I like straight to the point but watching on mobile the overlay with suggestions for further viewing came up over the end of the video which was weird. I think an outtro to prevent this would be nice
Love your videos. Jumping right in was refreshing (so many channels have this “tell you what I’m gonna tell you-tell you-tell you what I told you” approach). But the ending was so abrupt I actually watched the end twice to make sure it wasn’t an error or my phone was glitching.
Yep - do appreciate the absense of fluff and repetition, though the ending was a little over abrupt - just a couple of words to shut it down would have worked. By the way, I was browsing while building myself a nice (conventional) mechanical keyboard for the office, found your channel out of curiosity about how 40% keyboards, layers etc. worked. As a result, literally _while building_ my 'special' keyboard, I ended up ordering all the parts for a Ferris Sweep and am heading for a 34 key keyboard... It's all your fault and my wife may be having words with you.
your channel is very underrated. no one talks about things that you do and for me your vids are more valuable for me than any other kb channel. good joob, keep going like that man :D
what a timing i started switching to colemak dh last month so its really nice to see you choose it as an appropriate layout. I myself worked with the neo layout before that so i see a lot of similarities. My goal will be to be good enough with typing on qwerty that it is nice to use and now replace neo with colemak dh for my ergo keyboards. Your videos are always really informative and I like the perspective you give these very detailed parts of the keyboard and ergonomics ecosystem
Why did you decide to switch? I was under the impression you were using one of the Neo variations because it was specifically designed for the German language.
@@TechTekker exactly I just dont type much in german anymore so i noticed that the left keyboard half has the 3 umlaut characters(where i placed the special chars -/=) on it which will reduce the amount of keys i can use for shortcuts when using the right hand with the mouse. there are some smaller reasons as well but this is the main thing that got me thinking, I'm still working on the video about that
Really enjoy that you've made this channel very much a journey into you trying these things out, rare to find videos like this on such niche topics while still being well produced!
One of my fav channel here. I am also on Colemak mod DH and learning to touch type with it now. 30wpm... slowly getting there... Looking forward to the next video!
Short and sweet, I like it! I have also changed to Colemak DH earlier this year and enjoy it. The only flaw that I see with it is that it definitely feels like my right hand is doing the majority of the work. I just recently soldered in per key backlighting on my Corne LP and enabled the typing heatmap display too, which reinforces this feeling as my right half is always more lit up than my left half.
Yes, that is true. I wonder why not more people talk about the shortcomings of Colemak (less rolls than "advertised", too much work for the right hand, higher SFB than alternatives...) When I learned my custom layout (which was similar to Colemak, because using the same assumptions) I noticed that also. Therefore I ditched it and created a new layout which I think is much better than any Colemak variant. I have chosen to build on a variant of AdnW (Xoy) and modified that to my needs for English, German and Dutch. Then all keys move, but so what. Learning Colemak with about 17 keys changed is already an effort and the extra effort to learn all 30 keys new is not that large in comparison IMO.
Hi Ben, love the video as always. I have few questions 1. Can you provide any tips (that help the transition) for people like me who are considering to switch to a better layout? 2. Will you do a follow up video on your experience with this new layout and compare all three 3. You are awesome man! This is really an underrated channel. I wish you good luck in achieving million subs
I once used colemak for a few years, but after enough annoyance with keyboard shortcuts, switching back to qwerty at work, and keybinds in games. I switched back to qwerty. I feel like the greatest benefits I gained from colemak was learning how to type properly rather than the actual layout.
I`m looking forward to your next videos about this. Don't forget to include the impact of this change to your reduced keyboard layouts with 36 keys and such. I really hope to learn a lot from that.
It's a misconception that QWERTY was designed to keep typewriter hammers from jamming. QWERTY evolved from an alphabetical layout folded in half. You can still see that in the middle and bottom alpha rows. That just happens to suck as a primary design choice for a keyboard layout.
1) I heard once that the "hammer jamming" was a myth; apparently the guy who came up with the typewriter just wanted typing to be an elitist thing, so he made it hard to learn. 2) I spent some time applying machine learning to keyboard layouts earlier this year; the project isn't done yet, but I already think finger travel and finger jamming (too much movement with one finger for back-to-back keystrokes) on my layout are both significantly improved over both Colemak and Workman. If you'd like to try it out, I'd be happy to share my Moonlander file (probably only the first layer would be of interest)!
