And now I’m (slowly) typing this in dvorak.
spoiler
The vi keys are better than qwerty’s home row. It’s been two days and I’ll die on this hill.
Is it terminal?
Edit: Guess I should mention it’s a Nuphy Air60 V2 given the com. I was a bit hasty.
And now I’m (slowly) typing this in dvorak.
The vi keys are better than qwerty’s home row. It’s been two days and I’ll die on this hill.
Is it terminal?
Edit: Guess I should mention it’s a Nuphy Air60 V2 given the com. I was a bit hasty.
You’re hitting the nail on the head there. I’ve always used b/e and honestly forgot w for motion until recently. Trying out dvorak is kind of breaking the habit in-editor aside from menu nav. Doom with evil-mode also has ‘s’ as a quick 2-letter isearch that is incredibly handy. I’ve seen about helix and other modern projects, they just seem to stray from the weirdness I learned to love about vim, even if they may be more intuitive.
Using hyprland, emacs, and now dvorak too is tangling my brain sometimes. I’ve resolved to using super for my WM mod key as to not mess up emacs even though it’s less comfortable. I’m considering making a post to get a feel for peoples’ use of alt layouts, WM bindings, and Extend/layers. Just not sure if this would be the right com or not.
To pack some more in here unsolicited, I also worked out a capslock overload that is kinda wild. Tap for oneshot control, hold for super, or tap-then-hold to hold control. The super-hold even reverts to a control when intending to use the oneshot and rolling too fast. Oh, and hitting caps again in the oneshot gives escape since caps to control/escape was my original overload. It’s gnarly and I want to post about it too at some point.
Apologies for the dump lol, might have to come back to this if I decide to post.
Don’t worry, I love it.
Say, have you heard about the Colemak-DH layout? I’ve never tried a different layout other than QWERTY in my life, but I’m excited to try and learn CDH after I get my ZSA Voyager split keyboard. I’m freaking giddy about that keyboard. I’m 38, I feel like waiting for Christmas Eve again. I also have a beefy computer ordered which I’m waiting on. Nope, not as exciting as the Voyager. 🤓
Yep, this site and DreymaR’s have been a big part of my layout exploration and wrapping my head around layers.
I’m actually considering switching to something newer instead like Colemak-DH (really interested in wide mod not having a split board) or canary, graphite, gallium, etc, etc. So many to look at. I kinda glossed over Colemak in general wanting to really step away from QWERTY and start with good habits. Dvorak is an eye opening wonder for me, I’m just not sure it’s what I want to stick with. It’s honestly amazing it’s still ergonomically competitive with all the computer-aided layouts today. If I can figure out enough of the theory and my own preferences, I might look at making my own. Not so sure about that yet.
I don’t know what I’d be more excited for. A new machine can be incredible depending on the jump in specs. But I think the RTX card in my laptop that I could finally game on was even overshadowed by using a high refresh display for the first time. Peripherals really make a difference.
Cool, man, let’s do it together! I already switched my key caps around on my mechanical keyboard, and replaced QWERTY with regular Colemak on GBoard on my phone. (Sadly the -DH variant wasn’t available there). All in, baby, let’s go!
Definitely. I remember the first time I got a high frame rate display, was in complete awe. All that motion!
Indeed, this should be a fairly good jump, I think. I built my current machine in 2020. Now:
Along with all the other modern upgrades you can think of. So I should be ecstatic lol. But my mind just keeps drifting off to the Voyager 💀
I don’t know if I’ll ever move from qwerty on mobile. Swipe to text seems like a different beast, but I’m curious how it is. I was thinking it might be the one thing qwerty is good for!
I made a couple quick hops Canary -> Gallium v2 -> Graphite.
All I really know I like is alternation (thank you dvorak) and outward rolls oddly enough. Also typing
ls ~/was awful in dvorak, so less right pinky. SFBs can be deceptively packed too, even trigrams. Other than that, the j/k positions didn’t sit right with me in layouts like Colemak, which is what Gallium showed me. I’ve probably jammed my right index more than my other fingers now that I think about it…I definitely didn’t like the stretch for j on modded Gallium. After that, Graphite actually surprised me with the pinky for j. Using the wide mod, it’s 100% an illusion, but the key seems easier to hit with fewer keys to the right of my hand. It’s exactly the same angle and distance lmao.
Layouts really make no sense until the smallest things click and you realize that’s what those stats mean. Why is it kind of like baseball?
I bought my 2070 laptop in 2020 too. I have yet to build a nice machine, but AMD might be the move if that ever happens. Their model numbering never made any sense to me though lol
Also, I want a Voyager now… I think split, columnar, and thumb keys are my next steps. Almost wanted to go ortho for a second. I quickly stumbled upon a bluetooth corne, too. It’s all so $400-too-much right after my first mech. It was a relatively cheap one but still!
I ended up not using Colemak on mobile because it isn’t available for all languages I type, and it messes with the muscle memory too much. So swiping is QWERTY in the end, and typing is Colemak-DH. Pretty okay compromise.
The beautiful thing about custom keyboards where you can change the layout and add layers is that you can add a layer where you have arrow keys basically exactly where you are used to having the hjkl keys. So you just hold a layer, hit the key you want, then it’s back to Colemak-DH again.
What this does is also that it makes you think about using numbers, so you might hit 10j instead of smashing j or down arrow 10 times. Or maybe use search, or symbol jumping. It’s what those features are there for, after all, for when the tiny motions are too small. 😅 If I use 10j, I might not even switch layers, because I only have to hit j once, and switching layers is more work than finding j.
Putting the arrow keys on the home row is exactly how I use the “extend” layer.
I’ve found it really comfortable to swap the control and win keys and then use the win key (now bottom left control position) for the layer mod. It works pretty well by palming the key too.
And then I have some keys like u, d, c, and v mapped to control+u/d/c/v under the layer to make them fool proof, as if it’s still the control layer.
Beautiful. That’s the great thing about this, isn’t it. We can just do whatever fits us best, personally. Not bound by the operating system or keyboard vendor. Free to continually modify.
Enjoy!