Re: dvorak keyboard
Nori Heikkinen wrote:
> i'm considering switching to dvorak, half on a whim, half because i
> think it might help my geek-related wrist pain (yes, i'm icing and
> am going to call a doctor soon). two questions:
>
> 1. i can get it working in console mode fine (`loadkeys dvorak` does
> the trick), but can't seem to make it work with X. do i need a
> different command / keymap / &c.?
I usually just change XkbLayout to dvorak in the X 4.x config.
> 2. does anyone out there use it? was it hard to switch? can you now
> type both layouts? was it worth it to switch? how long did it
> take to retrain?
I use it. It was actually easy. The keys seemed to be in the right
place. I basically just do dvorak on all of my personal machines now.
But I've been toying with the idea of randomly switching the layout
during the day (for fun only...not sure it's actually worth it). It took
me about a month to really get used to it including the aspects of
coding/sysadmin. (i.e...typing involving non-alpha's that had moved
around) But the switch happened pretty fast. About 1-2 days of practice
made me want to never use qwerty again.
I used to use qwerty on my firewall and dvorak on my workstation. The
mind was able to map the keyboard location to the layout very quickly.
So switching between the two was effortless after the first few
iterations. But, it was too effortless, swapping the situation would
confuse my brain for a longer period than it took to learn the first
way. Depends on how long I had used the first way.
But after a while it became not too bad when they switched. That's
because I rearranged the keys on my keyboard to dvorak layout, and then
switched back to a qwerty key mapping in Debian (never really knew
qwerty to begin with). That helped a whole bunch in learning qwerty
correctly. Then I switched it back (the keys weren't designed to be
moved around too much...it had become a kind of a wavy keyboard) and
went back to dvorak in Debian. After all that, switching between the two
became fairly effortless. But there is still a significant context
switch. Hence my desire to do the random bit...
Was it worth it to switch? For me, absolutely. The main benefits I found
are:
* Keys seem to be in the correct places....more natural.
* Much less pain involved; no more shaking my hands every 3 hours due
to "qwerty-cramp." (but I say this may have been due to my bad qwerty
skills)
* Massive accuracy increase (fewer misstypes) (also probably due to
bad qwerty skills)
* I'd say overall there is a significant speed increase.
* Interesting additional security mechanism on the console.
* Longer typing sessions. I haven't yet had a situation where I needed
to take a break because I was tired of typing. With qwerty this was
often right about 6 hours for me. (of regular use; not continuous
typing)
BTW, I started by using dvorak7min for a couple of days setting 15min or
so aside to learn dvorak. Then I made the switch.
Oh...one warning is that my qwerty skills were really shaken up after
making the first switch....qwerty, it seemed, was all wrong. And I was
shocked to find myself trying to figure out where keys were at times. If
you know qwerty well to begin with, it shouldn't be too much of a
problem, if at all. My brain just wanted to forget qwerty (dvorak was so
much better! :). So I had to make sure I had qwerty around and keep it
in use at least until I could correctly learn it. Now I only use it on
other people's computers...
--
Mike Brownlow - http://www.wsmake.org/~mike/
Research Assistant - University of Texas at Arlington
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