Ah, I was waiting for this video :) I got my Moonlander about four weeks ago and decided to switch to Colemak-DH, since my muscle memory going from staggered to ortholinear required readjusting anyway. I'm now at 75-80wpm and I haven't any regrets about the switch. I eagerly await your upcoming videos continuing on this subject! Tips for maintaining moderate proficiency in QWERTY would be nice. I find that continuing to use QWERTY on my laptop keyboard helps keep the muscle memory separate and it's a pretty instant readjustment.
@@valethemajor it continues to be incredible. I'm down to a 36-key layout, still on Colemak-DH, with 100WPM on a bad day and 120-130 on a good one. The only thing I would say is that there are much cheaper DIY options once you get down to 36 keys, some of which are showcased on this channel.
@@TechTekker seems to be the trend with everyone I've spoken to about their ergo or moonlander - swapped to a smaller board! I'd rather not do sautering tho, sounds delicate and frustrating and heck dunno what the tools cost or what software I'd use to code it haha. Would prefer the streamlined experience at least at this stage in my journey.
@@valethemajor just to be clear, I'm using a 36-key layout, but still on the Moonlander! The fact that it has so many keys allowed to me slowly and comfortably get to this point, which was brilliant. And yes, the Oryx interface is simple and easy, but powerful nonetheless. Whatever split ortholinear keyboard you choose, you'll certainly be happy :)
@@TechTekker Oh yeah I guess there's some advantage of flexibility when you have more keys.... Wow, awesome! I am not as concerned over the investment anymore then. Are you using whatever you chose for default switches or have you swapped your keys around at all?
I actually did my own research and made my own personal keyboard layout that's inspired by both workman and halmak. The best alternative from qwerty is the one that works best for you.😏
Nice video, I myself got into alternative layout a year ago and dit know which to learn, after some exploring on the internet I found Halmak, designed in 2016 assisted with AI it looked great, tried it, liked it and now after a few months I'm at 90% my original speed, still improving slowly. :)
Literally yesterday I configured my Atreus to use only 36 keys and Miryoku layout. It is based on Colemak-DH. If someone who is interested, I can send a config file. For 5 column Corne and Gergoplex, Miryoku is an easy-to-use and scientific layout to start with, then each person can adjust their own needs 😄
Knowing that this will be a series of videos makes me happy, weird that you didn't come across with dvorak first, or did you? If you did, the reasons why you didn't pick dvorak could be used for another video :) but thank you so much for this Ben, it's always appreciated to hear from someone their experiences with alt keyboard layouts.
I tried learning Dvorak, Colemak, workman at one point, but then I realised that 90% of the gains come from moving the n e and t keys to the home row. So I ended up making my own keyboard layout because it's so much easier to stay close to qwerty and just have a few key changes
Perhaps that is the way to go, if you are already used to Qwerty for years and are good with it. I found it difficult to fully change to Dvorak, to the point where you start to wonder if it is worth it. I did fully change over, but it took me years. Do you have any sort of pain in your hands ever, after doing a lot of typing in your new format ? That strain caused me to want to ditch Qwerty. I never have any strain in the hands now that I type Dvorak. If this worked for you, I guess it's definitely the way to go. Changing a few letters must absolutely be something you can do in a few months or so. Perhaps even start with just one letter, then another, then another. Keep the flow going.
@@josboersema1352 Oh I don’t recommend changing your layout often, it’s definitely easier once you’ve done it once, but every time you make a mistake you go from 100wpm to 20. I learnt that despite being on the home row, the pinky is a terrible finger to use, use your stronger fingers more often rather than prioritising the home row
@@benlu Absolutely. Right pinky finger is a complete mess on a standard keyboard, it couldn't be worse. It has 10 additional symbols to do. That's why I'm using a 40% with my own layout, and relief all that pinky stress. I'll just carry my keyboard along, don't even dare barely look at Qwerty. Put Dvorak on phone too. Don't want to activate those old neural pathways ;-). One trick I do is when I make a mistake, I don't just correct it, I go back a few words for additional punishment, and to properly get it right. Key to good typing is a low error rate. Some guy with an insane speed said so.
Shucks that i don't think I have the commitment to change layout, I'm too far in. I guess I'll start with the dactly manuform for otholinear and start from there! Thanks ben for inspiring me to build a split otho board!
@@skyhappy already built the DM and so far, it's not as bad switching from staggered to it. Maybe because of the sculpt nature of it, makes it easier to find where stuff are
Considering I never learned QWERTY I should be okay. I made up my own finger positioning system because it felt super awkward to use touch typing on a traditionally staggered keyboard. I'm about to start my journey into columnar keyboards, so I figure it's a good time to switch layout too and actually learn to type properly.
