Poll: Keyboard Layouts | Hacker News Reader

Poll: Keyboard Layouts

7 pointskashif21 comments

Curious about how promiscuous this audience is about keyboard layouts

I use QWERTY, but I always remap Caps Lock to Left Control because I use Emacs (both in Windows and Linux).

http://steve.yegge.googlepages.com/effective-emacs

+1 for Caps Lock to Left Control

I was amazed how easy this was to do in OS X. I could only do this with registry hacks on a PC, and I can't remember how I used to do it in Linux.

On Linux, add this to your Xmodmap:

  remove Lock = Caps_Lock
  remove Control = Control_L
  keysym Control_L = Caps_Lock
  keysym Caps_Lock = Control_L
  add Lock = Caps_Lock
  add Control = Control_L

Under Gnome, you never have to edit Xmodmap directly for this. System>Preferences>Hardware>Keyboard>Keyboard Layout>Ctrl key position

You can also swap in Esc into that slot, if you're a vi user.

For almost two months, exclusively Colemak. I had used QWERTY, and never tried Dvorak. I'm enjoying it.

http://colemak.com/

I looked at both Colemak and Dvorak (as well as it's variants) and Colemak made the most sense to me. I too enjoy it though I never actually tried Dvorak so I can't compare them from personal experience. Changing was quick. The only problems that I have experienced are switching from Colemak to QWERTY, setting and using passwords that have to be used with more than one layout, and the occasional problem with at one character not working correctly in the cygwin terminal.

THE FABLE OF THE KEYS* S. J. LIEBOWITZ and STEPHEN E. MARGOLIS http://www.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/keys1.html

Paper on the supposed benefits of Dvorak vs qwerty. Also, if you google on authors names and dvorak, there are several arguments against the paper, I don't think they are particularly convincing, but they are interesting.

The much enlarged version is the book "Winners, Losers, and Microsoft: Competition and Antitrust in High Technology" http://www.amazon.com/Winners-Losers-Microsoft-Competition-I...

I tried Dvorak in High School and it was great. I stopped because I had to use a lot of computers which I couldn't switch without causing problems. Now I don't. I should switch back.

I had a wrist scare a couple of years ago, which made me take the prospect of Dvorak seriously. It has helped, I think, although I changed too many variables to be sure.

When I ran into wrist, finger, and forearm issues a few years ago, I did the following (in order of what I think helped the most): Good chair with arms lowered too far for me to lean on them, switched to tiled window manager and stopped using the mouse almost entirely, made myself move around more during the work day taking breaks to walk out for tea or just to get some air, and became more conscious of my hand position throughout the day. The only thing I've kept is the chair (an Aeron) and some of the better working habits, and the problems have not returned after several years.

checking out xmonad (is that what you're using ?) right now.

I've tinkered with it, but I'm actually back to Gnome. xmonad did not exist when I was dealing with the issues. I mostly used Ion (I think version 2). I spent some time with wmii, as well, in the beginning but had stability problems. This was several years ago, though. Memory fades. I've been back to Gnome for maybe three years. This is why I think the solution was mostly a good chair and better work habits.

ok. Playing around with xmonad right now, it seems pretty cool but I have a hard time convincing it to use both xinerama screens. EDIT: figured it out...

thanks for the hint though, really. I try to spend a couple of hours every week on improving my work environment and over the years that has definitely paid off. I was aware tiled window managers existed but never thought of trying one in order to combat the mouse use.

I use Dvorak on my main keyboard, and qwerty otherwise. You can learn to switch between them. (I'm not sure if everyone can learn to switch, but it's easy for me -- the different feel of the keys on my main keyboard triggers my brain differently)

Qwerty

looking at dvorak, I fail to see how its more convenient

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KB_United_States_Dvorak.sv...

All the vowels are on the home row...

Warning: Anecdotal Evidence ahead

I tried dvorak on a whim back in high school, and now I could never go back to QWERTY. It's something that can't really be described how much nicer it is to type on a dvorak keyboard. If you have a couple weeks to learn it well, I highly suggest it.

I second the niceness feeling.

I've also remapped almost all modifier keys (Emacs user).

I used QWERTY with two fingers and could not get myself to to touchtype with all fingers. Switching to DVORAK helped retrain. I use two finger (looking at the keyboad) typing on QWERTY and ten finger (blind) on DVORAK.

BTW, this was discussed on HN last year as well:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=424835

I use too many computers on a daily basis to bother to learn Dvorak. If I could get it down to 1-2 per week I'd consider it, though.

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