Poll: What keyboard layout do you use? | Hacker News Reader

Poll: What keyboard layout do you use?

13 pointslekevicius41 comments

Since keyboard is a tool we use the most often, I wanted to ask about keyboard layouts.

What do you use, and what are your experiences with alternative?

qwerty.

If the alternate layouts do give any real speed advantages (which is open for debate, I've heard of studies proving both sides), it isn't enough to be non-standard, IMO. YMMV but it isn't uncommon for me to be typing at someone else's keyboard and I don't want to have to mentally switch modes, so I just stick with qwerty.

Also, as much as some hackers like to focus on typing speed (advocating dvorak, the essays by Yegge, Atwood, etc), speed of typing has never been my bottleneck to writing good code, so optimizing for it never seemed very useful.

FWIW, I don't even touch type, I have a very odd 5 finger no-look (but not touch typing) muscle memory system (3 on the right hand -- thumb, index, middle and 2 on the left, index and thumb) but that gets me about 90 wpm when I've timed it which feels plenty fast enough.

I switched to Dvorak two years ago, and though I'm a bit faster, it's not by much.

The benefit of Dvorak is comfort, rather than overall typing speed, and that's something that can't be easily measured. Most of the time, your hands stay on the home row, and I've noticed that the shorter travel distance for my fingers lets me type for longer periods of time without needing to take a break, instead of just typing faster.

I liken it to headphones - when you switch away from iPod headphones to an expensive audiophile pair, you don't notice a huge difference until you have to go back, and what you previously thought was fine now sounds horrible. I used to be fine with qwerty, but now whenever I use it I can't help but notice "wow, my hands are moving all over the place".

There's a lot of "I type fast on qwerty so why would I bother switching?" Speed isn't even the main reason I use dvorak. The primary reason is that it's more comfortable to type in.

In addition, as a programmer, a lot of the characters actually happen to be in more useful positions than in qwerty, even though that's not what the keyboard was designed for. '-_' especially is in a better place (home row, right pinky). Brackets are next to parens. '=' is slightly more convenient. Even in VI I find I like a lot of the key positions better.

I spent a year using dvorak and did notice a slight comfort increase. I've since reverted to qwerty due to device inertia. Currently the biggest interface ergonomics problem I am trying to get through is using the mouse less in windows

Try Find and Run Robot. I don't know how well it's aged, I haven't used it for about 3 years now, but at the time it was the best of the free keyboard-launcher programs out there.

Dvorak, mostly. Switched >10 years ago, but have nearly always been using qwerty keyboards at school or work, so I'm quite bilingual, as it were. Given the option, I'll take Dvorak, solely for comfort. Speed was about the same on both after a couple months of use, still is. I was on the Dvorak layout before I started using vim, but it doesn't bother me to use it as such.

Dvorak. One thing that was rather odd for me was that while I was learning the Dvorak keyboard and for a short time afterwards I couldn't touch type on QWERTY anymore. Then one suddenly, about six months after, it came back to me and now I can touch type in both layouts. It's almost as if the 'QWERTY typing center' of my brain had to house two layouts for a while until Dvorak got its own place.

Adding to that observation, during that same time period I could almost feel my synapses firing faster and new neuron connections being made. I felt like I got a turbo boost to my IQ during that period where I thought fast, was more creative and just generally sharper. That effect, whether placebo or otherwise has completely disappeared by now, so it's nothing intrinsic to the format.

I spent a month in 2011 learning Colemak. I never got siginificantly faster than QWERTY, but is was way more comfortable and easy on the hands.

Sadly, I went back to QWERTY because I just couldn't manage to retain QWERTY ability. I typed like a retard on other people's machines, and because I spend some of my work hours helping and teaching others (on their machines), this ended up a deal-breaker.

I had thought by typing in QWERTY in the mornings I would be able to retain both, but I just couldn't actually do that in practice.

Learning Colemak ended up being an overall negative experience, even, because QWERTY seems even more stupid than it always has, after experiencing something better.

QWERTY, but only because I haven't yet had the time to purchase stickers or a Dvorak keyboard so I can learn Dvorak.

