Dvorak keyboard layout, anyone used it?

greeef · Post by **greeef** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 9:41 am

my brother decided to use a left handed dvorak layout, and switches between querty and that quite regularly.

He says he's mildly slower with one-handed dvorak, and only uses qwerty for long conversations.
About a month after he started using it he was at about 40wpm, it's been a long time since then.

wooo! first off topic post, and it's relevant! rare!

griff

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 10:54 am

Any convenient tools for switching between to and from a one-handed dvorak format?

1398342003 · Post by **1398342003** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 11:26 am

greeef wrote:wooo! first off topic post, and it's relevant! rare!

griff

Then it isn't offtopic.

You should be able to press Alt + Shift to switch between the two formats easily.

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 11:30 am

1398342003 wrote:You should be able to press Alt + Shift to switch between the two formats easily.

Err..... How does that work?

1398342003 · Post by **1398342003** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 11:46 am

In Windows you can have multiple layouts. There should be an option to switch between the two when Alt+Shift are pressed together.

greeef · Post by **greeef** » Sun Apr 18, 2004 10:54 am

Use the windows language bar, you can set shortcuts there.

greef

wim · Post by **wim** » Mon Jun 28, 2004 10:07 pm

how fast can you go now?

i've been typing dvorak for a few years, and have since converted 3 other people. once you're up to speed you won't ever want to go back.

i just tried that test thing and got 67 wpm (felt pretty slow because i haven't had to type any Caps for a while.. heh).

i love this layout.. but in my opinion the biggest advantage is not speed (when i was 16 i could probably get 60+ wpm on qwerty too - but not anymore) .. it is the greatly increased comfort level of typing! because everything you want is on the home row, typing feels so much easier, it's much less awkward. the vowels on one side means you spend most of the time alternating hands... in fact you can sort of alternately mash your hands down on the home row and end up with something looking vaguely like english, rather than getting jklfds;lkjfadsfd;.

the other advantage is i never look at the keyboard now (because it still says qwerty). kids learn how to type by looking at the keyboard and i found that with qwerty i would still do this, out of habit, even when i knew where all the keys were. very bad habit, but it was abolished when i learned dvorak (i was using a printout as was mentioned here earlier). newcomers: DON'T try to change the keys around!

1) you might develop this bad habit
2) most keyboard surfaces are slightly curved so the keys actually aren't the same shape: result may end up looking ugly and feeling kind of lumpy
3) after a year of dvorak you will probably need to look at the keyboard on the rare occasions when you find yourself needing to use qwerty keys (BIOS, DOS, some badly programmed games..)

it's a shame it's not more popular, because it is way superior to qwerty (which is actually designed to slow you down - true story). maybe schools should teach dvorak at a young age. but i suppose being so rare means you have nerd-credibility if you know dvorak - it adds to dvorak's kind of nerdy appeal. i smile whenever i see a dvorak typo somewhere out there on a foruw..er i mean forum

hwsboss · Post by **hwsboss** » Tue Jun 29, 2004 9:21 am

28 wpm gross, 51 % errors, 14 net wpm

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 7:38 am

For me, it's really weird. I can type Dvorak based on the feel of my own keyboard, but I semi-automatically switch to Qwerty when I use a different keyboard (it's not perfect, but I've never had to resolve to hunt 'n peck).

I never really measured my speed. I don't particularly care to either. I've found that I still make the same mistakes that I usually do and I don't think my relative speed has increased any by switching to Dvorak. I can positively say that the comfort level has increased tremendously and that anyone who has pains in their writsts from typing too much may wish to consider Dvorak before going with an alternative, ergonomic keyboard.

