Learning a new Keyboard Layout - Colemak DH

#colemak #keyboard
This is my Journey into Colemak DH after using neo for 3 years. as well as me getting back to qwerty

Links:
more info on thumb key alphas like e
the eurokey layout
typing learning tool

Socials:

[patomackcodes]

Strongly agree with keeping separate keyboard types for separate layouts. I've been trying the same for Colemak DH and QWERTY.

[ThatManFromGermany]

I just switched to an ergodone a week or so ago and the left hand drives me crazy (c, v and b), ortho slowed me down from 155 wpm to about 75 but it gets better. It's very interesting to hear about your journey; I type a lot of text every day and I think it's worth to switch to Colemak, your video is even more encouraging.

[AtomToast]

finally caught up with my sub feed from the last week. Very good and well researched video! having a layer to turn off homerow mods is an interesting idea that I somehow never considered. I will need to give that a try

[danieljohnstone]

Have you thought about using stenography, instead of keyboard layouts I did start to learn Colemak DH but have decided to use that time to learn to use plover it is available on Linux and windows. It is possible to switch between qwerty and plover without changing settings on the computer using QMK as you can use steno keycodes. The downside is you do have to run an application on your computer. Thanks for some awesome vids.

[davidbcg]

I totally agree with keeping the staggered keyboards in QWERTY, I do that too and I don't touch type in that layout, same for my phone.

[unpoliticallymillennial]

Colemak is an amazing and pretty easy to learn. It took me about a month of 1hr a day to retrain my brain to get the new key layout. It's so much faster then qwerty. I'm so happy I did it. I jumped about 50% in WPM

[lightning_lensch]

I've switched to colemak-dh a year ago and also use colemak-dh only on custom keyboards and qwerty on my normal staggered ones. What I really advise you to try is to put the umlauts on combos. I have ä on "h" and ", ", ü on "h" and ".", ö on ", " and "." and ß on "h" and "/" and it just feels super natural when typing german. I had them on another layer before but felt like it really slowed me down. Now I'm at about 100wpm average and 150 top speed with both german and english.

[jacobtb]

I now type in this format daily. I do really enjoy for some reason. just feels better

[TheLinuxCast]

I just switched to Colemak as well. And I definitely have found myself making mistakes that would be wrong on both qwerty and Colemak. I've also found that I tend to miss capitalizing letters that need to be capitalized.

[azuro]

This is a positive comment for the YouTube algorithm

[MarkusBurrer]

I also used the Neo2 layout for many years, but I replaced the standard keyboard with a split ortholinear keyboard (currently the Redox keyboard). The problem with Neo was, that it doesn't fit on the 30 keys of a matrix keyboard because of the German umlauts as you mentioned.

Now I use the PUQ layout from the ADNW website, that is optimized for matrix keyboards and uses a deadkey for German umlauts. It is also optimized for a 50/50 mix of German and English. So Colemak or Workman are no alternatives for me because I write both German and English, but they are normally optimized for English only.

I also have shift on a thumb key because German needs a lot more uppercase letters than English, it is much more convenient to SCREAM ;-) and I always hated to use the pinkies for shift. Shift as a homerow key doesn't work for me at all, so the home thumb key on the right is space and the home thumb key on the left is shift.

[TheSilent]

Ive come to find learning colemak dh is a necessity for any split/ortho boards. Great vid!

[theskydebreuil]

Yeah I've been using Colemak DH for about 8 months now on a split ortho keyboard and is great :)

[maxxiong]

Regarding keeping the old keyboard layout, I have a funny experience actually: I switched to typing Dvorak a few years ago and don't type qwerty on my laptop at all. When I switched I was touch typing (or at least properly typing) at 70-80 WPM. Now I can still type at that speed with QWERTY if I look at the keyboard, probably just from using my phone.

[ignisimmensus]

Hey man, I really like your videos and I hope to see more <3
Keep up the good work <3

[Male_Parent]

I'm super tempted to learn a new layout. It already felt bad going from 100 WPM on staggered qwerty to 70 ish on ortholinear (planck) after a few months of getting used to it. The ortholinear was already way more comfortable and smooth to type on compared to staggered so I'm already super stoked about that. I can't wait for my corne 36 key wireless kit to come in the mail.

[blackTmsk]

Great video! Typing this with Workman-P layout, still not fully used to it, but it feels much better already.

[stoicfloor]

Hello Jan! As always, your video is visually pleasant and I love the editing. More importantly, your input and take on a new keyboard layout is very useful.

In your "Keyboard Layouts" video, you said that you "use the Vim keys wherever they are." I tried Colemak for a week. It's not the layout that was bothering me; but the Vim usage. I can't live without jk (to escape back to Normal mode) and my Vim usage seems to be tied with the keys' locations rather than the mnemonics (like `ciw`). I believe you don't remap and just "use the Vim keys wherever they are", right? What's your take on this Vim issue now? Still the same as your "Keyboard Layouts" video?

Thank you! Keep up the great work:)

[GT-tjqg]

Colemak DH seems to be pleasing every user who tries it

[defipunk]

Interesting. It took me around 15 minutes to get back to 30wpm on tarmak 1, and about 1.5h to get back to it with tarmak 2. Dropped back to 23-25 with tarmak3, which I'll bring to 35 or so with good accuracy before doing the tarmak4 and final Coleman rotations