Keyboard Layout Analyser - which layout is best for you? | Hacker News Reader

Keyboard Layout Analyser - which layout is best for you?

patorjk.com

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There's more to "best layout" than finger travel distance. Capewell's website suggests some of them:

http://www.michaelcapewell.com/projects/keyboard/index.htm#T...

Roughly quoted:

* Minimize finger movements.

* Maximize the use of 'combos,' i.e., multiple keys hit on the same hand with one comfortable movement

* Minimize the use of uncomfortable combos

* If a key in one of the centre columns is used, have the keys typed before and after the key be typed by the other hand

* Minimize use of awkward positions on the keyboard

I'd also add cadence: it's important to have a nice rhythm when typing normally. This plays into the combos and lack of awkward keys. I suspect that in some ways, it's better to sacrifice a little average speed so long as variance is not very large.

I think minimizing uncomfortable combos is especially important if you happen to use lot of punctuation/symbols etc, eg writing c/c++ code or tinkering around in shell. My local keyboard layout (fi/sv) is absolutely horrible in that respect (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Keyboard_Layout_Swedish.pn...). But we also happen to have two extra letters in our alphabet, so using us-intl is not an option. It would be quite good otherwise, as it just happens that most computer systems seem to be designed to be used with us-intl.

The best solution I have come this far is creating my own custom layout, based on us-intl, but squeezing in those two extra letters. But this approach has one large problem: using any other computer than my home desktop becomes a lot harder. And as I happen to use a lot of other computers, it also hinders me from learning and using my own layout properly.

Also, I have not yet found a reasonable solution to create my own keyboard layouts in Linux, so that it would reliably work all around the system. So my custom layout experimenting has so far been limited to windows only, which is kinda sad.

An image of my layout is available at http://zokier.net/stuff/nappaimisto.png If someone is interested, I could upload the keyboard files as well.

Great, my current keyboard layout (colemak) comes out on with most of the text sample I've tested.

For those hesitating about using a different keyboard layout, do it! your wrist will thank you for it... I used to have a lot of wrist problems and most have gone away since I've switched to Colemak

I pasted in a Perl module and my Dvorak actually managed to narrowly edge out Colemak in most ways. But I would consider that a fluke.

The heatmap of the buttons was particularly impressive. It's great to see what I already felt.

Oh, and ignore the personalized layout, though props to the site for saying what things they did not consider when making the layout. But those things they ignore matter a lot.

I had the same results for perl as well as for CL. It surprised me, given that Colemak is promoted as the programmer's weapon of choice.

If anyone wants to learn a new layout, and you're on Linux, I highly recommend KTouch (works fine on Gnome too).

I learned Colemak with it in about two weeks, it's perfect. Still using Qwerty till I master vim, though. I found the latter is more of a productivity enhancer than the former, and it's difficult to do both simultaneously.

What does Colemak help you do faster than Qwerty or Dvorak?

It's supposed to be a better Dvorak. The keys are less of a departure from Qwerty than Dvorak's are so it's easier to learn, and it makes a few improvements over Dvorak. More on their website:

http://colemak.com/

From the site:

> Ergonomic and comfortable – Your fingers on QWERTY move 2.2x more than on Colemak. QWERTY has 16x more same hand row jumping than Colemak. There are 35x more words you can type using only the home row on Colemak.

> Easy to learn – Allows easy transition from QWERTY. Only 2 keys move between hands. Many common shortcuts (including Ctrl+Z/X/C/V) remain the same. Typing lessons available.

> Fast – Most of the typing is done on the strongest and fastest fingers. Low same-finger ratio.

> Multilingual – Allows to type in over 40 languages and to type various symbols, e.g. "pâté", "mañana", €, em-dash, non-breaking space.

> Free – Free software released under the public domain. You don't have to buy a new keyboard, just install a program.

An alternative for gnome; Klavaro. Despite the 'K' it's gtk.

This is a longshot, but has anyone here switched from Dvorak to Colemak and can comment on the experience?

Pasting in some code and blog posts I had lying around was pretty eye-opening for how terrible qwerty was for me.

What I think would be really interesting however would be to dump the results of a keylogger with a weeks worth of data into it. Would definitely be more accurate, and maybe interesting to see where my hands spend most of their time during the week.

If it wasn't for VIM, I'd consider switching to a more efficient keyboard layout.

Nice app. The pie charts really need to be replaced by something like bar graphs. We are quite bad at comparatively judging area and angles, but rather good at distances.

Bépo keyboard layout is missing! Okay maybe it's because it's optimized for writing in French... But after a false start and a painful first month I'm really happy to have made the transition from the qwerty/azerty world.