The video inspired me to start learning colemak dhm on colemak.academy - the only site I found which had both colemak dhm specifically and a on-screen keyboard. Let's see if I stick to it :D
I switched from Workman at 60wpm when I realized some of the keystroke combinations were still uncomfortable and am now around 50wpm on colemak dh and already absolutely loving it. Feels so much more....flowy? I found with both layouts a serious plateau of speed increase rate around 40-50 wpm but it seems like you've avoided this - do you have a toolset and drill regimen you use that gives you a more constant rate of improvement? Cheers!
@@frzen me? I'm averaging in the 70s now with spikes around 100-110 if the words are common enough. I find I still have to think about certain letters sometimes but mostly the muscle memory is doing well. I do go into qwerty occasionally when working on a laptop so I'm keeping both in my brain which is nice
Thank you Ben! Your videos are very helpful. Are you using Colemak-DH for a matrix-like keyboard (formerly known as Colemak-DHm)? Looking forward to more videos on this, as I will be moving to Colemak-DH matrix on my Moonlander.
I would love an updated video on this, I saw in later videos that you had switched to IRST, and was wondering why? I'm using colemak dh and have found it to be great!! The one key pair that I don't like is 'ke' maybe its because of my little tiny baby hands.
I switched to Colemak via the ZSA web site and for the life of me I cannot find 2 things, one the ? and two, the switch level key(s). These are explained by ZSA for the default QWERTY layout but it seems like other layouts were created by users without complete explanations of where things are. or?
Just wanna say thanks for these videos. You convinced me to make the jump to try out both a 36-key setup on my Planck, as well as a colemak dhm layout, and I'm really appreciating the change, especially the reduced strain on my fingers. I'm actually starting the transition to stenography, first for normal writing, and eventually for coding. I'm hoping that it will improve my workflow and reduce finger strain by making use of chording techniques. Any opinion/interest in stenography?
learned dvorak for a year then my right pinky started to hurt once i was around 100 wpm so basically I already can type about 100 on qerty but i dont use the home row and that is fine because my hands dont hurt so whatever it was kinda anoying although it was pretty comfortable
This looks awesome. The only question I want to ask is whether planck ez is enough for all purposes or not? I tavel alot and I want the smallest and most efficient keyboard for programming in Javascript.
@@BenVallack It has been a week now since my planck arrived. It was the best decision I have ever made. I took around an hour to reach my usual typing speed which is around 70 wpm. And kept optimizing it coding and tried like 12 different layouts for the whole week and finally reached the optimal. Typing has never been that comfortable on a keyboard. It is awesome!!
Ben, Thanks for the video. I wanted to ask your advice. If you weigh the ergonomics of the DH mod against the Windows installation difficulty for employees locked down by their IT/Sec depts, do you think it's worth learning the DH mod vs learning vanilla Colemak which can easily be installed in Windows as an input option. I've installed the "big bag" but can't get DH on my work laptop. Thanks in advance.
Interesting issue, vanilla Colemak is going to be way better than Qwerty so it has to be better than not doing it at all. I never started with normal Colmak so can’t really comment on that.
Love the videos! I just bought a moonlander! I was wondering if you made any changes to make colemak better for vim? I feel like not having h,j,k,l for movement on home row is not desireable
I modified my vimrc for that actually, if you google it there are some tips. Basically remap hjkl and then put mnei somewhere else whithout causing a knock on effect!
I would like to test it in ISO distribution, however, I am not sure where the "ñ" is going to be placed. If someone finds any resources about this, I will appreciate it.
Idk where is best to ask this, but I heard you got to 100 wpm in 18 hours; I'm about to break 100 hours and I still can't seem to get above 60wpm on english 5k for a minute (when I started practicing, I was maxing out around 40wpm). do you or anyone else have any tips I could use? it seems most of my problem is with accuracy; when I type a word with three characters in a row with left right left or right left right, where the duplicate hand is using the same finger both times, the middle one always seems to not get in the middle so I have to spam backspace and retry. (I grew up on colemak so that's words like "were" or the use in because, they tend to come out like weer or wree and becaues or becasue)
Hey! I find myself in the same spot you were on this video. I've been using workman for a bit more than 1 year, and I can reach 85 wpm quite comfortably. But surpassing 100wpm feels pretty hard. How it's been your ColemakDH experience so far in this time? Cheers.
