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Mod-DH for Colemak

  • Started by stevep99
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I'm trying it out now! Confusing on day one-and-a-half, but I think it feels okay. :-)

bph: Sure, we might have one Colemak some day. But it'd have to be my Colemak[eD]-CurlAngleWide, or it won't happen! ^_^

Seriously though, I'm not sure we'll get to a point of unification. We've been fairly democratic and open to experimentation which I feel is good and has led to significant developments. On the other hand, too much diversity may get paralyzing and divisive. Now we've whittled it down to one main Tarmak line which is very good because it's what meets the newcomers! And I think we may manage one main Curl mod which would be awesome because the Curl mods are confusing enough as they are without having to make choices.

It may also be somewhat up to Shai, certainly as long as we're on his site! I haven't heard any desire from him to change anything; in fact, he was actively promoting the fact that Colemak development was finished in 2006. Possible improvement vs the need for stability, it's not easy. Vanilla Colemak has stood the test of a goodly decade's worth of time and that's something. At this point, I feel that the DH mod has to be the underdog, an alternative for the adventurous but not a default in the way of simplicity for those who prefer that! We'll have to work for its visibility on this and other sites, of course.

stevep99: I've realized that although the down-out positions feel good they're not quite as comfy as the down-in ones. And on a matrix board it's a significant difference, of course. Choosing the down-in positions as defaults is the more unifying choice.

I'm envisioning that we can promote one mod as the main one, the (Curl-)DH mod. Then I can dispense with obscure terminology like DvbgHkm for the most part, and everything will look a lot brighter. As you can see, I'm willing to move over to your side of the field for the most part, given that we can agree on the better M position.

Some points:
• I won't care what you personally use! Only what we jointly promote.
• I imagine there should be a variant or two still hanging around; both our current mods may be kept as subvariants!
• That way, there will be one main DH-mod, but still freedom of choice and experimentation for the adventurous. (May require a little code hacking for them.)
• For the matrix people in particular, I think we should promote your current mod as an alternative.
• In the long run, I think one extra changed key is a minor problem. For the benefit we at least perceive, it'll be very worth it!

Looks like we may pull this one off, then! Hooray! And then, off to update a ton of code and documentation... haha!

Last edited by DreymaR (03-May-2017 12:53:17)

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Nice! I think you will eventually come to love it more than DbgHk :P  It's especially good for HE I think.

The splitting up of XCV is not as bad in practice as people think when they see it, as each key of the three keys is still assigned to a unique finger, and the out-on-its-own one, V, is the easiest to adapt to, as its action stays identical to standard Qwerty/Colemak. The situation only becomes complicated for pre-existing angle mod users, which most people aren't!

Since I have no plans to switch to a matrix board, I am inclined to give it a go as well. It will be good to try it for a few days to see if there any unexpected effects, e.g. the MY as ckofy suggested.

Yes, updating the documentation will a pain for both of us I'm sure. At least DvbgHkm scores slightly better on my layout analyzer, which is nice.

Using Colemak-DH with Seniply.

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I'm also giving it a try now. I've set a new Colemak DH united layout in PKL and also programmed a new layer in my Planck to see how it works with ortholinear keyboard. What I've tried so far is to type some words containing M using a typing tutor on the standard keyboard. What to say, when typing "M" word a lot one by one using Hm mod, I have the same feeling in right hand as when I'm using standard Colemak with its endless "he" stretch. That is not happened in Hkm mod. Regarding the "K", I like "ck" and "king" more now. Is "ck" is more frequent than "cm"? What is good that "ke" is definitely less frequent than "me".

Last edited by ckofy (03-May-2017 22:35:11)
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As usual, the most common letters are quickly adapted to. I feel quite at ease with D and H now, unless I lose focus completely. V and M still trip me up, but they're getting there. I took a few Amphetype lessons yesterday and it's still hard to keep up with 97% accuracy at 55+ WPM – but it's doable. So all in all, switching DH-mods isn't too hard.

I think we have a winner. I guess I have to admit that I feel even more comfortable with the DH positions now. Not a huge difference, but every bit helps. So yes, I think I'm happy with this, despite the ugly of the ZXCV block and the extra key moved. Did I mention, Hooray!? ^_^

The splitting of the ZXCV block is the main reason that I'm now inclined to look at this from the Angle mod perspective. I feel that the Ctrl+V shortcut should follow the V key. It's most logical, and should be okay after a small transition. Luckily, the Extend+D mapping is just a left mouse button click which shouldn't bork things up too much whenever I forget myself (I hope!).

