Dusty

Dusty

An Introduction to Alternative Keyboard Layouts

Thanks to @AstonJ for encouraging me to post this here:

An introduction to alternative keyboard layouts

Feel free to post your own experiences or ask questions. I consider my current layout to be stable, in the sense that I haven’t made significant changes for a couple years, and I am very happy with it.

Most Liked

NobbZ

NobbZ

I tried neo a couple of times, though one of the major problems with it is, that I still have to deal with other peoples computers or my Windows machine at the office.

Not even speaking about the fact, that keyboards are labeled for QWERTZ anyway…

Switching back and forth, beeing confused by keycaps that did not fit what was happening on screen when currently on Neo have been my major painpoints.

Today I have a keyboard where I could swap the keycaps, though again, now this PC is also used by my son for his schoolworks, and they even do a touch typing course next year! I do not want to confuse him with alternative layouts yet.

Perhaps if the Optimus were still available… Anyone knows an alternative?

Dusty

Dusty

The issue with using other people’s machines is very occupation-dependent. For some people, it is a constant issue, and for others it almost never comes up. Over the years, I have run into it far less than I anticipated. If you have access to a USB port on those machines, it’s much easier, given that you can just carry a QMK board or a converter like a Hasu controller. Having said that, carrying a board is obviously only easy for those that prefer 60% or less in the first place. No one is overly keen to carry a full-size around. If you don’t have access to a USB port, then I think PKL is probably the best option (via your email or cloud storage). My general attitude is that if I’m not going to be on the machine long enough to warrant downloading PKL, it probably doesn’t matter if it has my layout in the first place. For such brief interactions, looking at the keys is not a big sacrifice.

When I’m on my own board, I try very hard to make sure that the keys are not labeled in a way that tempts me to look at them. I prefer blanks or unrelated symbols (I went with the Hiragana for the Planck). But actually I find that QWERTY (or QWERTZ) is nearly as good. The key is just not to have the keys remotely resemble the actual layout, so that there is no temptation to rely upon them, and instead just consult the layout in my head.

The corollary to that is that it’s much easier to remember your own custom layout. When you put a lot of effort into making decisons about every key, it really sticks with you—it becomes an extension of you, a physical manifestation of all the quirks of your personality. The keys are exactly where you would guess you’d put them.

The keycap mismatch issue is another reason that I’m a fan of small boards. A lot of touch typists don’t touch type all keystrokes. They touch type keys that are easily within reach, but then reference the keyboard when they need far away symbols, numbers, Fkeys. On a small board, there is no temptation or need to do that, because there simply aren’t any distant keys that require a hand movement. So I think going small tends to promote true touch typing (without any “cheat glances,” so to speak).

AstonJ

AstonJ

Anyone know if there any keyboard layouts designed specifically for ortholinear keyboards?

When I get a new keyboard I am thinking about trying the https://workmanlayout.org since it was designed for programmers :smiley: (your article has been a huge help @dusty!)

I’m very worried about muscle-memory of qwerty tho - feels like I’ve be using it for forever…

Where Next?

Popular General Dev topics Top

PragmaticBookshelf
Andy and Dave wrote this influential, classic book to help their clients create better software and rediscover the joy of coding. Almost ...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
A book on mazes? Seriously? Yes! Because it’s fun. Remember when programming used to be fun? Explore a dozen algorithms for generating th...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
The Pragmatic Programmers classic is back! Freshly updated for modern software development, _Pragmatic Unit Testing in Java 8 With JUnit_...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Management is ready to disband your new agile team and outsource your project. Can you save The Dream Team? Portia Tung edited by L...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Software is full of surprises. No matter how careful or skilled you are, when you create software it can behave differently than you inte...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Agile in a Flash cards teach leadership, teamwork, clean programming, agile approaches to problem solving, and tips for coaching agile te...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Get up to speed on Git right now with Pragmatic Guide to Git. Here you’ll find the 95 percent of Git that you’ll use at least once a week...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Programmers have to learn constantly; not just the stereotypical new technologies, but also the problem domain of the application, the wh...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
ANTLR is a parser generator: a program that generates code to translate a specified input language into a nice, tidy data structure. You ...
New
New

Other popular topics Top

AstonJ
What chair do you have while working… and why? Is there a ‘best’ type of chair or working position for developers?
New
Exadra37
Please tell us what is your preferred monitor setup for programming(not gaming) and why you have chosen it. Does your monitor have eye p...
New
brentjanderson
Bought the Moonlander mechanical keyboard. Cherry Brown MX switches. Arms and wrists have been hurting enough that it’s time I did someth...
New
New
AstonJ
Curious to know which languages and frameworks you’re all thinking about learning next :upside_down_face: Perhaps if there’s enough peop...
New
AstonJ
You might be thinking we should just ask who’s not using VSCode :joy: however there are some new additions in the space that might give V...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Rust is an exciting new programming language combining the power of C with memory safety, fearless concurrency, and productivity boosters...
New
AstonJ
Seems like a lot of people caught it - just wondered whether any of you did? As far as I know I didn’t, but it wouldn’t surprise me if I...
New
CommunityNews
A Brief Review of the Minisforum V3 AMD Tablet. Update: I have created an awesome-minisforum-v3 GitHub repository to list information fo...
New
sir.laksmana_wenk
I’m able to do the “artistic” part of game-development; character designing/modeling, music, environment modeling, etc. However, I don’t...
New