Question: I'm currently transitioning to Dvorak and I'm still in early stage. I already find really weird that the F is so hard to reach, specially when coding (considering for, foreach, etc start with F 😕). I don't know if this is bc I'm still using a staggered kb (I'll have a sofle58 in a couple of days and will be able to test this) or if it's the layout's problem. Does anybody have recommendations? Maybe trying another layout? I don't want to end up trying multiple layouts, loosing interest and going back to qwerty.
I would jump on the alt keyboard layouts Discord and see what they suggest over there. It’s the cutting edge of amazing layouts over there! discord.gg/J6d7kjjUDp
@@BenVallack I still miss the suggestions and autocomplete there. I was thinking that a mobile keyboard should have only 2 or 4 keys and the software should be able to predict the words or offer suggestions. Two fingers don't offer that much. If I could find a nice library to get the suggestions and learn from user typings I would implemented myself
@@BenVallack It's a bit pointy, that one, I do admit it. I was riled by the arrogance of Bucao. Apparently, according to him fingers store kinetic energy like springs...? And yet, we still get lots of people new to alt layouts who fall for the advertising of Workman (and Norman) as so brilliant and certainly better than Colemak... Ugh.
Looking Colemac as a non-English speaker, it looks hardly better than qwerty. It also has low prominence keys placed at high prominence places, only differently to qwerty.
Will I ever get used to it, no I won't, as long as there is Qwerty I will keep on using it. We can't have a organised society without Workman, and Coleman are very useful when you want to keep warm during winter, but let them keep their unwashed hands from my keyboard.
Oh you lucky bastards, fancy typists with your one language... For me if I rap my keyboard I'll have to re-learn a new mapping for Hebrew as well, and I bet it would be far from optimized... Sadly this means I'll have to stick to QWERTY.
Trying a new format with no intro/outro for this one. How does it work for you?
I like straight to the point but watching on mobile the overlay with suggestions for further viewing came up over the end of the video which was weird. I think an outtro to prevent this would be nice
@Adam Hilliker Ah good point thanks!
Agree with Adam, it seemed like video ended abruptly.
Love your videos. Jumping right in was refreshing (so many channels have this “tell you what I’m gonna tell you-tell you-tell you what I told you” approach). But the ending was so abrupt I actually watched the end twice to make sure it wasn’t an error or my phone was glitching.
Yep - do appreciate the absense of fluff and repetition, though the ending was a little over abrupt - just a couple of words to shut it down would have worked.
By the way, I was browsing while building myself a nice (conventional) mechanical keyboard for the office, found your channel out of curiosity about how 40% keyboards, layers etc. worked. As a result, literally _while building_ my 'special' keyboard, I ended up ordering all the parts for a Ferris Sweep and am heading for a 34 key keyboard... It's all your fault and my wife may be having words with you.
I'm waiting for the video where he starts using steno.
Thinking this!
your channel is very underrated. no one talks about things that you do and for me your vids are more valuable for me than any other kb channel. good joob, keep going like that man :D
What a lovely comment, many thanks!
Yeah, absolutely, what he said👆
I agree thank you. Great production and quality as well
I agree! I really love this channel; I kind of want to try the new layout now. hzhaha
what a timing i started switching to colemak dh last month so its really nice to see you choose it as an appropriate layout. I myself worked with the neo layout before that so i see a lot of similarities.
My goal will be to be good enough with typing on qwerty that it is nice to use and now replace neo with colemak dh for my ergo keyboards.
Your videos are always really informative and I like the perspective you give these very detailed parts of the keyboard and ergonomics ecosystem
Why did you decide to switch? I was under the impression you were using one of the Neo variations because it was specifically designed for the German language.
@@TechTekker exactly I just dont type much in german anymore so i noticed that the left keyboard half has the 3 umlaut characters(where i placed the special chars -/=) on it which will reduce the amount of keys i can use for shortcuts when using the right hand with the mouse. there are some smaller reasons as well but this is the main thing that got me thinking, I'm still working on the video about that
@@JanLunge there‘s also PUQ
adnw.de/index.php?n=Main.OptimierungF%c3%bcrDieGeradeTastaturMitDaumen-Shift
Really enjoy that you've made this channel very much a journey into you trying these things out, rare to find videos like this on such niche topics while still being well produced!
Excuse me, then, what is the Angle mode of the Colemak DH layout? Пусть наш Бог хранит Украину. Миру мир! Cầu nguyện cho Ukraine và hòa bình.