So there's going to be more Angle mods to choose from, which again will make the Dbg mod automatically available:
• Angle-ISO-VB_ is the classical ZXCVB Angle mod which enables Dbg as a side effect
• Angle-ANSI-VBZ is the classical Angle-Z(ANSI) mod
• Angle-ISO-DV_ is the DH-mod way: ZXC(D|B)V (or should I use B still, for consistency? Choices, choices...)
• Angle-ANSI-DVZ is the DH-mod way, for ANSI boards

Of course, multiple choices will lead to more confusion. But it can't be helped I think. As I make these choices into ergo mods, the Extend keys will follow suit in my implementations. And that's how it should be.

Last edited by DreymaR (04-May-2017 10:33:31)

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Steve, so what do you think about the new layout? I'm using it for two days now. Overall it looks good. What I do like is the new "ck", in the DvbgHm I'm messing it with "ch" often. "ook" is also good. What I not so like is "mu" and "my". While they are not ideal in Colemak, but I feel them better when M is in the middle row.

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Struggling to adapt - Colemak has become Colekam!
The K is especially hard as that has been in the same place for a long time now and is not very common - I really need to do some dedicated training on M and K words to get a better feel for it.

First impessions are the new LK is certainly better, something DreymaR has previously mentioned. I've always found LK a bit annoying, and LM is presumably less frequent. I think the new MY is not too bad - not much different from before to be honest - and not as bad as the dreaded YOU!

Need more time with it yet though.

Last edited by stevep99 (07-May-2017 17:53:06)

Using Colemak-DH with Seniply.

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I've had some typing bouts at nearly normal speed already. I think this is going smoothly. But indeed, the rarest keys will give you most trouble. Since I'm already used to K-in-the-middle, for me the biggest hassle now is V and it's getting whipped into submission as we speak/type.

I don't feel that MY is a problem at all, somehow. My oh my. For MU, you can use the ring finger on U if it bothers you. Seems I do that intuitively already. There's no easy fix for LM I think (I use middle finger on L but it isn't super comfy), but I think it should be fairly rare. So I'm quite caLM about it, not a quaLM in my baLMy head nosirree. ;-)

The odd Copy/Paste error still can't be helped. But it's better than I feared.

I've updated my USB-2-USB files. Going to test them out soon and then push to GitHub.

Last edited by DreymaR (08-May-2017 11:13:41)

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Steve, DreymaR, do we proceed with the united DH mod? I'm using it for the number of days now, tried it on Planck, and it looks pretty good. BTW, one observation I have for ErgoDox, the qwerty BN keys on ErgoDox (VM in the new layout) can be easily accessed with thumbs! This is giving opportunity for alternative fingering for MY.
What I like about the new layout is that it is almost symmetrical change from the standard Colemak, D and H move to the bottom row and squeeze V and M inwards. Also G and K returns to the home row where they are in qwerty. V and M keeps their qwerty keys when Angle-Wide mod is used on the standard keyboard. By me, there are a lot of benefits. Although I realize that only a small fraction of Colemak users are using the DH mod, I really like that it has some presence on web at http://colemakmods.github.io/mod-dh/ It would be good to update that site if we decided to continue with the united DH mod.

Last edited by ckofy (10-May-2017 17:24:05)
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I'm proceeding the hell out of it, yes! I've updated most of the forum topics, the USB-2-USB TMK code and I had a gander at PKL yesterday. Too bad with all those Tarmak help images that are a pain to replace...! Maybe I'll update XKB first, as it's more low-hanging fruit I believe.

I'm typing away at nearly my old speeds, and it feels comfy and nice. The occasional copy-paste error still trips me up, but it's not bad. What happens is I press Extend-D which is the mouse button, then get confused and paste into that new location before I undo. Thank the chaos gods for allowing Undo to exist! ^_^

I'm keeping Steve's original mod under the name Curl(DHm for matrix boards) or similar, and mostly pushing my original mod to the back. It gets a mention but not a front page placement nor easy implementation anymore. So anyone who still wants it will have to tweak a little code, but it should still be quite doable. For PKL, I guess I'll keep all those nice images I've already made, but I'll push my old mod to the back so the default is what meets the newcomer.

I'm hoping that Steve finds the time and inspiration to update his colemakmods pages soon!

Did you like the new mod on your Planck matrix board? Or do you feel that matrix boards still need M-in-the-middle?



Colemak-CAW_Unicomp_DreymaR.jpg?dl=1
    My Unicomp Buckling Spring board, rolling with the times

Last edited by DreymaR (11-May-2017 14:23:52)

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Yes, although I'm still having trouble with my K (the new M seems to slotting into my memory at last), I think the unified DH is the way to go. To me those relative advantages of the M-K are fairly minor, but perhaps it's easier to switch to from the point of view of a newcomer. Also I am enjoying the fact that I am able to use 14 letter keys with legends, instead of 12 previously.