The first month was really frustrating, especially at work or when using IM but I'm glad I kept using it because for now, a few months after, it's a pleasure to have every keys always right next to one of my finger and never having to move my hands anymore.

Been holding out to try a new layout. I think it will be worthwhile to try out a new layout... the issue is time.

I'm working at a 14-person marketing research startup (up from 6 in 2008 when I started) in Boston and one of biggest issues me and my fellow coders have is wrist pain.

We've resorted to wrist braces for the time being. I know this isn't a good idea.

Any recommendations for ideal QWERTY setups? Been doing some research on different keyboards, but would love to hear some opinions from HN.

Might I suggest exercises that require grip? I've noticed that when I do a lot of weight training, which means pull-ups, deadlifts, and handstand pushups, that my wrist pain from typing is reduced quite noticeably.

Will give that a try, thanks.

To echo agscala, unfortunately it's completely inaccurate and useless because I use Vim. Maybe when I start writing prose again it will be useful. =P

How do they determine the "best layout" at the top? I pasted in a couple hundred lines of code and it claims that Colemak is the best, but Arensito (hadn't heard of it before) has fewer meters traveled and more home row usage (where Colemak is beat by everything except QWERTY).

At any rate, all the layouts other than QWERTY and Personalized were within 10 percent of each other for meters traveled.

In my case, Colemak was declared the best even though Capewell had less travel—because, I believe, Colemak had a considerably greater proportion of index-finger use. I reckon that because the Personalized layout clearly aims for maximum index finger use, with a slight favor on the right.

I've considered trying out a new keyboard layout for a while now. However, two concerns have stopped me so far. So for those of you who use an alternate layout, I have two questions:

* When you need to use a QWERTY keyboard, how easy is it for you to make the mental switch back and forth?

* Have you found that becoming accustomed to your new layout has had a negative impact on your typing speed in QWERTY?

I've always been intrigued by optimizing the keyboard for writing, and this analyser is a really cool idea.

What has always stopped me from using one of these is that I am working at lots of different boxes at work, and there is no way I could get a new layout installed at them all, which I guess would make the switching back and forth very awkward.

So... What is your experience? A hassle well worth it?

What's the followup here? I'd like to give this a shot at some point, just for a few days to see how it goes. I have been typing long enough that I definitely don't need to look at a keyboard, so I'm guessing I'd need to pop off all the keys, reconfigure, then find some sort of software that remaps the keyboard? Or is something like this built into Windows and Mac?

Colemak's instructions are here:

http://colemak.com/Download

Some of them can be modified for other layouts; I haven't looked into it much.

Dvorak is natively supported by both Windows, as well as the Mac. I believe Colemak has instructions on their website http://colemak.com/.

My experience (I switched to Dvorak about 6 months ago) is that you really need to be typing a lot before you get to type as fast as what you used to type. Even after 6 months I'm still not as fast in Dvorak as I am in Qwerty. I have to say it's definitely easier on the wrists though :)

Here's what I did to switch:

- Switch all the keys on the keyboard of just one of my computers

- Only that pc was dvorak for about a month

- Lots of typing on typeracer (at least half an hour every single day)

- Slowly start putting stickers on the keys (to force myself into touchtyping with dvorak

- After a month I installed DVAssist at work (this way I can quickly switch between 'this needs to by typed _now_ (qwerty) mode' and 'Typing a bit slower gives me more time to think about the solution mode')

- I think after four months I switched entirely. (I still use DVAssist but that's mostly for pair-programming.)

I found the following things to be the most difficult:

1) Passwords (I barely 'know' my passwords, I just know the rythm...)

2) Windows (When using DVAssist it's always a surprise what keyboard layout is in use at the logon screen)*

* This does not happen if you just set two keyboard layouts in windows. You can switch to other layout with a keyboard shortcut (CTRL+SHIFT).

I just remapped in software and printed a layout to put above my monitor. I get confused when I look at the keyboard, but found it worked pretty well to force me to learn more directly.

I'm sort of disappointed that on the personalized layout they didn't suggest doing something useful with the caplock key.

The generated reports are kind of interesting - but they'll always be incomplete in some way for programmers, because many of the keys we press aren't captured in the outputted text. Keyboard shortcuts are my coding lifeblood.

On the other hand, you can change your keyboard shortcuts. (Probably.)

Just pasted a big 'ole file of code (quickest document available to me). QWERTY (current KB) is the worst, by a margin of about 2x (150 v 80 for optimal v 84 for non-personalized optimal).

Interestingly QWERTY came out the worst for me by far. To bad I'm a laptop and Vim user.

That's pretty much to be expected... QWERTY is downright horrible for efficiency, regardless of (reasonable) use-case.

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