One of my fav channel here. I am also on Colemak mod DH and learning to touch type with it now. 30wpm... slowly getting there... Looking forward to the next video!
Thanks great to hear that! 30wpm is a good start for sure!
Short and sweet, I like it! I have also changed to Colemak DH earlier this year and enjoy it. The only flaw that I see with it is that it definitely feels like my right hand is doing the majority of the work. I just recently soldered in per key backlighting on my Corne LP and enabled the typing heatmap display too, which reinforces this feeling as my right half is always more lit up than my left half.
Thanks! Interesting findings, I felt the opposite with Workman so was pleased to bring things back to my dominant hand a bit.
Yes, that is true. I wonder why not more people talk about the shortcomings of Colemak (less rolls than "advertised", too much work for the right hand, higher SFB than alternatives...) When I learned my custom layout (which was similar to Colemak, because using the same assumptions) I noticed that also. Therefore I ditched it and created a new layout which I think is much better than any Colemak variant. I have chosen to build on a variant of AdnW (Xoy) and modified that to my needs for English, German and Dutch. Then all keys move, but so what. Learning Colemak with about 17 keys changed is already an effort and the extra effort to learn all 30 keys new is not that large in comparison IMO.
Hi Ben, love the video as always.
I have few questions
1. Can you provide any tips (that help the transition) for people like me who are considering to switch to a better layout?
2. Will you do a follow up video on your experience with this new layout and compare all three
3. You are awesome man! This is really an underrated channel. I wish you good luck in achieving million subs
Yes, there are 5 more videos following soon (editing at the moment) looking at tips, pitfalls, tools, software, hardware and more! Thanks so much.
Awesome 🙌. Appreciate you answering my questions and can't wait for the upcoming videos.
I once used colemak for a few years, but after enough annoyance with keyboard shortcuts, switching back to qwerty at work, and keybinds in games. I switched back to qwerty.
I feel like the greatest benefits I gained from colemak was learning how to type properly rather than the actual layout.
Interesting, keyboard shortcuts (and passwords!) are one of those unexpected gotchas for sure!
I`m looking forward to your next videos about this. Don't forget to include the impact of this change to your reduced keyboard layouts with 36 keys and such. I really hope to learn a lot from that.
Yeah 36 keys has a lot to do with the ease of learning it I think. Thanks!
It's a misconception that QWERTY was designed to keep typewriter hammers from jamming. QWERTY evolved from an alphabetical layout folded in half. You can still see that in the middle and bottom alpha rows. That just happens to suck as a primary design choice for a keyboard layout.
Thank you for talking about how you managed to learn this while working a job. Most videos on this tend to leave that out
No problem! Yeah important to manage expectations there.
1) I heard once that the "hammer jamming" was a myth; apparently the guy who came up with the typewriter just wanted typing to be an elitist thing, so he made it hard to learn. 2) I spent some time applying machine learning to keyboard layouts earlier this year; the project isn't done yet, but I already think finger travel and finger jamming (too much movement with one finger for back-to-back keystrokes) on my layout are both significantly improved over both Colemak and Workman. If you'd like to try it out, I'd be happy to share my Moonlander file (probably only the first layer would be of interest)!
Oooh this sounds interesting. Can you send a link?
Lol whoever told you that was fucking with you
Ah, I was waiting for this video :)
I got my Moonlander about four weeks ago and decided to switch to Colemak-DH, since my muscle memory going from staggered to ortholinear required readjusting anyway. I'm now at 75-80wpm and I haven't any regrets about the switch.
I eagerly await your upcoming videos continuing on this subject! Tips for maintaining moderate proficiency in QWERTY would be nice. I find that continuing to use QWERTY on my laptop keyboard helps keep the muscle memory separate and it's a pretty instant readjustment.
how are things going? I'm currently at 40wpm with ANSI and I'm eyeing the Moonlander. Started a week and a half ago.
@@valethemajor it continues to be incredible. I'm down to a 36-key layout, still on Colemak-DH, with 100WPM on a bad day and 120-130 on a good one.
The only thing I would say is that there are much cheaper DIY options once you get down to 36 keys, some of which are showcased on this channel.
@@TechTekker seems to be the trend with everyone I've spoken to about their ergo or moonlander - swapped to a smaller board!
I'd rather not do sautering tho, sounds delicate and frustrating and heck dunno what the tools cost or what software I'd use to code it haha. Would prefer the streamlined experience at least at this stage in my journey.