It also doesn't help at all that the iPhone doesn't have a software Dvorak keyboard layout (jailbreaking is not an option).

IMO you shouldn't use stickers or a dvorak keyboard to learn a new layout, the goal is to touch-type, without looking at the keyboard. The F and J keys have ridges so you know where your index fingers should rest by just feeling the keys, and you should be able to find everything else from there without looking. Just print out a dvorak layout on paper and keep that around for a month or two.

I know but usually just get frustrated when I have to look at a reference to figure out what key to hit instead of just glancing down at the keyboard.

I forgot to mention, and it also doesn't help, but I'm addicted to WoW so the times that I have switched to Dvorak I just switch back to QWERTY because I want to play WoW without having to re-do all my key binds and type slow as crap.

German Mac default QWERTZ, which is different from German PC QWERTZ. The most defining characteristic is @ being alt+L. Windows users trying to check webmail are bound to hit cmd+Q (and quit the foreground app) and Mac users on a PC will hit win+L from muscle memory (logout). Fun.

This might well be the reason why I never liked TeX at all. But I just love the placement of … and many other 'alt' glyphs that have nothing to do with coding.

I have also mapped the caps lock key to ']', which is the single most useful key ever for iOS dev in Xcode 4. Helped me more than switching to Dvorak would, I guess.

I originally checked "QWERTY, not considering to switch", but after reading the thread I had to change my vote. Maybe I'll try a few-month experiment.

Question though:

How do you copy/paste in Dvorak? Does it really take two hands? Do you have to remap copy/paste to new keys if you want to maintain the one-handed ability?

Also, anyone know what default behavior is for remote desktop? Do I need to change my keyboard settings on the remote machine or only the local machine? (I could TIAS tomorrow at work, but I'm on my linux laptop with no access to a machine to remote into.)

Reading up on wikipedia, it seems like MacOS has an option called "Dvorak – Qwerty ⌘" which allows you to type in Dvorak but use your old familiar ⌘-C ⌘-V etc. for copy/paste. Anyone know if Windows has a similar option?

Querty with the Kinesis keyboard (http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/). I considered learning Dvorak for comfort and speed advantages, but it's a bit daunting and time-consuming to get used to. I opted to get the contoured kinesis keyboard instead which takes about 10 days to get used to, but I'm slightly faster on it than normal keyboard and the comfort level is more than I ask for. It's really great for long typing sessions.

I started using Dvorak in November. At work we have shared computers, so I don't get to be exclusively QWERTY or Dvorak. In a way it's like becoming bilingual, what with all the mental code-switching.

It's extremely frustrating, but once the initial 3-day hump is past, the learning curve smooths out. I have no reason for learning Dvorak other than the sake of learning itself. If you aren't pushing yourself and destroying your comfort boundaries, what ARE you doing?

I realized one time that I could always use "setxkbd us -variant intl" instead of "setxkbd fin" and buy standard US-keyboard when & if I have a choice. Letters "ÄÖ" which is the only reason one uses FIN-keyboard are very conveniently located close to letters "AO" as "ALT-Q/ALT-P" in the "us -variant intl".

I am already very handy which this setup. Cost benefits can be ginormous, because there is never "50% off" sales on laptops in Finland.

QWERTY Canadian CSA ie with support for french and english and many other languages. Apple got it right. But PC sold in Quebec come with some awful mixup (multiple colors per key to support 2 optional layouts)

Is it just because doing what everybody does seems to the the thing to do in a PC construction business?

Can't be IPR because the work was done by parts of the goverment, and IIRC this still is the mandatory keyboard layouy for governmental sale

Separate Qwerty sub-question: Why does every laptop mfr now put the Windows & Menu keys on the bottom row & Ins/Del on the top row? I use Ins/Del way more. And what genius put PgUp and arrow up on the same key, needing to use Fn? Overall, even if you are Qwerty, the mfrs do a lousy job at placing the rest of the keys well.

typing speed has never been a limited factor for anything I've done. so I don't feel the need to optimize it.

did start learning shorthand once, but I found the simpler solution to my particular problem (nobody agreeing on the meetings conclusions) was just to have the discipline to write a short summary meeting email to all attendees.

