5 Years of Colemak - Good choice? My experience

Using a different, less known keyboard layout can bring its own adventure. This is my experience of using the Colemak keyboard layout for the past 5 years.
Although this layout is not for everyone, it definitely is worth a try!

[Ethan-eezn]

You’re so right about the caps lock backspace, after getting used to it, it feels like it should have always been there!

[nathanlamaire]

I have used Colemak for 1 month. It really doesn't make my typing skill faster, but it's more comfortable and not stress my typing.

[lucageorge]

I will make 10 years of Colemak this year, great and short review !
Most people don't even learn "Touch typing" on Qwerty, changing the layout it extreme but if you use a keyboard daily is a worthwhile investment.
Going "cold turkeys" as you did is also a common mistake ( bad for productivity in the short term + you don't want to forget Qwerty for practical reasons ), you should use the keyboard as you did before for 2-3 months and only train the new layout a few minutes daily, having fun, like a game, without noticing it you will be able to change between them instantly without being confused.

[felipealvarez]

I have been using Colemak for about 5 years, and have never looked back. The "E" key on the right middle finger is GOLD.

[neilsmith]

I've been using Colemak since around June 2015, so that makes 5 years for me too 😀

[hazeyhuman]

An added benefit could to add diversity to your security at home! Intruders would have a hard time doing anything on your system and would just have to try to steal the whole thing instead!

[brydon]

That takes a lot of dedication and hard work. I was trying to learn it for quite some time, and it was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I haven't used it in a long time but your video inspired me to try it again. I'm typing in it again right now.

[frederikroark]

I have used my own version of Colemak for many years now, and even though I don't type as much anymore as in the past (which motivated me to switch), it is overall worth it, because the typing experience is so comfortable. The hassle of creating my own keyboard layouts is significant, however.

But there's no turning back now! I'm all in on my own mod of a mod of Colemak^^

[chjayakrishnajk]

Your story is the most relatable one, I've been typing from 5 years old (I'm 16 now), from my childhood age i'm typing the way you told (I use 3 of my left and 1 or 2 from right hand fingers), Now i'm trying to learn colemak, it's really tough to change this habit but i'm trying. I typed this comment with colemak layout with 20 wpm :)

edit: 6 months later i'm typing with colemak layout with above 90 wpm :), don't give up

[arijanj]

I started learning Colemak DH today for about 2 hours coming from ~160wpm avg on qwerty, it feels good but it's gonna be a real mental journey considering I still have to look at an image of the layout to remember a bunch of keys.

[nathansire]

You inspired me to remap my caps lock to backspace... That actually makes sense. But I don't have free downtime to wait three months to retrain my muscle memory.

[nervz]

couple of questions, and if theres a website for a guide on colemak, can you link it. Thanks
1. do you still place your fingers the same way? (4 fingers on home row and thumbs on space bar)
2. I wanna try mod dh colemak but I cant find it. Where do I download it?

[cn]

Really great video, personally, I have been using Colemak for a little less than a month. It's definitely more comfortable like most people say, and with the caps lock positioning, is definitely a plus. I came from QWERTY with around 98 wpm average and 108 wpm best and so far, with a lot of practicing, got to around average of 80 wpm with 116 max (ik weird) with Colemak. Before switching, I would make sure your find with the horizontal finger movements as well as the somewhat weird colon/semicolon placement. Overall though, it is definitely worth a shot if you don't want to try completely re-learning with Dvorak's layout left hand-ish bias or just want a more comfortable layout.

[TheBinaryApe]

So one thing that people should be aware of is a transition plan called Tarmak for transitioning to Colemak. It is basically a 5 step program that shifts only a few keys at a time (about 5 each time). I could type at like 90 wpm with 95% accuracy on QWERTY and each step that I transitioned it would drop me to about 40 wpm and ~85% accuracy. In a week I usually would be back to about 60 wpm and 90%+ accuracy and would switch it up to the next step.

It really does make it easier to transition (I'm on the second to last transition step at this time).

[sighupcmd]

Vim users have Esc on Caps lock usually, does anyone have experience with vim+Colemak?

[merongpu]

I have small hand and try to reach the backspace with my right pinky was painful. Found about colemark backspace and swapped it out but kept the qwerty layout. Gotta love this hybrid swap now I never have to lift my hand for backspace anymore

[therainguy]

how long did it take for you to reach 120wpm on colemak ? what was your top speed on qwerty ? what is your speed now on colemak ? thanks for the video 👍😀

[Marcel-ztrg]

I switched 4 ago months ago to Dvorak (from 50wpm qwerty to 100 wpm) what are your thoughts on that? Should I consider learning colemak?

[azkarislam]

the backspace button doesnt work on my mac. how do i get it to work when i click Caps lock?

[fortissim]

i started 3 weeks ago, should i be trying to maintain both qwerty and colemak or should i just ditch qwerty and go separate ways? i’m getting 80wpm with both layouts but i really don’t like qwerty