@@valethemajor just to be clear, I'm using a 36-key layout, but still on the Moonlander! The fact that it has so many keys allowed to me slowly and comfortably get to this point, which was brilliant. And yes, the Oryx interface is simple and easy, but powerful nonetheless.
Whatever split ortholinear keyboard you choose, you'll certainly be happy :)
@@TechTekker Oh yeah I guess there's some advantage of flexibility when you have more keys.... Wow, awesome! I am not as concerned over the investment anymore then. Are you using whatever you chose for default switches or have you swapped your keys around at all?
I actually did my own research and made my own personal keyboard layout that's inspired by both workman and halmak.
The best alternative from qwerty is the one that works best for you.😏
Awesome, yeah definitely agree.
Nice video, I myself got into alternative layout a year ago and dit know which to learn, after some exploring on the internet I found Halmak, designed in 2016 assisted with AI it looked great, tried it, liked it and now after a few months I'm at 90% my original speed, still improving slowly. :)
Literally yesterday I configured my Atreus to use only 36 keys and Miryoku layout. It is based on Colemak-DH. If someone who is interested, I can send a config file.
For 5 column Corne and Gergoplex, Miryoku is an easy-to-use and scientific layout to start with, then each person can adjust their own needs 😄
Knowing that this will be a series of videos makes me happy, weird that you didn't come across with dvorak first, or did you? If you did, the reasons why you didn't pick dvorak could be used for another video :) but thank you so much for this Ben, it's always appreciated to hear from someone their experiences with alt keyboard layouts.
Thanks! Dvorak looked like a bit of a headache and I think I saw that Colemak beat it in a lot of metrics too.
@@BenVallack fair enough, thank you for your response.
I tried learning Dvorak, Colemak, workman at one point, but then I realised that 90% of the gains come from moving the n e and t keys to the home row. So I ended up making my own keyboard layout because it's so much easier to stay close to qwerty and just have a few key changes
Awesome yeah that is a good approach for sure.
Perhaps that is the way to go, if you are already used to Qwerty for years and are good with it. I found it difficult to fully change to Dvorak, to the point where you start to wonder if it is worth it. I did fully change over, but it took me years. Do you have any sort of pain in your hands ever, after doing a lot of typing in your new format ? That strain caused me to want to ditch Qwerty. I never have any strain in the hands now that I type Dvorak. If this worked for you, I guess it's definitely the way to go. Changing a few letters must absolutely be something you can do in a few months or so. Perhaps even start with just one letter, then another, then another. Keep the flow going.
@@josboersema1352 Oh I don’t recommend changing your layout often, it’s definitely easier once you’ve done it once, but every time you make a mistake you go from 100wpm to 20. I learnt that despite being on the home row, the pinky is a terrible finger to use, use your stronger fingers more often rather than prioritising the home row
@@benlu Absolutely. Right pinky finger is a complete mess on a standard keyboard, it couldn't be worse. It has 10 additional symbols to do. That's why I'm using a 40% with my own layout, and relief all that pinky stress. I'll just carry my keyboard along, don't even dare barely look at Qwerty. Put Dvorak on phone too. Don't want to activate those old neural pathways ;-).
One trick I do is when I make a mistake, I don't just correct it, I go back a few words for additional punishment, and to properly get it right. Key to good typing is a low error rate. Some guy with an insane speed said so.
@Jos Boersema you will love the next few videos!
Shucks that i don't think I have the commitment to change layout, I'm too far in. I guess I'll start with the dactly manuform for otholinear and start from there! Thanks ben for inspiring me to build a split otho board!
Start with the iris it is probably more friendly
@@skyhappy already built the DM and so far, it's not as bad switching from staggered to it. Maybe because of the sculpt nature of it, makes it easier to find where stuff are
Considering I never learned QWERTY I should be okay. I made up my own finger positioning system because it felt super awkward to use touch typing on a traditionally staggered keyboard. I'm about to start my journey into columnar keyboards, so I figure it's a good time to switch layout too and actually learn to type properly.
Still using the gergoplex, or are you rocking something else. Whats ur top 3 split keyboards?
Yep still on GergoPlex. I only have 3 split keyboards so they would be all I can comment on at the moment! (Moonlander, Corne and GergoPlex)
The video inspired me to start learning colemak dhm on colemak.academy - the only site I found which had both colemak dhm specifically and a on-screen keyboard. Let's see if I stick to it :D
I switched from Workman at 60wpm when I realized some of the keystroke combinations were still uncomfortable and am now around 50wpm on colemak dh and already absolutely loving it. Feels so much more....flowy?
