Anyone else use a custom keyboard layout…?

[Ool]

I’ve been typing in dvorak since forever now:


',.py fgcrl/= "<>PY FGCRL?+
aoeui dhtns-\ AOEUI DHTNS_|
;qjkx bmwvz :QJKX BMWVZ


But I’ve also customized my keyboard so I have the umlauts and the euro symbol under the vowels in case I need them:

äö€ü ÄÖéÜ

And then there are the smart quotes, which I’m smart enough to type manually:

‘‚’ “„”

And then there’s the ellipsis and the eszett and the emm-dash and the enn-dash:
… ß — –

So have any of you customized their keyboard layout…?

[Marcus]

I have a French keyboard to type mostly in English and Hungarian. I like challenges.

[LionsPride]

I remapped a few buttons. I moved the capslocks to the scroll lock and changed the insert button to a delete (I got tired of typing over sentences by mistake).

[HackerX]

Standard US for me. It's what works for me so far. But I go nuts if the layout isn't what I'm used to. (things like tab, ~, \ in the wrong place). But as a programmer, I pay a lot more attention than the average user to ensure I'm happy with my keyboard.

[szaxazs]

I 've sprayed one of my old keyboards black. Now it is DAS-Keyboard like, even if HappyHacking rocks way more as I see it.
Well this is no "custom keyboard layout" (only custom keyboard, I missed the layout), but it still pwns, and this makes me (and my old keyboard) so much badass.
In some buttons the paint has fade out and poor ol' keyboard looks like shit right now.
Guess I have to re-spray the hell out of it.

[Danisty]

I haven't customized my keyboard, but I have installed other another keyboard because I'm learning another language.

[Ytterbium]

I'm lame, I use a Swedish/Finnish (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts..2FFinnish) Qwerty keyboard.

[AutisticCuckoo]

I use two layouts, which I toggle between. One is the Swedish/Finnish layout that Ytterbium mentioned, which I use for typing in Swedish. The other is the standard US layout which I use for coding, since it provides much easier access to the brackets and braces that are so common in many programming languages.

On my Linux can at home I've customized both layouts somewhat, to give me easy access to certain special characters.

[Ool]

I'm lame, I use a Swedish/Finnish (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts..2FFinnish) Qwerty keyboard.

Ah, here’s mine. (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) (Thereabouts, minus the personal add-ons…)

[ThaiGreenTea]

Remapped a few keys for ease of use in Warcraft III. Other than that, love the regular layout. If it ain't Baroque, don't fix it!

[Ytterbium]

I have to admit that I have a special "fetish" for keyboards. While I don't have a special layout on them. I'm picky about the looks and feel of them and I shun the windows keys.

As a little kid I had a IBM PS/2 computer. So I enjoyed the Model M keyboard. I become very happy when I saw it was still made. So I bought one, it cost a fortune to have it shipped etc. It was worth it though.

I saw a cool keyboard on the net, a norwegian one. Used with Norsk Data and Tandberg computers. The company that made them (Tandberg Display) had been sold to a Swedish firm (MultiQ). I mailed them, got an answer that the production had stopped. The mail was forwarded to someone in Norway however. So they mailed back and said they had some keyboards with swedish/finnish layout stacked in a warehouse. They wrote that they could send a bunch if I wanted. I got glad and I asked for one. I merely paid for the shipping. So I got a piece of Norwegian/Scandinavian computer history. It still lies in it's original packaging here at home. I think it has a cool serial number too 555, if I remember correctly.

Recently I got a Cherry keyboard from Germany, just for fun. I'm thinking of buying a IP65 water proof keyboard from Sasse. It looks similar if not the same as some of Fujitsu-Siemens' keyboards.
Then another priority is the Happy Hacker keyboard. By the same firm (PFU) that manufactured the keyboard to Nokia/ICL computers before.
I also found a Japanese keyboard. Realforce, with springs. Did I mention that I like the tactile feedback in keyboards.

I also have a couple of thin clients built into Keytronic keyboards at home. I thought it was awesome, so I just had to get those.

I want to slap my INTP friend in his face for buying cheap Chinese crap. That only break and is a pain in the ass to write on.

