Ask HN: Any advice for single-hand typist? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Any advice for single-hand typist?

9 pointsstralep10 comments

I'm single hand (left hand) typist. I'm mostly using vim editor. Keyboard layout is QWERTY.

What are advices to speedup my typing speed?

If you are willing to give another keyboard layout a try, there are one-handed variants of Dvorak:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simplified_Keyboard#One-...

http://www.frogpad.com/

I had explored these during college, believing I would see an increase in productivity given keeping one hand on keyboard and one on mouse at all times.

Personally it was quite difficult to adjust and I ended up abandoning the project. But I found the keyboard well made and well laid out.

It takes a good while to get used to the frogpad like devices. If you're still interesting in the idea, there are a couple of other devices you could give a try.

http://www.handykey.com/ http://half-qwerty.com/

I don't have any experience with the half-qwerty keyboard, but the concept seemed interesting, and maybe more up your alley. However, I know of many people who swear by the Twiddler design. I can't recall if it was that same device or another that looked very similar, but a guy I met was capable of typing around 70 WPM with it.

One of my college professors used a wearable computer and thus the twiddler keyboard. It is quite interesting and it may be something I explore - thanks for reminding me!

Something I have looked into a tiny amount and there are websites with info, if you haven't seen them previously:

http://www.bltt.org/quicktips/fao_onehandedtyping.htm

http://www.typeonehand.com/

http://www.aboutonehandtyping.com/

Learn how to type with two hands. It won't take long.

(Unless you actually only have one hand, of course.)

Actually I have two hands, but functionality of second hand is quite reduced.

I think it's pretty obvious that he does only have one functional hand. Your joke is in bad taste.

It wasn't obvious to me, apologies if that was in bad taste.

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