alternative layouts?

    I haven't been interested in typing due to hitting a physical barrier due to issues with tendons and wrists, but after randomly trying TyperA for a few minutes for nostalgia, I got a few 170+ WPMs and realised that I can safely grind such slow difficult text every now and then, attempting to surpass my PB of 182 and perhaps even defeat Sean's record of 183,  and so I am now curious again. Perhaps  some lighter mechanical switches could help, considering my mx browns are slightly muddy and require more force to press after a few years of heavy abuse and spills, but I am not aware of any, and I also don't have money for that at the moment.

    I prefer the slow pace of forums over the chaotic pace of Discord servers, so that's why I'm asking here :D Feel free to send me a friend request on either Steam (https://steamcommunity.com/id/Xayiver/) or Discord (Xayiver#9303), I'd love to chat with fellow Colemak typists once in a while!

    Edit: I'm also thinking about finally trying out the DH and Angle mods. I used to dismiss DH, I'd say I did so blindly as I haven't tried it and I shouldn't be judging without experience. I'm a bit unsure about the angle mod because my keyboard is ANSI. Now that I don't care about speed, I'd appreciate some downtime.

    Last edited by Viper (06-Dec-2020 20:14:22)
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    06-Dec-2020 18:18:15#2 Re: Colemak's progress?

    Anecdotally there seems to be quite a lot of interest from newcomers on the Discord, but I have no idea. On Reddit, r/colemak has fewer subscribers than r/dvorak, but that's not a very scientific measurement either. I think there is more interest in alternative layouts generally in recent years, no doubt helped by increasingly popularity of mechanical, ergo, and programmable boards.

    Hope your hands get better, it's always good to have Colemak speed demons to prove how fast it can be, and there are always people that are motivated by feats of speed. Kind of ironic that you prefer the slower pace of the forums then!!

    Last edited by stevep99 (06-Dec-2020 18:21:06)

    Using Colemak-DH with Seniply.

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    • From: Viken, Norway
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    07-Dec-2020 11:45:16#3 Re: Colemak's progress?

    Hi Viper, good to hear from you!  (✿ʘ‿ʘ)爻(ʘ‿ʘ✿)

    Seems to be more and more interest, judging from what I see at the MonkeyType and Colemak Discords and general interest in my BigBag both for XKB/Linux and EPKL/Win. For instance, the MonkeyType Discord self-role-assignment channel has 140 stating they use Colemak compared to 1500 on QWERTY, 100 on Dvorak and around 50 on each of QWERTZ, AZERTY and Workman. (Still surprisingly many on Workman in my opinion, but what can you do.)

    I'd love it if you'd take the latest EPKL commit for a spin to confirm that it's still fast and responsive enough. It has a menu setting that lets you choose layouts and other settings now, which would also make it easier for you to try out any mods you're interested in. And you can set the help images to only kick in when you're using Extend and dead keys, so it stays out of the way otherwise (I have it off for unshifted input now, so it's out of the way most of the time).

    I've been working quite a lot on EPKL lately. It's fun.  ლ( ʘ▽ʘ)ლ～ORLY

    Last edited by DreymaR (07-Dec-2020 11:48:48)

    *** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
    *** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***

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    07-Dec-2020 14:46:22#4 Re: Colemak's progress?
    DreymaR said:

    Hi Viper, good to hear from you!  (✿ʘ‿ʘ)爻(ʘ‿ʘ✿)

    Seems to be more and more interest, judging from what I see at the MonkeyType and Colemak Discords and general interest in my BigBag both for XKB/Linux and EPKL/Win. For instance, the MonkeyType Discord self-role-assignment channel has 140 stating they use Colemak compared to 1500 on QWERTY, 100 on Dvorak and around 50 on each of QWERTZ, AZERTY and Workman. (Still surprisingly many on Workman in my opinion, but what can you do.)

    I'd love it if you'd take the latest EPKL commit for a spin to confirm that it's still fast and responsive enough. It has a menu setting that lets you choose layouts and other settings now, which would also make it easier for you to try out any mods you're interested in. And you can set the help images to only kick in when you're using Extend and dead keys, so it stays out of the way otherwise (I have it off for unshifted input now, so it's out of the way most of the time).