I am interested in ckofy's experience with a matrix board. If it is seems OK even without the stagger, then it can't be that bad, although I still think I'll leave the M-in-the-middle variant as the suggested matrix configuration.

I did start doing some updates to the Mod-DH pages, some differences should be visible after the weekend.

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Using Colemak-DH with Seniply.

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Best of luck with your K! As discussed before, it's a double whammy on the demoted keys, as they go to worse positions and are rare so you get less practice with them. But it'll sort itself soon enough, I'm sure! I feel almost there on my part, now. I changed more keys than you in this bout, but my changes were somewhat more common keys and I've put in some solid Amphetype practice to hammer the point in.

I also hope you'll revisit your analysis tool where you gave a punishing weight of 2.6 for the down-out positions! I hope we can agree that they aren't really that bad. Off the top of my arse, maybe 2.2 or thereabouts? ;-) But of course, that's quite subjective either way.

Last edited by DreymaR (11-May-2017 14:21:20)

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Looks like I will be tackling this on the next OS update then.

Until then I think I'll stick with the status quo

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DreymaR said:

Did you like the new mod on your Planck matrix board? Or do you feel that matrix boards still need M-in-the-middle?

I do not use my Planck as a daily driver, but today I typed on it for the entire day (and I'm using it now). My opinion that M in the middle of the bottom row is fine. I do not think that M in the home row gives some special benefits for the ortholinear layout. I still getting used to M at the bottom and almost adopted, I do not feel any terrible discomfort because of that change. It needs to take into consideration that I've been re-learned to the DH mod already. Straight from Colemak that should be easier to adapt. It feels the same as V as left side, which is also a little different feeling at ortholinear keyboard in its shifted position than on the staggered one. M in the home row was not ideal as well, mostly because of ME in my opinion, that could be felt quite obvious when typing a lot of M words. You guys have moved H from that position for the same reason! Than KE is obviously less frequent than HE or ME. Now we have strange bigram KN though, but it was on the same finger anyway, and MN was not better as well.
Then, regarding the ErgoDox (which I also have, but using even less often than Planck), its design allows to access V and M with thumbs. That may be used for alternative fingering, MY will not be a problem any more.

My major challenge with Planck is actually not typing, but navigation. I used to use navigation cluster on the standard keyboard. But now I seemed to find solution. I have navigation layer which closely resembled to DreymaRs Extend. I have arrows, home end, page up down, ctrl shift at the same positions as well as cut copy paste (paste is assigned to both D and V). And it is activated with holding CapsLock key. That was actually the main reason why I'm not using Extend on the standard keyboard because I get used to use CapsLock for Backspace. But QMK which is driving Planck allowed me to make CapsLock a dual purpose key, it is Backspace when tapped and Navigation layer when held.

Last edited by ckofy (12-May-2017 13:33:37)
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KN/NK isn't strange at all, but you have to learn to move in with some rolls! For this bigram, the middle finger should definitely type the N – no question about it! :-)

Thanks for the input! It's nice to hear that the Curl(DH) mod actually works well enough even on matrix boards! I'll consider moving the old Curl(DHm) mod more in the background then. It's nice to have only one layout in the limelight under the Curl heading!

A dual-role Back/Extend key sounds nice, as long as it has useful timeout settings so that it stops being Backspace whenever you hold it down for a little while
(0.6 s or so?). The obvious loss is repeat, but this is alleviated by the ability to Ctrl+Backspace with the Extend layer.

Last edited by DreymaR (12-May-2017 15:12:50)

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DreymaR said:

A dual-role Back/Extend key sounds nice, as long as it has useful timeout settings so that it stops being Backspace whenever you hold it down for a little while
(0.6 s or so?). The obvious loss is repeat, but this is alleviated by the ability to Ctrl+Backspace with the Extend layer.

It works like a charm. No erroneous deletions at all. Actually when I compare the dual-role backspace to the regular using Switch Hitter, the press down time for dual-role key is around 5 ms, while for the regular key it is around 120ms. Holding down for dual key is not detected by Switch Hitter at all. What is interesting, for PKL processed keys the press down time is also around the 5 ms for all keys.

46:38.0020 Backspace (0x08, BIOS 0x0E) DOWN
46:38.0024 Backspace (0x08, BIOS 0x0E) UP -> 5ms
46:38.0768 Backspace (0x08, BIOS 0x0E) DOWN
46:38.0879 Backspace (0x08, BIOS 0x0E) UP -> 111ms 
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ckofy said:

But QMK which is driving Planck allowed me to make CapsLock a dual purpose key, it is Backspace when tapped and Navigation layer when held.

Surely with a Planck - or an ErgoDox - there are so many thumb keys available that it would be better to assign Extend to one of the better-placed keys right under your thumb...?

