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    Colemak-dh on Corne (split, columnar. 42 keys)

    • Started by mattias
    • 4 Replies:
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    • Registered: 08-Aug-2023
    • Posts: 3
    08-Aug-2023 21:17:04#1 Colemak-dh on Corne (split, columnar. 42 keys)

    I've been typing on qwerty for 20 years and never on a mechanical keyboard. A year ago I switched career and started working as a developer. I started with vim-mode in VS code but continued down the ergonomic (and efficiency?) rabbit hole and here I am typing colemak on a Corne keyboard with brown switches. I've accumulated eight-isch hours of keybr and currently practicing with eleven keys and get 26 wpm and 98.3% accuracy. But whenever i'm not seeing the letters i'm supposed to type, like now, it's a lot slower, even the words I have literally actually practiced on. So I figure that in addition to my keybr practicing I also need some "free" writing practice and what better way to get that than documenting my struggle experience on the colemak forum?

    Current thoughts
    1. I'm struggling with R and S and constantly mix them up.
    2. I recently had to type a few sentences on a qwerty keyboard and was surprised to see improved use of ring and pinky

    That's it for today, see you next time!

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    • From: Viken, Norway
    • Registered: 13-Dec-2006
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    11-Aug-2023 12:10:54#2 Re: Colemak-dh on Corne (split, columnar. 42 keys)

    Hiya!

    The Colemak Community FAQ mentions the common R-S issue and provides a training tip for it. Other than that, there are more training tips on my BigBag Training page!

    https://www.colemak.org
    https://dreymar.colemak.org

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

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    13-Aug-2023 22:01:58#3 Re: Colemak-dh on Corne (split, columnar. 42 keys)

    Thanks for the advice, I'll for sure go for the R S filter as the FAQ suggests.

    And time for an update. I'm now on 14 keys on keybr doing 30 wpm at 97% accuracy. While that's progress I also realize that this will take some serious time. A really annoying thing I've found is that I have to think about how words are spelled. I guess that on qwerty I had the spelling many words in muscle memory. But more and more words are ending up in my colemak muscle memory.

    current thoughts
    1. letters V and K are hard to reach and feels not ergonomic on my columnar keyboard. I'm currently testing using ZMK Combos to remedy this. If I press H and semicolon simultaneously I get a K, and C+D gives me V.  It works great as long as the next letter is not using any of the fingers involved in the combo, however K is often followed by E and it breaks the flow quite a bit. I might experiment some more eventually.
    2. I'm so tired of keybr and it's silly words and how disappointed it is with my performance with R and S (thanks again for the tip).

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    • From: Viken, Norway
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    14-Aug-2023 09:49:20#4 Re: Colemak-dh on Corne (split, columnar. 42 keys)

    I've never tried combos myself, but they seem like a nice tool. I imagine you have to find the ones that work best in a typing flow, yes.

    I never used keybr myself. But whenever you feel tired by it, I believe you should indeed strike out and type something fun instead! And I also believe that varied training is a boon. See my BigBag Training page.

    I just learned about this cute little tool by Callum, named Nonsense. You type words at realistic frequencies, with a no-nonsense interface. It's actually very similar to a mode I got Miodec to include in MonkeyType and which is somewhat popular: The Zipf funbox. Try it out!

    https://callumoakley.net/nonsense/

    Another good one in my opinion is Burst Type, which is a single-word burst training tool. When I learnt to play the piano, my teacher taught me to not be satisfied with a part until I could play it without error five times at speed. This does the same thing with word typing. If you struggle, lower the WPM requirement but I do recommend that you keep at least 5 as your required number of correct repetitions. You may concentrate and prepare yourself for each try, and failing only leads to a reset of the counter so there doesn't have to be any stress involved.

    https://www.burst-type.pro/

    I also like typing games; again, see the BigBag (for instance the Tricks page). All in all, there are many cool things to do that make learning fun!

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

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    19-Aug-2023 22:21:35#5 Re: Colemak-dh on Corne (split, columnar. 42 keys)

    I'm now comfortably typing at 30-40 wpm on monkeytype, and sometimes even with 100% accuracy. So starting work tomorrow for the first time in a couple of weeks doesn't feel too bad, but we'll see...

    Thank you again for the additional pointers and links. I've been using them a bit and I like the variation, completely agree that it should always feel fun to do type training and having many options helps with that. What really helped with what felt like a plateau was setting monkeytype to master-mode (fails you for any mistake), I get very annoyed with myself for any mistake and focus quite a bit more to get it right and build the correct muscle memory. 

    Current thoughts
    1. Combo S+T = V is actually all right to use but combo N+E = K is not nice because K is often followed by E. I'm leaving it in there because it's never accidentally activated but I don't think I'll use it that much.
    2. Sticky shift (like caps lock but deactivated after a single letter) and CapsWord (like caps lock but deactivated after the space button) are awesome for ergonomic feeling and fast typing.

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