    I've been working quite a lot on EPKL lately. It's fun.  ლ( ʘ▽ʘ)ლ～ORLY


    That's good to hear! I tried the latest EPKL commit and the latest release. The typing experience is identical. I'd be hard-pressed to tell whether I have EPKL running in the background or not under regular circumstances. Although I do not have proper tools, I tried measuring the relative delay to my no latency mouse with EPKL off/on with a program called "KeyResponsePK" from Bloody. Any difference for single presses was within margin of error; however, when spamming keys really fast (let's say 300-400 WPM and beyond), there is an obvious delay, but until we become cyborgs, I deem it irrelevant for typing. I still prefer having my layout natively just to be sure because I also enjoy playing precise games :P Also, seems my mechanical keyboard switches are 20ms behind my mouse's optical switches!

    I had issues with saving any changes in settings in the latest EPKL commit. I'm not sure whether I'm doing something wrong. After I submit the layout override and restart EPKL, everything changes back to default. Other than that, there are no issues. Anyway, I will make my own variant of the DH mod that includes easy access to Czech symbols. I'm excited to try it out and see how long it takes before I fully adjust! Considering it's just a few keys, I feel it won't take longer than a few hours or days.

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    08-Dec-2020 09:49:26#5 Re: Colemak's progress?

    Thanks! I'm glad EPKL can keep its "Viper Approved" badge!  ♪♫ (＊ﾉ・◡・)ﾉ ♫♩ ┏(・o･＊)┛ ♫♪

    Not sure what's up with your layout overrides. On the EPKL_Layouts and EPKL_Settings level, the Settings UI uses _Override files, but the newest Key Mapper UI also has a button for writing a key remapping to the currently active layout.ini file. That's necessary to remap normal keys as the BaseLayout and layout.ini files override even EPKL_Layouts_Override in the "LayStack".

    Let me know if you want advice on how to best make a mod with EPKL. There are powertools available such as remaps for swapping keys around without redefining them. But in general, the easiest way may still be to copy-paste-rename a layout folder and edit its layout.ini with the keys you want to change added from the right BaseLayout file.

    Do you identify any obvious shortcomings with my Colemak-eD-Cz locale suggestion?

    Last edited by DreymaR (08-Dec-2020 10:41:43)

    *** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
    *** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***

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    09-Dec-2020 09:09:25#6 Re: Colemak's progress?
    DreymaR said:

    Thanks! I'm glad EPKL can keep its "Viper Approved" badge!  ♪♫ (＊ﾉ・◡・)ﾉ ♫♩ ┏(・o･＊)┛ ♫♪

    Not sure what's up with your layout overrides. On the EPKL_Layouts and EPKL_Settings level, the Settings UI uses _Override files, but the newest Key Mapper UI also has a button for writing a key remapping to the currently active layout.ini file. That's necessary to remap normal keys as the BaseLayout and layout.ini files override even EPKL_Layouts_Override in the "LayStack".

    Let me know if you want advice on how to best make a mod with EPKL. There are powertools available such as remaps for swapping keys around without redefining them. But in general, the easiest way may still be to copy-paste-rename a layout folder and edit its layout.ini with the keys you want to change added from the right BaseLayout file.

    Do you identify any obvious shortcomings with my Colemak-eD-Cz locale suggestion?


    I checked your Colemak-eD-Cz, it seems perfect from what I can tell. I'm glad it's almost identical to the variant I use, so whenever I need to bring my layout with me, I can easily just pop in EPKL and be ready to go! The only difference is my own special spots for ť, ď, ů, ú, and ň, but they don't matter that much. And thanks for your offer of advice. I will definitely contact you if I need help with some fancier mods.

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    09-Dec-2020 11:53:56#7 Re: Colemak's progress?

    You could always plop Ťť and Ďď on AltGr+T/D if you don't plan to write any Icelandic any time soon! And the en dash on AltGr+N complements the em dash on AltGr+I but you probably don't need both. May be nice to keep Łł on L I guess. Oh, and did you realize that you can type džDžDŽ using dzDzDZ (on ° dead key with zZdD) with hacek? Not that I think those digraphs should be used, really.

    QW_F  = T       	5   	t   	T   	--  	ť   	Ť   	; QW fF ; Cmk-eD tT þÞ
QW_G  = D       	5   	d   	D   	--  	ď   	Ď   	; QW gG ; Cmk-eD dD ðÐ

    Let me know if you find any further needs for tweaks to the Cz variant as you use it.

    Last edited by DreymaR (09-Dec-2020 12:00:11)

    *** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
    *** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***

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