Last edited by stevep99 (13-May-2017 13:44:24)

Using Colemak-DH with Seniply.

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stevep99 said:
ckofy said:

But QMK which is driving Planck allowed me to make CapsLock a dual purpose key, it is Backspace when tapped and Navigation layer when held.

Surely with a Planck - or an ErgoDox - there are so many thumb keys available that it would be better to assign Extend to one of the better-placed keys right under your thumb...?

I will definitely do that for ErgoDox. Regarding the Planck, I have 5 thumb keys, and one of them is toggle Navigation key (other 4 are Raise, Lower, Space, and one-click Shift). The CapsLock one is do doing quick job in Navigation.
I'm trying to unify my Planck and ErgoDox layouts, but this is not an easy task, as the absence of number's row affects the Planck's layout design a lot.

Last edited by ckofy (13-May-2017 15:27:05)
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Mod-DH pages now updated to show the "unified" DH.

I have also updated most of the Downloads, although not for Mac as I don't know how it works. Most aren't tested though, so let me know if you spot any errors.

Using Colemak-DH with Seniply.

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Excellent work, Steve! Two thumb keys up!

*** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
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Great! Thank you, Steve!

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What about this page though, could that get a slight update too? ^_^

http://colemakmods.github.io/ergonomic-mods/dh.html

It's linked to in your forum signature. I don't know if that's necessary anymore, since you also have the updated DH-mod page there.

I think that we should for the most part relegate at least my old mod to the History section. Yours... I'm calling it Curl(DHm) now and including options for it, but I'd like to keep it in the back like you did on your main DH-mod page. It's very interesting that ckofy didn't see the need for it on matrix boards! Other matrix users may feel differently about that of course, we'll see.

ckofy said:

I do not use my Planck as a daily driver, but today I typed on it for the entire day (and I'm using it now). My opinion that M in the middle of the bottom row is fine. I do not think that M in the home row gives some special benefits for the ortholinear layout.

I still getting used to M at the bottom and almost adopted, I do not feel any terrible discomfort because of that change. It needs to take into consideration that I've been re-learned to the DH mod already. Straight from Colemak that should be easier to adapt.

It feels the same as V as left side, which is also a little different feeling at ortholinear keyboard in its shifted position than on the staggered one. M in the home row was not ideal as well, mostly because of ME in my opinion, that could be felt quite obvious when typing a lot of M words. You guys have moved H from that position for the same reason!

Last edited by DreymaR (15-May-2017 11:29:05)

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DreymaR said:

What about this page though, could that get a slight update too? ^_^

Yeah, I'm aware, it's on my to-do list :P

Does your unicomp board have keys that all have the same profile?

Using Colemak-DH with Seniply.

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These Unicomp boards are essentially the same as IBM Model M; thus, you may use IBM-type buckling spring key tops. Some have a cap that clicks onto the keytop itself, while some of my keys are in one piece for some reason. All the keys have the same shape, so they're freely interchangeable.

I just typed a standard text in Amphetype at 75 WPM using Colemak-Curl(DH) (or rather, the updated Colemak-CAW)! I think my average speeds are still down from pre-remodding by maybe 5 WPM, but I'm closing in on my old speeds every day I feel, and typing is fun and effortless now. I'm really liking the feel of the mod!

The only trouble is with words like 'him'. It's no big deal, but it's not comfy because of the index fingers gymnastics involved. No layout can be perfect for absolutely all words! ^_^

Last edited by DreymaR (15-May-2017 18:16:00)

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Ahhhh, what have you guys got me into again!!
Just when I started feeling comfortable using the DBGHK after TWO months of hard work, here DreymaR himself is endorsing the swap of DV and HM now!:D
After carefully checking it out, my first reaction is to leave it alone - I kind of prefer M and V at their QUERTY position, especially for CTRL+V. But it's been bugging me that everyone is saying the new one is superior, so in the end I swapped the keys last night and gave it a try.

Wow, what a difference it made!!!

Even with my constant struggle against the muscle memory, I can totally see the value of this now - really didn't realize how common D and H are in the most used words, and with CURL it feels so much more natural and fluid, I'm sold!!!

On a side note, before I switched, to avoid the stretch of index for D and H, I was THUMBING the D and H on my ErgoDox, it feels fun and less straining. But it is harder to do on a normal keyboard so I sacrifice even more the ability to use a normal keyboard (even with the right layout), any thoughts on this?

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That's good to hear! 

With your ErgoDox, have gone for the M-in-the-home-row option, or is it in the bottom corner position? The M is probably the most tricky issue, esp for orthogonal boards, how are you finding it?

Using Colemak-DH with Seniply.

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