How viable is dvorak nowadays?

tomfitzyuk · 2006-05-07 19:56:17

Hey,

I'm thinking of switching to a dvorak keyboard but I'm just wondering how viable it is to use dvorak nowadays?

I mean, many commonly-used applications have key-bindings set just right for the qwerty layout but on dvorak I guess some would be inconvenient.

So, what does everyone think? Does any here use dvorak?

Thanks
Tom

jakob · 2006-05-07 20:03:34

I think the benefits of a modern ergonomic keyboard layout overweight the easyness of some program's key-bindings by far.

Question is: Which language do you type mostly in? There are better layouts than dvorak now.

For english writers, there is Colemak and there are other alternatives, too, e.g. NEO for german writing.

I myself am writing with the latter one, NEO since I AM from Germany and am really happy that I choose to learn it. You will find many dvorak-writers here as well

codemac · 2006-05-07 21:47:34

I type dvorak. It helped me a lot with some pinkie finger pains I was getting, and I also just find it a better layout.

I think colemak is silly. Designing a keyboard layout that is easy to switch to? What is the purpose in that? Once you have switched to it, is it really worth it any more? The layout of keys is based on some things you might be used to in qwerty, and I don't see a big enough benefit to switch from qwerty to colemak. You might as well just do the hard thing and switch to dvorak. A hard learning curve does not mean it's worse.

ghyspran · 2006-05-07 23:47:43

I started typing in Dvorak a few months ago, and I love it. It takes less finger movement, I was back to my QWERTY typing speed in a few weeks, and I can still touch type QWERTY, only much, much slower.

jakob · 2006-05-08 07:32:14

But dvorak is still a very old layout. Dvorak had not the possibilities that you have today in measuring which bi- and trigraphs are typod most in a language and so on. Though, Dvorak's work must be admired. Looking at the means he had to create the new layout, he did his very best.

AFAIK Dvorak created his layout in that way it should be easy to learn and switch too, but as I can't find any information for that thesis, maybe I had missunderstood something, errrrh

What struck me most about dvorak when I was searching for an alternative layout one year ago, was that it was mainly designed for English (so far no problem) but that there wer 5 different implementations for German or other languages. Besides that, there are a dozen variants but not on ONE central page but splitted over the web so that it's almost impossible to have a good overlook on the scene

shadowhand · 2006-05-08 08:42:31

I've been using Dvorak layout since late November 2005.

Why?
1) I was getting wrist pains from spending about 12 hours a day typing between work and home usage.
2) I wanted to try something new, and something that was supposedly better.
2a) I wanted to see if Dvorak actually was better.
2b) I wanted to see if it was possible to "unlearn" Qwerty and "re-learn" how to type.
2c) Dvorak felt "l33t"
3) I heard that Dvorak could be faster than Qwerty, and a little extra speed when coding never hurts.
----------------------------------------------------
End result: I'm now perfectly at home on both Dvorak and Qwerty (I use Dvorak at home, and Qwerty at work), it takes me less than a minute to mentally switch between the two.

I have no more wrist pains from typing. I think that it may be because I switch between two layouts, which makes me use my fingers differently, rather than the fact that Dvorak is "better", but it's hard to say.

I'm not sure I type slower or faster on either layout, but I don't feel that my Dvorak speed is less than my Qwerty speed (I've never tested that theory though).
----------------------------------------------------
If you are looking to switch to Dvorak, I suggest you install Dvorak-ng typing tutor (found on Freshmeat), it helped me immensly for the first week of hell. You will need to force yourself to use Dvorak for the first week to two weeks because you are basically learning to type all over again. If you can do two weeks of using Dvorak all the time, you will be able to make the transition.

postlogic · 2006-05-08 09:34:08

afaik, qwerty is much older than dvorak. dvorak was created in 1920-30, whereas qwerty was created in 1868.

Dvorak was created because it's much more effective than qwerty, and is pretty international.

