I use vim and am very happy with how it works with colemak. You do have to invest some time to customise your vimrc. On the flipside I found I got a lot better at vim in the process.

Vimperator has a vimrc file as well, so you can change its key mappings too I believe.

good luck. ....   

my favs by the way are ...  "are" "ing"  "tion"  ....

very good progress! :)

In case you haven't seen this: Experiences with a few keyboards with grid layout, and pictures of various grid keyboards:
Non-staggered keys AKA matrix or grid layout, especially the Kinesis

6 Days Post Qwerty - 45wpm

It seems that each day I go up 5 to 10 wpm. For practice, I've done 5-10 typing tests a day. (hi-games.net/typing-test) I might slow down as I get closer to my Qwerty speed, but if I could make it back up to 65 before the 10 day mark, I'll be happy! I'm going to be doing a lot of my own writing tonight, so I'm expecting a nice little jump in my speed tomorrow morning after it's sunk in : )

Boli - thanks for the link to the post. I've been trying to find the Cherry with 142 keys for awhile (http://www.cherry.de/english/products/k … _16752.htm) but the closest I can find are really expensive ones on ebay - except they have a touchpad on them, and thus don't have enough keys horizontally for my ideal layout. I actually took apart a spare numpad I had, thinking I might try to hollow out a spot below the spacebar to fit a 6x2 row of thumb keys - it would be nearly beautiful, except I don't know how I'd attach wires onto the tracks of the flexy "circuit paper" that scissor switch keyboards use to make it all work : (

DreymaR - I did look at Shai's layout, but it really isn't for me. When I first started with VIM, I tried to map out a spatial layout like Shai's, with movement on the right and editing on the left, and I liked it, but ended up sticking with a slightly modified default. Right now I think I am staying with that like you're suggesting, just rotating the arrows of course. But things like ';' being off the home row and s/S still being on it (which I have never found personally useful to my VIMing) are making me consider remaking my old spatial layout.

Anyways, that's that : ) thanks for the input, suggestions, and encouragement!

Heh : ) thanks Boli. Sorry to disappoint, but the very next day, after a week of daily 5+ wpm leaps, I stopped dead. I made it to 50wpm in a week without serious effort or typing sessions, but now, 5 days later and 12 days post switch, I'm STILL stuck at a frustratingly consistant 52-53wpm! In the past week I HAVE had a few longer writing sessions and even practiced at hi-games a bit more regularly, but no improvement. The only progress I made was that when I slowed down and tried to make each stroke in even rhythm, I made less mistakes, and even though it felt like I was typing much slower, I was actually typing just as fast. Although, that ruins the point of Colemak's lovely rolls...but I'm sure as I settle more into the layout I'll begin to start rolling more without mistakes and the beauty of Colemak will return.

So yeah. No 65wpm in 10 days for me...although I suppose that stopping a big below 65 is to be expected as I typed 65 in Qwerty having grown up with it...some sort of an 80%/20% rule? Not that it's a contest, but I have 12 wpm to go within 252 days to beat you! Hehe. Think I can do it? ; ) Okay it IS a contest! Go!

As to my ideal layout, it would be similar to the Kinesis / Maltron boards in that it would be non-staggered, split, and put the thumbs to use, but flat, with straight rows, and a standard layout up top. On the thumbs, a change would be to have shift as the main left thumb key. I'd also leave extra  standard Shift-Ctrl-Menu-Start-Alt keys where they are on the left side in addition to the ones on the thumbs, but remove the ones on the right to make room for a normal inverse T arrow key positioned like a laptop's in the bottom right. I'd also have a Fn key to have a second layer of shortcuts, along with a numpad, like a laptop...only it'd work because it wouldn't be staggered : ) That's the most of it...nothing too incredible, just a hybrid Typematrix/Maltron/standard keyboard I guess?

Anyways - it's turned 8am after a sleepless night. I'm off to prepare for work ^_^ But any suggestions on breaking from a wpm plateau are appreciated!

I mean by standard layout that I don't like that Maltron and Kineses mess with little things like the shift key, command keys, +=, etc. Not a huge problem, but this is my ideal board right?! I like the Executive, but it wouldn't work for me because, I forgot to mention, I really hate "desktop" keys. I like crisp scissor switches best. Also the price, only two thumbkeys each thumb, the arrow key "row", the weight/size (I type in my lap a lot). Oh well. Typing on my lap is why a bowl wouldn't interest me. Although I haven't tried the extreme bowls, every keyboard I've tried with ergonomic curves both convex and concave have felt very uncomfortable to me. I really like flat for some reason...although I wouldn't mind trying a bowl keyboard out if the price wasn't so prohibitive : )

Of course any idea of a contest is a joke ; ) Thanks for the link - I went through some of the posts and the idea to alternate between improving speed and accuracy sounded great. I tried that as well as beginning to alternate between Keybr and Hi Games, and I've gotten into the high 50s now, but averaging in the middle, which is an improvement.

As for VIM, if anybody's interested, I came up with a solution that works for me really well so far here:
https://forum.colemak.com/viewtopic.php?pid=3651#p3651

I'm really excited about that! Anyways, I'm off ^_^

Sure - well I reached my 20 year Qwerty speed in about a month. Now I'm just above it, but not by much. The thing is, when I typed my fastest in Qwerty, I felt like my hands were flying all over the place, about to catch fire and I could hardly believe that people could type faster - much less twice as fast! Now, when I type the same speed in Colemak (which I never actually do except for tests), I feel like I could go faster if I trained myself and cut down on my mistakes, which are about the same, maybe slightly higher than with Qwerty. I suppose how I could describe it is that in Qwerty, it felt like a physical limitation; in Colemak, it's a mental limitation that I just haven't taken the time to pass.

Either way, I'm entirely happy with Colemak and don't regret switching at all. While the BUL layouts may be amazing, I don't regret not trying them. I don't know how BUL would feel...although from CarpalX data, it would be less rolling and more alternating hands. As far as effort goes, they're totally negligibly different. I'd pick based on whether you prefer rolling or alternating motions...I prefer the beauty of rolling : )

As for learning, typing games actually helped me a lot in the early stages, and were fun (try Qwerty Warriors...it's hilariously violent compared to all the "car racing" and "balloon popping" games out there!), but once I reached the high 40s, I stopped working at speed and just let my speed naturally rise up to near 70 through daily typing...although if you're shooting for 100+, you may need conscious practice.

Good luck - I'd love to hear your thoughts if you give BUL a try!