OPTIMIZED MALTRON LIKE LAYOUT TO USE ON THE KINESIS ADVANTAGE!!!!!!!!!!

[NAMESPACE]

I'm Kinesis or laptop, nothing else.

May have to consider an erdox so I can have a flat ergo keyboard for laptop usage that I can place over the laptop keyboard (17" Macbook Pro)

You could just try elevating the laptop on some books and putting the kinesis in from of that so it doesn't block the screen.

Anyway. I refined the previous layout a bit more. (aka jut switched K and V to make it a fraction better). I'm also looking into workman philosophy to see if that would improve it.

ZGCFJ XUMWQ
OSRTD HINLA
;KBV, .YP'/

    E _

[Hundrakia]

I'll tell you that the only downside to a different layout, is that when trying to use qwerty, I absolutely suck.

I'm very interested in the Maltron layout (I switched to Colemak years ago) and maybe even use your modified layout, and particularly when used on Kinesis Advantage.

One of my personal concerns is having the E on the thumb then needing to use a laptop and watch my typing go down the tiolet even more....ha

I highly recommend only learning a new character layout when also switching to a different physical layout (like ErgoDox, Maltron, Kinesis Advantage, etc) since it allows you to separate the two motor skill sets and they won't impact each other.

I use QWERTY for my daily work, so I needed to retain decent speed on it.

My QWERTY speed has actually increased since starting to learn my new layout.

I've noticed I broke my pinky key habits, and my pointer finger mistakes are way down on qwerty since trying out Dvorak

[NAMESPACE]

I've noticed I broke my pinky key habits, and my pointer finger mistakes are way down on qwerty since trying out Dvorak
[/quote]

What kind of habits?

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I've looked into workman and I believe that it is right; the home row is not what I believed it to be. This is especially true when on a kinesis qwerty board, hitting G and H is just too difficult.

Also I got a chance to test out my layout. I did not like the feel of it. Despite high scores in analyzers I feel that it is broken - especially with my investigations into workman coming to light.

Back to the drawing board! It might score nice, but it does seem to work for me.

I also got to have a nice long run on maltron layout and am currently on that after a few days of their training course (which is way better than the crap I had in middle school all those years ago - does anyone else remember typing "fj fjf fjf fjj fjf" a million times? )

For the moment, while I try to create a workman based model, I just hit L with my ringer finger. I might just swap it with Z in the future. I guess it wasn't so bad after all.

[Hundrakia]

I've noticed I broke my pinky key habits, and my pointer finger mistakes are way down on qwerty since trying out Dvorak

What kind of habits?

---------------------------------------------------------

I've looked into workman and I believe that it is right; the home row is not what I believed it to be. This is especially true when on a kinesis qwerty board, hitting G and H is just too difficult.

Also I got a chance to test out my layout. I did not like the feel of it. Despite high scores in analyzers I feel that it is broken - especially with my investigations into workman coming to light.

Back to the drawing board! It might score nice, but it does seem to work for me.

I also got to have a nice long run on maltron layout and am currently on that after a few days of their training course (which is way better than the crap I had in middle school all those years ago - does anyone else remember typing "fj fjf fjf fjj fjf" a million times? )

For the moment, while I try to create a workman based model, I just hit L with my ringer finger. I might just swap it with Z in the future. I guess it wasn't so bad after all.
[/quote]
Stretching the wrong fingers to reach keys was a large one, where I used to use my ring finger, I now use my pinky. Then as I stated my general accuracy has increased. My "deftness with which I type"

[NAMESPACE]

Interesting, I've always cheated with my ring fingers due to qwerty. (I'm doing so right now on the maltron layout with L). I'll give it a try, but I feel that it moves the hand more to hit a key with the pinky vs. the ring finger. Maybe it'll be good for me.

[jacobolus]

I type basically like this:

(where each color represents a different finger)

And I would recommend anyone else stuck with a standard keyboard do something similar. Obviously on a Kinesis Advantage or Maltron, it’s a bit different.

[NAMESPACE]

Smart. I know that I always use my ringer finger for backspace on a standard keyboard as well. I guess that every layout has its own tricks that people get by with.

That's an interesting diagram, it looks like an old apple keyboard - before the arrows keys were added and HJKL was still used. Didn't those guys have some decent alps in them?

[jacobolus]

That's an interesting diagram, it looks like an old apple keyboard - before the arrows keys were added and HJKL was still used. Didn't those guys have some decent alps in them?

It’s just a rough approximation of an Apple laptop keyboard with the arrows and bottom left keys removed, because they’re not relevant to the diagram. (Created by deleting a few keys from a standard 60% layout, so it doesn’t quite agree with an Apple laptop.)

[NAMESPACE]

To wrap thing up here, as they were getting more than a bit off-topic (no thanks to myself).

After few weeks on it, I cant live without the maltron layout. A modified maltron layout that is; it changes the right top row to VMLUZ from VMUZL.

This tiny change fixes most of my problems and as such I've stopped my hunt for a better layout. The maltron layout is tried and tested, unlike the layouts I designed, which show promise but have not been tested extensively in the real world.

With these changes I'm still able to use most of the maltron training course and switching to the official maltron layout (if my wrists get worse and I get a maltron) will be easy to do.

Thanks for everyone who gave feedback and advice.

[vivalarevolución]

This discussions needs to be moved to the ergonomics forum.  Just a thought.  Don't want it to get lost in the main keyboard forum.

[NAMESPACE]

How would I move it to the ergonomics forum to preserve it?