Touch-typing on ErgoDox/ortho: Q and P?

[ojrask]

I assembled my new ErgoDox this weekend and started to learn touch typing with it. All in all, it is going well but I'm having trouble with Q and P.

No matter how I position the boards and force my self Q and P are giving my fingers some real work to do. My pinkies seem too short and stiff to reach them properly from the home row and using my ring fingers throws me off from the home row and I need to readjust too often.

On a "regular" QWERTY board I use 2-3 fingers per hand pecking-mode like I always have, but on ErgoDox that seems silly.

Any tips on how to make Q and P easier? I'm going to order some homing caps to make finding the home row a tad easier in case I won't be able to use my pinkies for the job.

[algernon]

I just gave up, and use my ring finger for those two keys. On my next layout (I'm on Dvorak at the moment), I won't have alphas in those positions, precisely because I find them hard to reach.

[kurplop]

I have always had a problem with that too. Even when I made custom keyboards with the P row lower than the ErgoDox's, I found that my ring finger could reach the 0 and P easier than the pinky. Right or wrong, my little fingers only are used for the home row or below. That's also why my customs have all of the modifiers on the thumbs and the outer row omitted.

In spite of the pinkie problem, you will soon get use to the layout and probably never want to go back.

[davkol]

The trick is to move/rotate your whole forearm a tiny bit, instead of extending the pinkie itself.

Either that, or use a keyboard with more aggressive column staggering. You could go as far as shift the whole column one key down, so that Q becomes 1, A becomes Q, Z becomes A,… Alternatively, you could also use taller keycaps in that column, which is what Kinesis Advantage does (together with contoured key wells).

[ojrask]

Good to hear I'm not the only one.

I'll continue trying my best to use the pinkies. If that does not work I'll try ring fingers with the risk of learning a messed up touch-typing technique. If _that_ fails I'll just reflash for more comfortable layout on it. I think my ideal ErgoDox would have the pinky columns 5mm lower or something.

I have a standing desk at work but I use the ErgoDox at home where I have an old kitchen table, which means I can't hover my hands properly (makes twisting the whole hand pretty difficult). I'll have to see if my office setup makes this thing less of an issue.

[tp4tissue]

always use ring finger for p and q

[ShishKabobJerry]

always use ring finger for p and q

Welll, if you're talking about proper touch typing, then it's a no, you use your pinky fingers for q and p

[tp4tissue]

always use ring finger for p and q

Welll, if you're talking about proper touch typing, then it's a no, you use your pinky fingers for q and p

wellll.... when you surpass 135wpm,  then you can have-an-opinion we'd discuss.

[vvp]

FinancialWar has 185 WPM. Maybe he can comment on this too  )

[tp4tissue]

FinancialWar has 185 WPM. Maybe he can comment on this too  )

I was just kidding around.. 

You're allowed to have an ergonomic opinion regardless of skill level.


For words that Start with P and Q ,  ring finger is always easier, assuming your wrist is at rest.

If your wrist is hovering most of the time,  than it doesn't really matter what finger you use.

For words with P and Q in the middle,  it will depend on depend on which finger is closer..

 

for example, Partial ,   you would use Ring for P,   but for OPeration, you would use ring for O and Pinky for P.

[proletariat]

That is so interesting... I just re-learned to touch type with my ErgoDox and have 0 problems with Q and P.  Doesn't feel like a stretch at all, and ring finger feels super weird for those 2 letters.  Numbers, equal, parens, and B & Y were the big struggles.  I'm mostly better now (after about 3 weeks), but now accidental enter-instead-of-space is a real thing.

Oh, and I'm still not back to where I should be for by-word-deletion and such with the standard mac shortcuts (option-delete, option-shift-arrow, etc).  Have toyed around with the idea of vim bindings, but I'm learning the standard config first.  Best of luck... maybe try rotating the keyboard hands a few degrees closer to parallel to see if that helps?

[Tom_Kazansky]

I'm not sure about ErgoDox but I do have a (prototype) ortho-board and I can say that you must use ring finger for Q and P.

on regular board, I use ring finger to reach tilde, 1, 2.

[algernon]

For what its worth, I recently switched to my Keyboardio Model 01 prototype as a daily driver at home, and the Q/P keys there are perfectly pinky-accessible. Didn't notice this at first, as I just typed naturally, but once I started paying attention, it dawned on me that unlike on my ErgoDox EZ, Q/P are much easier to reach.

(My pinkies are quite short, I suppose...)

[AMongoose]

For what its worth, I recently switched to my Keyboardio Model 01 prototype as a daily driver at home, and the Q/P keys there are perfectly pinky-accessible. Didn't notice this at first, as I just typed naturally, but once I started paying attention, it dawned on me that unlike on my ErgoDox EZ, Q/P are much easier to reach.

(My pinkies are quite short, I suppose...)

Interesting. It's hard to compare them from the photos of the keyboardio, since you have both could you post a side by side photo comparing them?

[JohanAR]

Interesting. It's hard to compare them from the photos of the keyboardio, since you have both could you post a side by side photo comparing them?

Looking at photos of the two it seems like the 01 has more staggering on the pinky column, about 1/2 key height vs 1/4. My Kinesis looks like it has 1/3 key offset but the pinky column is also raised so that Q/P are ~5 mm higher up than W/O.

Those of you who have trouble reaching Q/P, are you using uniform or sculpted profiles? Have you tried mixing profiles to make some keys easier to reach?

[Findecanor]

When I built my (Schm)ErgoDox, I put a combination of DCS* and OEM profile caps on it so that the pinky columns would get raised a little: DCS on middle and ring finger columns and OEM profile on the rest.
The P and Q keys are raised the most but still only 1.2 mm or so higher than the O and W keys.

BTW, DCS P and Q are about the same height as Cherry profile, so you could also use that.

*: Actually, I used caps from a BTC 5140 rubber dome but they are identical in profile to Signature Plastics DCS although made somewhat different.
The caps were lasered. Back then WASD Keyboards offered custom lasered caps, so I ordered the OEM-profile caps from them with a similar font and sizes to match what was on the BTC.