Experience plus questions - General

dante
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Registered: 06-Jul-2011
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06-Jul-2011 04:25:13#1 Experience plus questions

First off, Hi! I'm a new user!

Okay, with that out of the way...

I've been typing under the QWERTY layout for around 30 years. I've tried Colemak for a about a month and try as I might I have some seriously muscular muscle memory that make it very difficult to stick.

I had some questions that I hope you would be able to answer.

First of all, why isn't there a wiki page on the research done with coming up with the Colemak layout? I think this would be interesting to read and add a little credibility.

Next, since such a research page doesn't exist how did the layout come about? I've also thought about learning Dvorak and some of the complaints about it confuse me.

For instance, almost the very first thing thats brought up before the amount of words that can be typed in the home row is the pinky issue. The L and S are almost always the first thing people bring up. Ok... But if the "S" is such a problem because it is a pinky finger - why does Colemak put the "O" an equally common letter on the right pinky? For that matter, why didn't the location of "A" get changed since that is also a pinky character?

If Colemak didn't have "A" on the left pinky and "O" on the right I could see your argument.

Next is the layout,

If the goal was to keep it close enough to qwerty: Why move the S and the D? Why move the N to the middle when the entire bottom row could have stayed the same! It sounds like the layout efficiency was sacrificed in the name of gaining wide adoption. I could be wrong - probably am.

Perhaps I'm an old dinosaur and it's too late for me. Maybe I'm an old dog that can't learn new tricks. I'm just trying to understand some of the design decisions.

On that note: It is much easier to learn than Dvorak; I've got the Colemak layout "down" in a few days but even after around 4 weeks I'm still hitting old QWERTY keys (G and J are the bane of my existance). On top of that everything feels so confined. Thats the one thing studying Dvorak has taught me - the alternating of the hands is great. I wish that could have been brought to Colemak.

Oh - I was warned. I was told I would get boned for posting such a thing yet here it is.

I wrote it with the best of intentions! (Isn't that what the road to hell is paved with?!)

Last edited by dante (06-Jul-2011 04:28:51)

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Tony_VN
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06-Jul-2011 10:49:05#2 Re: Experience plus questions

Check keyboard layout analyzer at this site
http://patorjk.com/keyboard-layout-analyzer/

Paste any texts and compare Qwerty, Dvorak and Colemak as if you type the texts in these layouts
- Balance of hands and individual fingers
- Key travel
- Row usage

My fastest typing records http://hi-games.net/profile/4314
My switching experience https://forum.colemak.com/viewtopic.php?id=970

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dante
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06-Jul-2011 13:34:35#3 Re: Experience plus questions

I saw that but it doesn't answer any of my questions/comments.

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erw
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From: Aalborg, Denmark
Registered: 18-Feb-2011
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06-Jul-2011 15:44:46#4 Re: Experience plus questions

dante said:

First off, Hi! I'm a new user!

Welcome!

dante said:

I've been typing under the QWERTY layout for around 30 years. I've tried Colemak for a about a month and try as I might I have some seriously muscular muscle memory that make it very difficult to stick.

Yeah, it does take some getting over. I'm at day 126 and I am over most of the muscle memory problems. In time, it will come :-)

dante said:

First of all, why isn't there a wiki page on the research done with coming up with the Colemak layout? I think this would be interesting to read and add a little credibility.

Yeah, I would actually like to see that as well.

dante said:

if the "S" is such a problem because it is a pinky finger - why does Colemak put the "O" an equally common letter on the right pinky? For that matter, why didn't the location of "A" get changed since that is also a pinky character?
If Colemak didn't have "A" on the left pinky and "O" on the right I could see your argument.

I don't think S is the problem, stretching to L is (or P in qwerty). Semi/colon is certainly not as common.

dante said:

If the goal was to keep it close enough to qwerty: Why move the S and the D? Why move the N to the middle when the entire bottom row could have stayed the same!

I felt like this in the beginning as well, but the goal was not to keep everything as qwerty (otherwise, it wouldn't have been a new layout). Some common shortcuts are kept the same, but not every shortcut. The improvement (one of them anyway) Colemak makes over qwerty is rolls and a much lower same-finger ratio. These don't belong to single keys like S, D or N but the whole layout, and together they the really make Colemak run smoothly, imo.

dante said:

It sounds like the layout efficiency was sacrificed in the name of gaining wide adoption.

Well, I didn't design it, but I what the webpage says is that Colemak is already one of the best layouts possible wrt. same-finger ratio, travel distance etc., and there wasn't much to gain by ditching the features that make it is easier to learn and adapt to.

http://hi-games.net/typing-test/watch?u=4610

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dante
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06-Jul-2011 18:10:40#5 Re: Experience plus questions

erw said:

I don't think S is the problem, stretching to L is (or P in qwerty). Semi/colon is certainly not as common.

I get what you are saying it just seems like 99% of the anti-Dvorak rhetoric drags 'S' into the picture. I double checked several letter frequency tables and 'O' is actually higher by about a percentage point.

I also checked the link Tony posted. Using random stories I found on Yahoo and Google I found that while Colemak uses a higher percentage in the home row this is only usually by a few percent. Colemak also seems to use a few percent more in the bottom row. The left / right hands are more evenly distributed by a few percent in Dvorak.

So while Colemak can throw number of words in the face of Dvorak, Maltron users can do the same to both :)

Honestly though, Maltron sounds like hell. Even though having the maximum number of words on the home row it is also nice to be able to stretch them once in a while.

In any event I hope with the coming months I can finally rid myself of QWERTY. As soon as October rolls around and the first officially sanctioned release of Lubuntu is available I intent to download so that I can get better layout support right out of the OS.

Now if I could only get a PS/2 or USB Colemak adapter for Windows computers I do use; colemak.exe does not work on login screens and the passwords I use tend to be very cryptic.

I suppose I could script a password generator that only uses shared keys between the two layouts...

Last edited by dante (06-Jul-2011 18:12:06)

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pafkata90
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07-Jul-2011 13:55:56#6 Re: Experience plus questions

Just to mention that "only a few percents" is actually enough to feel. The home row usage in Colemak is around 3-5% (I think) more than Dvorak but that's actually a lot. The same goes for the bottom row, as you mentioned. When I started with the alternative layouts I didn't think that a couple of percents are That important but in fact you can feel it.
That said - I'm not saying Colemak is better than Dvorak or the other way around. What's safe to say is that they both are better than Qwerty :)

Last edited by pafkata90 (07-Jul-2011 13:57:40)

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