I found with both layouts a serious plateau of speed increase rate around 40-50 wpm but it seems like you've avoided this - do you have a toolset and drill regimen you use that gives you a more constant rate of improvement?
Cheers!
Yeah stay tuned for a detailed look at the some of tips and tricks to keep the progress moving.
What speed are you at now?
@@frzen me? I'm averaging in the 70s now with spikes around 100-110 if the words are common enough. I find I still have to think about certain letters sometimes but mostly the muscle memory is doing well. I do go into qwerty occasionally when working on a laptop so I'm keeping both in my brain which is nice
@@AdamHillikerLikesRobots yes, thanks. I am thinking about switching and liked your flowy description
It's official. You're the Internet's new keyboard guru.
Fantastic topics and quality
Thank you Ben! Your videos are very helpful.
Are you using Colemak-DH for a matrix-like keyboard (formerly known as Colemak-DHm)?
Looking forward to more videos on this, as I will be moving to Colemak-DH matrix on my Moonlander.
Yep, that DH/DHm is totally confusing!!
I would love an updated video on this, I saw in later videos that you had switched to IRST, and was wondering why? I'm using colemak dh and have found it to be great!! The one key pair that I don't like is 'ke' maybe its because of my little tiny baby hands.
ISRT seems to be a level up from Colemak - I love it.
I switched to Colemak via the ZSA web site and for the life of me I cannot find 2 things, one the ? and two, the switch level key(s). These are explained by ZSA for the default QWERTY layout but it seems like other layouts were created by users without complete explanations of where things are. or?
Clormak mod DH is a fantastic keyboard typing on it is surprisingly faster since you don't need to move your fingers much
Just wanna say thanks for these videos. You convinced me to make the jump to try out both a 36-key setup on my Planck, as well as a colemak dhm layout, and I'm really appreciating the change, especially the reduced strain on my fingers.
I'm actually starting the transition to stenography, first for normal writing, and eventually for coding. I'm hoping that it will improve my workflow and reduce finger strain by making use of chording techniques. Any opinion/interest in stenography?
You’re very welcome! Yeah very interested in testing out some things with steno type chording etc for sure!
just switched to dvorak myself and I am enjoying it so far but still have a long way to go till i'm back where I was with qwerty
great video. Could you possibly post a video of you typing some code possibly please? Just wanna pick up some tips :D
Great idea, that would be fun! Added to the road map!
I did same and i am very happy
learned dvorak for a year then my right pinky started to hurt once i was around 100 wpm so basically I already can type about 100 on qerty but i dont use the home row and that is fine because my hands dont hurt so whatever it was kinda anoying although it was pretty comfortable
How do you use vim with the new layout? Don't you lose home row keys for navigation? Or did you remap?
This looks awesome. The only question I want to ask is whether planck ez is enough for all purposes or not? I tavel alot and I want the smallest and most efficient keyboard for programming in Javascript.
Absoultely enough, more keys than I felt I needed in fact! It’s one of the best options for the ’If I could only have one keyboard’ question.
@@BenVallack It has been a week now since my planck arrived. It was the best decision I have ever made. I took around an hour to reach my usual typing speed which is around 70 wpm. And kept optimizing it coding and tried like 12 different layouts for the whole week and finally reached the optimal. Typing has never been that comfortable on a keyboard. It is awesome!!
Awsome! Yeah they are very good keyboards.
Ben, Thanks for the video. I wanted to ask your advice. If you weigh the ergonomics of the DH mod against the Windows installation difficulty for employees locked down by their IT/Sec depts, do you think it's worth learning the DH mod vs learning vanilla Colemak which can easily be installed in Windows as an input option. I've installed the "big bag" but can't get DH on my work laptop. Thanks in advance.
Interesting issue, vanilla Colemak is going to be way better than Qwerty so it has to be better than not doing it at all. I never started with normal Colmak so can’t really comment on that.
Love the videos! I just bought a moonlander! I was wondering if you made any changes to make colemak better for vim?
I feel like not having h,j,k,l for movement on home row is not desireable
I modified my vimrc for that actually, if you google it there are some tips. Basically remap hjkl and then put mnei somewhere else whithout causing a knock on effect!
Thanks for the quick reply!