Now if only I can get my wife to learn ANY format. She's the fastest two-fingered typist I know and it pains me to watch her type.

wim · Post by **wim** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 10:40 am

sthayashi wrote:I can type Dvorak based on the feel of my own keyboard, but I semi-automatically switch to Qwerty when I use a different keyboard

heh me too. it's weird. i'd heard about the brain-association thing before i'd started learning dvorak. so what i did was buy a new keyboard with a new feel at the same as switching to dvorak (this was one of the tips on some dvorak pimping site i was reading). i went out and got this ridiculously expensive logitech duo:

and i'd never tried natural before so it felt weird, i love it now!

but it's a good trick i think to get a different keyboard when you do the switch. this way it already feels awkward so you don't find yourself accidentally slipping back into a qwerty frame of mind so much.

Zyzzyx · Post by **Zyzzyx** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 3:35 pm

Hmmm... was just recently thinking about my topic here. Curious to see that it is still going.

I haven't checked my Dvorak speed recently, and not sure I need/want to. I can tell that I'm not quite up to the speed I had with QWERTY, but as folks just mentioned, typing is SO much more comfortable.

And I'm in the same setup with a different keyboard as well. My mind automatically switches to Qwerty when I put my hands on a flat, or 'standard' ergo, keyboard.

My keyboard:

Typing in Qwerty just feels painful now.

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 8:29 pm

The problem with making such a switch is that other non-Dvorak users will question whether it was Dvorak that was more comfortable or the keyboard. Especially since buying a new keyboard requires considerably less effort than learning a new layout.

rtsai · Post by **rtsai** » Fri Jul 02, 2004 5:45 am

I'm also a happy Kinesis Ergo user (qwerty). I've never seriously considered going Dvorak, but it sounds like it's optimized for typical English-language prose typing? Is that your normal use of the keyboard?

I'm a programmer; I don't see how a layout optimized for English language would help that much for non-English languages or for programming, where you make extensive use of non-standard characters like punctuation, and where the tools also encourage heavy use of keys like function keys (that is the one thing I absolutely -hate- about the Kinesis ergo).

Maybe we avoid the qwerty thing by just choosing cryptic home-row-only characters for all our variable and function names

One of my friends who has tried many different keyboard designs and keyboard layouts now just uses qwerty because it causes the least grief when someone else comes into his office and needs to temporarily "drive" (another one of my co-workers worked around this problem by buying a second cheap qwerty keyboard for guests). He said his take-away lesson from all his experimentation is that now he just types poorly on all keyboards, but that the slowdown is actually what helped his impending RSI the most

.

Me, I am always going to want to type too fast no matter what layout I end up with. I use a program called "workrave" to remind/force rest breaks from the keyboard.

fanerman91 · Post by **fanerman91** » Sat Jul 03, 2004 12:01 pm

Is left/right hand only Dvorak the same format as the 2-handed edition? Does anybody have any good links for instructions for one hand only?

I started practicing in Dvorak an hour ago thanks to that link. I'm not doing too bad... I'm typing in Dvorak right now.

Zyzzyx,
How do you program macros in the keyboard?

rtsai · Post by **rtsai** » Sat Jul 03, 2004 4:07 pm

Kinesis web page has their print manuals available for download:

http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/tech_support/downloads.htm
http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/tech_suppor ... m_tips.htm

wim · Post by **wim** » Sun Jul 04, 2004 12:53 am

fanerman91 wrote:Is left/right hand only Dvorak the same format as the 2-handed edition? Does anybody have any good links for instructions for one hand only?

when i first installed dvorak i erroneously chose "dvorak for right-handed" because i thought me being right handed meant i should choose that one. didn't take me long to realise i had made a mistake - all the useful keys were over the right side and i seemed to be typing with one hand all the time

they are not at all the same, they're really weird. they attempt to put all the alphabet in reach of one hand, the numbers get remapped so that you have 4 rows of letters instead of 3. i think the idea was for people who need to type fast and use the mouse simultaneously, but maybe it is just for cybersex professionals.