I tried Dvorak, and while I like the layout it's just not worth it. The number of exceptions that you have to make (certain apps, shortcut muscle memory, other devices, other peoples' systems, games, etc.) becomes a real problem very quickly.

If I only had to type on my own computer's keyboard and nothing else, I'd use Dvorak.

QWERTY with American keymap on my MacBook with support for dead keys and QWERTY with ABNT2 brazilian layout like this: http://oui.com.br/n/e107_files/images/teclado-abnt2.png

I'm quick with QWERTY (over 100 WPM), all my laptops use QWERTY, my tablet and my phone both use QWERTY, my TV uses QWERTY... It would be silly and pointless for me to switch. I might be able to increase my WPM slightly but my WPM with QWERTY is good enough.

I use UK Dvorak, which is similar to Dvorak, except the @ and the " symbols are switched around. I haven't yet encountered an OS that offers this as a default layout, so whenever I'm away from home, I get those symbols wrong. The cost of typing comfort...

QWERTY with caps as control.

Ctrl+[ is considered escape on older keyboards so vi style software includes emulation/acceptance of this behaviour.

Lets you hit escape easily, one finger on each hand, while still having easy access to other ctrl modified behavior (page up, page down).

QWERTY. I should be using an AZERTY French Belgian layout since that's what you get here but I switched a few years back because all shortcuts are first thought for QWERTY (curly and square brackets are specially annoying on an AZERTY layout)

If it weren't for vim, I would have definitely considered switching. I know you can map keys and all, but, it just doesn't make sense going through all the hassle.

Are there any bi-layouters out there?

Qwerty and Colemak. I sometimes use Qwerty when I am chatting while gaming or when on someone else's computer - though about 2/3 as fast.

I find that I don't have to actively think about what layout I am typing in, it just flows. I imagine bilinguists have a similar experience.

I chose Colemak primarily because it doesn't mess with common shortcuts (Bottom-left keys "qwarzxcvbm" remain the the same positions).

Pretty much exactly the same for me.

I still can't use Colemak on iOS devices, so regular QWERTY encounters still happen, but I didn't lose much of my QWERTY speed after I switched, something I feared might happen.

Before Colemak I tried Dvorak for about a month, but uncomfortable locations of common shortcuts seemed bit unfriendly - great for typing, not as great for computer use.

Colemak was a lot of fun to play around with, however my frequent use of Vim makes any alternative keyboard unusable. Just scattering H,J,K,L throws my productivity for a loop.

Dvorak user. I also use vim heavily (I switched to dvorak before I started using vim, so I've always been used to having h,j,k, and l being separated.

But doesn't that destroy some of the main good points about vim? Like keeping your fingers on the same spots on the keyboard? You could re-map hjkl to whatever the dvorak equivalents and then you'd probably have an easier time navigating around.

I use dvorak with vim, and having the hjkl keys in other locations has never been a problem for me. If you know vi well you probably don't even use them that much, as there are usually faster ways to move around (e.g. "b" and "w" to move around horizontally).

Dvorak work quite well with Vim. Just use "ce", "de", etc. instead of "cw", "dw", etc.

QWERTZ is the default here (Germany) however I've switched to QWERTY simply because that's the most convenient if you're using vim as an editor.

I've been mulling over popping out keys on a cheap USB keyboard to practice Dvorak but it's just not high up on my list of things to do.

qwerty with spanish layout, because I'm french and really need all the accent chars (spanish qwerty is a perfect mix).

I actually find Portuguese QWERTY better for programming. It's got all the braces in 'the right places' (that is, in the same place you'd find them in an US/UK keyboard), and it doesn't have the 'ñ' character that is completely useless in anything but Spanish.

(note: I grew up in Argentina, so I'm used to Argentinian keyboards, maybe Spanish keyboards use a different distribution?)

I found as well the Spanish QWERTY to be the best designed keyboard if you type in English, French and Spanish.

The French AZERTY is so poor, it is strange it is still the default keyboard for French speaking regions.

Qwerty, Polish Programmer's.

qwerty

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