Qwerty was created out of practical reasons, so that the typewriters of that age (remington ftw) didn't get stuck as easily, by placing letters as far from each other as possible. Dvorak was created mostly for speed, while maintaining the same ideal.

filoktetes · 2006-05-08 19:32:41

I used dvorak for a few weeks a while ago, and I became quite comfortable. And I got quite conviced that the layout is much better than qwerty.
The reason I switched back, is that I have a laptop, and once in a while someone else wants to use it. In the beginning it was funny to look at their faces in the moment they noticed the strange layout, but it wasn't very practical.

jakob · 2006-05-08 22:11:04

Now thats no reason to switch back to qwerty at all:
try out this one in the InputDevice-Section of your xorg.conf

Option "XkbLayout" "dvorak,no"
Option "XkbOptions" "grp:ctrls_toggle"

replace "no" with your language-specific layout. Restart X and then press both Ctrl keys at once: Layout switched to "no", do it again, switched back to dvorak.

You could also alias the left-hand homerow to "setxkbmap <the_other_layout>" ...

filoktetes · 2006-05-09 13:14:20

Now thats no reason to switch back to qwerty at all

Well, it is a reason to put the keys back to the qwert layout. Of course I could use dvorak by memory, but I'm really very slow on that still...

jakob · 2006-05-09 14:01:04

Ah lol i did not know that you put the keys to their dvorak-position *lol*

Infracephas · 2006-05-11 21:35:20

I've been using dvorak for about 2 years. It's a great format.

I learned how to use vim after I learned dvorak, and so using vim in qwerty is very difficult.

Good luck.

Komodo · 2006-06-01 18:58:00

Dvorak's great; the best thing is the drop in % errors while typing; it's incredibly (you'll have to use it for ~3 months to notice this effect, I'd say).

Converting is a bitch, I won't lie to you. But after about 2 weeks it becomes bearable, and after a month you're back on your feet again.

This colemak interests me... I wish more archers had used it, so we could get some detailed feedback on how it compares to dvorak.

Don't worry about keybindings, surely you must know by now that linux is a very customisable beast I fly around in Vim using dvorak, using some custom keymappings along with those suggested by Dusty (search for 'dvorak' in posts by 'Dusty', and you'll find them).

semdornus · 2007-10-17 04:06:33

Sorry for digging up this old post, but I have some similar questions about dvorak as well.

My issue: I'm in my thirties and despite being behind a keyboard all day for work (and long before that as well) I never bothered to learn touch typing. I usually use a hunt-and-peck sorts of personal style where I use two to three fingers and don't look at the keyboard
much, only from time to time. I'm pretty fast at this after years of practice and have no discomfort in my hands whatsoever using this style. So no real problems.

A few months ago a friend saw me typing and couldn't believe that I, the one who uses the keyboard for a living, couldn't touch type. That got me thinking a bit and I decided to try it. Since I was starting touch typing anyway I figured I could just as well use dvorak as the general consensus seems to be that it's better for the hands and sometimes the speed as well.

So now, after a few months of regular trying I'm able to type dvorak without looking at the keyboard. That's good. The problem is my left hand now sometimes hurts slightly after prolonged typing. Now this could be a problem with how I hold my wrists, but after looking at several ergonomics' sites there doesn't seem to be much I'm doing wrong at all. Besides that I'm not a native English speaker, so I use my native Dutch in typing as well. Then for work there's also Japanese using the normal IME method. That's where all the benefits seem to disappear as dvorak seems to be strongly geared towards the English language. Also; vi becomes pretty hard IMO as well.

So now after this longer then intended post (sorry) I would like to ask dvorak users, preferably those who use languages besides English as well what you reckon I should do. a. Continue my effort on touch-typing/dvorak as it'll probably get better. (Also note I'm still typing at pretty bad speeds when touch typing.) Or b. just give up and continue to use my old style as the benefits hardly weigh up and I'm probably already over half of my keyboard using life anyway...

Jerry · 2007-10-17 05:23:23

As you already have started learning dvorak then I guess stopping to use it would be wasteful of your time, The problem with your wrist pain might be because of the prolonged pressure it is stressed on. The right hand moves a lot between the mouse and the keyboard thus your wrist does not hurt as much. The pressure on you left wrist comes from being rested too much on the table or keyboard rest. It compresses the carpal tunnel, cramping the median nerve in which could result to carpal tunnel syndrome. With hunt and peck I would assume that your hand are afloat since you don't have a proper bearing/form for typing, With that I guess it's better to change how you rest you wrist rather than change back to hunt and peck.

