I am tired of new layouts, but in the same time I developed some RSI in my left hand. Hawe anyone expeirenced influence of RSI when siwtching layout? It also maybe caused by to fast gathering speed, what do you think? What was your learning time till you have felt some syndroms of pain if any?
And the most interesting part, do anyone developed RSI typing on Dvorak? I am asking this because most of the time I type on Dvorak and Dvorak is the most advocated layout as the green one.
Hmmm. You could easily develop RSI using any and all layouts; no layout will save you if the real problem is something else. And yes, I've experienced some pain in the early transition period, both when moving to Dvorak and when moving to Colemak.
I think that trying to push speed before you're good and ready for it may be a bad idea and early on most people should be better off focusing on comfort(!) and maybe accuracy as they start to get the hang of the basics. You're no longer in early transition I think(?) so I'm guessing you have some bad habits of posture and/or tension that you need to work out. Remember that your fingers and wrists tend to 'inherit' tension from further up. Even suboptimal lighting conditions could translate to muscle tension.
*** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
*** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***
Yes, it is something else influencing... I have got a cold. Probably my body was weaker fighting viruses before obvious symptoms of getting infection shoved up.
And yes DreymaR, I think I am well accustomed with the layouts. However I am the real geek who have tried them all* at the same time. Maybe it is time to summary and share my experiences. Learning and using the layouts (qwerty, dvorak, colemak) have its pitfalls and benefits respectively.
Learning to touch-type is very easy on Colemak and Dvorak whilst it is horrble on qwerty. But when my fingers started to trace the keys correctly without constant reference to the home row qwerty became also managable. Using all the layouts at the same time (nearly at the same time) led me to the result that in fact all that matters is the finger travel distance. However things change when I stay with one layout for a few days (2 or 3), then many "ackward" finger movements or name it difficult positions just disapearing - I stop noticing them. Interesting is indeed that the thing which makes people look for another keyboard layout, the typing speed, is nearly the same regardles of the layout (form the 3 mentioned). Apparently qwerty layout familiarity by so many years looking at it compensate for it ineffectivenes or maybe vertical movement is significantly faster than pressing.
So there is other thing which makes people look for another layout which is the RSI and here layout that minimizes vertical finger movements helps the most (in my experience). Here I also noticed some advantages of qwerty - after typing few days exclusively on one layout (not qwerty) resorting to qwerty weares you much more than it is suposed from the layout design itself. So it is worth rethinking if it is wise to type on other layout for someone who from time to time have to type qwerty. It all depends on how freqently nad for how long.
>>>> just thought that I should put the above in my other thread unger Experiences... I will put there a link :)
Above all I agree that pushing for speed is no good!!! Let the fingers work as they pleases. When I switch the layout I even force to start typing slowly which in a few minutes complete the switching process in my mind and my fingers efortlessly acquire speed without typing errors. "Just switching" leads to lots of mistakes and only frustration.
Thats all from my quest for the holly grail ;) Where or what it is? I do not know... In fact I do not type that much to make it a real difference. I am a coder and through all the years of hunt and peck I developed fancy techniques (or just discovered good programs) for software developing which saves a lot of typing. Only recently I went crazy to learn touchtype, just my fancy, so I needed to practise a lot of typing. Well I am even surprised at my results! I never believed I can type so easy and so fast and without looking at the keyboard!
Cheers,