Subscribe to my new custom keyboards channel! www.youtube.com/@BenVallacksKeyboards
using dvorak is a game changer for me
I wonder if you are also into minimalist zero drop shoes
I didn't think I was that predictable 😂 I have worn Vivobarefoot shoes exclusively for about 5 years now. I keep meaning to do some videos on them.
@@BenVallack hahah I knew it. I will be waiting for that video.
I would like to test it in ISO distribution, however, I am not sure where the "ñ" is going to be placed.
If someone finds any resources about this, I will appreciate it.
What’s your config with vim tho? hjkl to me seems like a problem
Idk where is best to ask this, but I heard you got to 100 wpm in 18 hours; I'm about to break 100 hours and I still can't seem to get above 60wpm on english 5k for a minute (when I started practicing, I was maxing out around 40wpm). do you or anyone else have any tips I could use? it seems most of my problem is with accuracy; when I type a word with three characters in a row with left right left or right left right, where the duplicate hand is using the same finger both times, the middle one always seems to not get in the middle so I have to spam backspace and retry. (I grew up on colemak so that's words like "were" or the use in because, they tend to come out like weer or wree and becaues or becasue)
wouldn't this mess with the VIM shortcuts, like h j k l are not longer ideal for moving now with this layout
th-cam.com/video/pVSrHdY2EqA/w-d-xo.htmlsi=sWzF3Boc7sAcSZnQ
Hey! I find myself in the same spot you were on this video. I've been using workman for a bit more than 1 year, and I can reach 85 wpm quite comfortably. But surpassing 100wpm feels pretty hard. How it's been your ColemakDH experience so far in this time? Cheers.
I switched to ISRT which is even better imo!
Question:
I'm currently transitioning to Dvorak and I'm still in early stage. I already find really weird that the F is so hard to reach, specially when coding (considering for, foreach, etc start with F 😕). I don't know if this is bc I'm still using a staggered kb (I'll have a sofle58 in a couple of days and will be able to test this) or if it's the layout's problem.
Does anybody have recommendations? Maybe trying another layout? I don't want to end up trying multiple layouts, loosing interest and going back to qwerty.
I would jump on the alt keyboard layouts Discord and see what they suggest over there. It’s the cutting edge of amazing layouts over there! discord.gg/J6d7kjjUDp
0:14 name keyboaed ?
What is the keyboard shown?
It’s been some years. Do you still use colemak-dh?
Nope - I changed to ISRT. But there are lots of fascinating new super optimised layouts out there.
how you handle these layouts in iPhone? any app that offers the layout plus word prediction?
Not that I know of on iOS - there is xKeyboard though which works quite well for the layout. th-cam.com/video/RbhmVFd1iNE/w-d-xo.html
@@BenVallack I still miss the suggestions and autocomplete there. I was thinking that a mobile keyboard should have only 2 or 4 keys and the software should be able to predict the words or offer suggestions. Two fingers don't offer that much. If I could find a nice library to get the suggestions and learn from user typings I would implemented myself
Interesting. What was your QWERTY speed? Thanks.
80ish I think, it’s been so long!
how do you download colemak dh?
What was your WPM before going through the whole keyboard process?
About 80 if I recall!
@@BenVallack awesome, thanks for the videos and relying, you have some great content!👍
W00t, you showed my old Workman-off-its-rocker topic! ∩(◕‿◕｡)∩～♪
Heh!! Good post!!
@@BenVallack It's a bit pointy, that one, I do admit it. I was riled by the arrogance of Bucao. Apparently, according to him fingers store kinetic energy like springs...? And yet, we still get lots of people new to alt layouts who fall for the advertising of Workman (and Norman) as so brilliant and certainly better than Colemak... Ugh.
Looking Colemac as a non-English speaker, it looks hardly better than qwerty. It also has low prominence keys placed at high prominence places, only differently to qwerty.
Yeah if you're not using English there will likely be better layouts
Next: From Colemak to Plover
Haha yeah my interest is there! Might be a step too far though!
Will I ever get used to it, no I won't, as long as there is Qwerty I will keep on using it. We can't have a organised society without Workman, and Coleman are very useful when you want to keep warm during winter, but let them keep their unwashed hands from my keyboard.
😂
Sorry to hear you spent all that time on workmen just to switch to another layout
Oh you lucky bastards, fancy typists with your one language... For me if I rap my keyboard I'll have to re-learn a new mapping for Hebrew as well, and I bet it would be far from optimized... Sadly this means I'll have to stick to QWERTY.
I think it's going to take me more than 18 hours.
man, you need to speak a little bit slower