geekhack Community > Ergonomics

A modified Colemak

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PieterGen:
Yep! Interesting keyboard layout analysis software  (nice word  :cool: ) is that of Adnw, it's on adnw.de/downloads,  Entwicklungsprogramme,  Optimierer
It is a C++ program (as source code) that calcutes keyboards, based on your texts and your assumptions/goals (like: maximize alternation, or rolls, etc.) It is very hard to do thius by hand.

A handicap that we Dutchies and all others have who type in 2 or more languages: do go go for a compromise keyboard, that is good enough for all languages? Or do you optimise for one language - and accept that the keyboard is suboptimal in the other language?  Case in point: Colemak. Nice keyboard for English, but in Dutch it suffers from a high same finger ratio.

luisbg:

--- Quote from: PieterGen on Thu, 11 December 2014, 07:49:35 ---Yep! Interesting keyboard layout analysis software  (nice word  :cool: ) is that of Adnw, it's on adnw.de/downloads,  Entwicklungsprogramme,  Optimierer
It is a C++ program (as source code) that calcutes keyboards, based on your texts and your assumptions/goals (like: maximize alternation, or rolls, etc.) It is very hard to do thius by hand.

--- End quote ---

I am using Bu-TECK from AdnW.

A friend of mine who has been studying keyboard ergonomics for way longer than me told me, "Switching away from qwerty is totally worth it. Which optimal layout (dvorak, colemak, workman) doesnt matter much. They all are heaps better than qwerty, and just slightly better than each other in particular cases".

I tend to agree.

stevep:
Hello geekhackers!

I am the creator of the Colemak DH mod mentioned in the original post.

As has been mentioned, the aim was to make a modification to Colemak to fix one of its most common cited criticisms: the placement of common keys (D and H) in the centre column. I believe the Workman layout was created largely on the basis of that percieved flaw. However I would argue this mod addresses the problem in a more elegant way, keeping Colemak's other advantages, such as its low rate of same-finger bigrams.

D and H are both in the top 10 of English letters and should be easy to type! At the same time, the two keys on the bottom row beneath the index finger (C and M in Qwerty) are often underrated - I would say they are almost home row quality!

The mod's purpose it therefore to offer an alternative solution for those who find reaching for centre-column awkward. It certainly makes it much more comfortable to type common words containing HE (the, there, when, etc). I have been using for several months and am very happy with it.

Just thought I would say hello to the forum and offer a bit of context/explanation.

Oobly:
It breaks the shortcut key familiarity of Colemak, though. If you're doing that, you may as well go for an even more optimised layout.

stevep:

--- Quote from: Oobly on Mon, 09 March 2015, 07:52:23 ---It breaks the shortcut key familiarity of Colemak, though. If you're doing that, you may as well go for an even more optimised layout.

--- End quote ---

You are right that V is separated by one key from X and C but they are all on the same fingers before and still on the bottom row, so actually shortcuts don't feel *so* unfamiliar. Trying to maintain some Qwerty similarity where possible is worthwhile in my view, as it makes a new layout a little easier to learn. For those for whom shortcuts are sacrosanct, on the Colemak forum an alternative version was also proposed, where the bottom row is Z X C V D, to avoid exactly that problem.

I would be interested to see what an "even more optimized layout" would look like. I'm not saying such a thing is impossible, but I think the scope to get improved key positions while not adversely affecting same-finger bigrams or finger balance would be a tough challenge indeed!

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