R L

greeef · Post by **greeef** » Sun Jul 04, 2004 8:05 am

It's for people like my brother, who has a keyboard resting on one arm of his lay-z-boy and the mouse on the other and no desire to move

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Sun Jul 04, 2004 9:22 am

From Dvorak Interational's FAQ:

Dvorak Interational FAQ wrote:Left and right hand layouts

In 1945, during World War II, Colonel Robert Allen lost his right arm. Being a writer, he now found typing nearly impossible. He contacted August Dvorak and asked for help. Using his previous research, August developed keyboard layouts for one handed typists. These are known as the Dvorak left hand layout and the Dvorak right hand layout. A few months after using the Dvorak left hand layout, the Colonel was typing over 50 WPM. (A scientific study comparing of the advantages of the Dvorak one-hand layouts to QWERTY has never been done. This would be like comparing the life preserving advantages of a life-jacket to a cinder block.)

Oddly enough though, single-handed typists eschew the one-handed Dvorak layout for the same reasons most two handed people eschew the single handed layout. It's not being used everywhere. i.e. you learn and train to get up to 50 WPM on a left-handed Dvorak keyboard and you go to work and BOOM! you're back down to 5 WPM because your work keyboard is setup to be Qwerty.

Lilly Walters, an author who's famous for being a single-handed typist, explains this in further detail.

For normal two handed dvorak typist, I highly recommend the program that I mentioned on the first page. It's non-intrusive and it's standalone, so you download it and run it, and afterwards, you can delete it.

shathal · Post by **shathal** » Sun Jul 04, 2004 9:46 am

*brrrr*

AZERTY.... that's just not right ....

Johnny Z · Post by **Johnny Z** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 12:23 pm

This is sort of repeating what others have said. I switched to dvorak last year. It took me about 2+ weeks to go completely dvorak. Some people still manage to switch back and forth without a issue. I could switch back and forth but only with difficulty. This is what took me longer to learn because I wanted to do both and eventually just stuck it out with dvorak. I type about the same speed on dvorak as I did on qwerty which is about 45wpm and the only real difference for me was less strain on my hands. Which is real helpfull as a heavy computer user.

Also there is a difference between the dvorak most people use and the original.
http://infohost.nmt.edu/~shipman/ergo/fig1.jpg
This pic shows it, the number row was actually altered.

TheSaint · Post by **TheSaint** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 2:21 pm

They gave me the option of learning this in my typing class, however I've yet to see keyboards that are designed for this format.

shathal · Post by **shathal** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 2:35 pm

Yeah - funny.

I always notice them in Windows setup ... yet, in my entire life, I've not run across an actual KEYBOARD which has that layout...

And I don't think I've got selective blindness...

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 2:38 pm

http://www.dvortyboards.com/

shathal · Post by **shathal** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 2:50 pm

Ah - but that's in the US.

Clearly a pyramid scheme. No-one would buy these things...

*hides real quick...*

greeef · Post by **greeef** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 5:30 pm

Do you think it's possible to flash a USB keyboard to dvorak layout? How about making my sleep key into a switch between? I'm pretty sure those usb microcontrollers are generic ones with flashed code...

griff (scuse dumb posting, am high.)

Mr.Radar · Post by **Mr.Radar** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 7:17 pm

Why not just use DVassist? (<< Linked in first page)

mpteach · Post by **mpteach** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 8:53 pm

I use the ctr+shift and windows swtiches it, easist thing ever

shathal · Post by **shathal** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 12:15 pm

Yeah, I was about to say - all you need is just to load the corresponding keyboard driver in Windows.

It doesn't see what you have ...

greeef · Post by **greeef** » Fri Jul 09, 2004 6:01 am

oh yeah i know windows can do the switch easily, done it plenty of times. I just wanted one fully wired in hardware, so you could plug it into any pc and not have to do anything on a driver level.

griff

mpteach · Post by **mpteach** » Fri Jul 09, 2004 11:20 am

Its funny on those rare ocasions where someone else on your computer accidetnly hits the ctr-shift buttons and swiches it without knowing.

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