Also try to offset your keyboard with the left side a little bit further than the right side, see if it works. You could also move your mouse to the left if your ambidextrous like me, it makes more sense since the numkeys are on the right. But with that, the menu would be better off at the right side. Try to experiment.

Vi and it's family could be changed to fit you, Although I myself haven't done this because I don't have the time to look for it.

I'm sorry if I couldn't help much about your other languages since I only know english and filipino, and they both benefit from dvorak.

Hope that helps and happy typing.

Last edited by Jerry (2007-10-17 05:24:28)

semdornus · 2007-10-19 04:34:58

Jerry wrote:

Hope that helps and happy typing.

Thanks for your comments.

Unfortunately using the mouse with my left hand is not an option I'm afraid, so I'll have to see what I can do about the position of that hand.
I'll try and persist a little longer with dvorak and see if it gets any better with a little more time.

Cows · 2010-08-23 01:16:07

I've been using Colemak for a few months and I must say that it's wonderful.

As to the person that said that Colemak is a silly keyboard layout, just because it's easier for an existing QWERTY typer to switch to doesn't mean that it's inferior.

Dvorak is an awesome layout and I love it as well but Dvorak wasn't exposed to modern conditions since it was designed back in 1932. At the same time research has shown that Colemak does just a little better then Dvorak in some areas, overall, Dvorak and Colemak have the same benefits and Colemak actually fixes some of Dvorak's mistakes which are:

The main problem with Dvorak is that it's too difficult and frustrating to learn for existing QWERTY typists because it's so different from QWERTY. Colemak has been designed to be easy to learn.

Placing 'L' on the QWERTY 'P' position causes excessive strain on the right pinky. Colemak doesn't place frequent letters where the pinkies stretch.
'F' is on the QWERTY 'Y' position which is a difficult stretch on normal keyboards.

'I' is very frequent but isn't on the home position.

'R' is very frequent but isn't on the home row.

It is significantly lopsided so that the right hand does too much work.

It's not comfortable to use Ctrl-Z/X/C/V shortcuts with the left hand while holding the mouse with the right hand. Colemak conserves those shortcuts in their QWERTY positions.

Even though the design principles are sound, the implementation isn't optimal because it was designed without the aid of computers.

'L' and 'S' form a frequent same-finger digraph on the right pinky. Same-finger for the pinky is very rare in Colemak. In particular, Unix commands such as 'ls -l' are very uncomfortable to type.

Some punctuation (in particular the curly/square brackets) is less comfortable to type on Dvorak. This affects mainly programmers and advanced Unix users.

jasonwryan · 2010-08-23 02:41:28

I think the OP probably reached a decision on this some time in the previous four years.

Closing...

Arch Linux

#1 2006-05-07 19:56:17

How viable is dvorak nowadays?

#2 2006-05-07 20:03:34

Re: How viable is dvorak nowadays?

#3 2006-05-07 21:47:34

Re: How viable is dvorak nowadays?

#4 2006-05-07 23:47:43

Re: How viable is dvorak nowadays?

#5 2006-05-08 07:32:14

Re: How viable is dvorak nowadays?

#6 2006-05-08 08:42:31

Re: How viable is dvorak nowadays?

#7 2006-05-08 09:34:08

Re: How viable is dvorak nowadays?

#8 2006-05-08 19:32:41

Re: How viable is dvorak nowadays?

#9 2006-05-08 22:11:04

Re: How viable is dvorak nowadays?

#10 2006-05-09 13:14:20

Re: How viable is dvorak nowadays?

#11 2006-05-09 14:01:04

Re: How viable is dvorak nowadays?

#12 2006-05-11 21:35:20

Re: How viable is dvorak nowadays?

#13 2006-06-01 18:58:00

Re: How viable is dvorak nowadays?

#14 2007-10-17 04:06:33

Re: How viable is dvorak nowadays?

#15 2007-10-17 05:23:23

Re: How viable is dvorak nowadays?

#16 2007-10-19 04:34:58

Re: How viable is dvorak nowadays?

#17 2010-08-23 01:16:07

Re: How viable is dvorak nowadays?

#18 2010-08-23 02:41:28

Re: How viable is dvorak nowadays?

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