[AutisticCuckoo]

I liked the old IBM keyboards with good tactile (and aural) feedback. There's something about how your finger disappears almost to the second knuckle when you press a key. :)

In November our office is moving to a new building where there'll be one of those horrible open office plans. We're all getting new computers and I've been told that they've made sure the keyboards are extra quiet. I bet they'll be horrible. :(

[Ytterbium]

I liked the old IBM keyboards with good tactile (and aural) feedback. There's something about how your finger disappears almost to the second knuckle when you press a key. :)Yes it's a special feeling. It's like a roller-coaster ride or a freaky flight in bad weather. It suddently collapses and before you know it the key bounce back at your finger.
Completely different from silicone/rubber dome keyboards. Swampy as hell and you have to look on the monitor to see if something came there.

In November our office is moving to a new building where there'll be one of those horrible open office plans. We're all getting new computers and I've been told that they've made sure the keyboards are extra quiet. I bet they'll be horrible. :(Gaah oh noes. Some new quiet keyboards can have good feedback. The most have not however.
If the keyboard don't suit me I would probably provide my own one.

The US Dollar is low now I've been thinking of getting another Model M keyboard or customizer (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) as it's called nowadays. Although the newer keyboard are of lower quality than the original. The plastics is thinner and more brittle than on the older ones. It also suffers from "American precision" but the writing comfort is outstanding.

[lain]

I have been using dvorak for a little over a year now and couldnt even think about using qwerty anymore.

[HackerX]

I'd love a laptop style (short keythrows), but full layout, with some tactile feedback.

I think I'm hoping for a miracle though. God I hate laptop keyboards.

[schwartzie]

toggle en no plus some minor customization for things like para symbols, emms and enns, things needed to do no manuscripts a little faster.

what's the advantage of dvorak? and how long did the adjustment take?

[mnoelloczp]

i did use various selfmade layouts.
to learn programming i wrote a keyboard layout generator, which
generates layouts from input text.

i was suprised how hard the first one was to learn,
took me about a month forcing myself using it.
but after learning the second layout it got so easy that i wouldn't fear
learning any other layout.

i stopped using my own layouts, because after time i wanted
to use my layout everywhere i be at a pc, and that's nearly impossible
since it's no standard and installing custom layouts isn't that easy
on windows f.e..
so i reverted to qwert, and added some modifications again:
-umlauts are on the vowel keys, activated with altGr. i like that very much.
-and keys i use often, like slash, are on the keys the vowels used.

i ignored to get good information about the dvorak keyboard layout (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.).
i'll be switching to dvorak right now.


keyboard models. i recently bought this mini keyboard (picture (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)),
smart layout design, but i don't like the key system very much. i need flat and very sensitive keys.
this keyboard has those higher ones where you can feel every keypress up to the upper joints of a finger; i find that kind of painful.

[lain]

what's the advantage of dvorak? and how long did the adjustment take?

Dvorak was actually designed to be good to type with whereas QWERTY was designed to slow users down so early typewriters wouldn't jam.

You should read this comic that pretty much explains everything: To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

As for the adjustment it took me little over a month to gain enough speed to write comfortably.

[L30]

I tried Dvorak once, but after a few days I deemed the effort worthless and renounced. After all, I don't need to go faster. Nor I want to risk diminishing my skill in QWERTY. Or they could all be vile excuses for my more-than-stereotypical intp lazyness.

[MostlyHarmless]

I'm surprised to find other Dvorak users. They really are few and far between. I am one, of course, have been for upwards of 6 years now.

I like the "soft" effortless feel of laptop style keyboards, but hate the actual layout of a laptop keyboard, so I use the desktop size keyboards that have the laptop mechanism in them. (after I re-arrange the keys of course)

Initially it was very hard trying to type on a QWERTY again. But with the years came the skill of being able to comfortably type on both, even though my speed on QWERTY is nothing compared to what it used to be.

Dvorak has contributed to a definite relief from RSI for me, aswell as increased my typing speed.

[Ool]

I tried Dvorak once, but after a few days I deemed the effort worthless and renounced. After all, I don't need to go faster. Nor I want to risk diminishing my skill in QWERTY. Or they could all be vile excuses for my more-than-stereotypical intp lazyness.

Actually it isn’t about being faster. I’m not sure I’m faster typing in Dvorak than I used to be typing in QWERTY. But it is more convenient. The distances the fingers have to travel are much shorter.

So it is because of laziness, because I wish to type at the same speed as I do anyway but with less effort, that I type in Dvorak…

[Chrysalis]

Dvorak was actually designed to be good to type with whereas QWERTY was designed to slow users down so early typewriters wouldn't jam.

Is this really true or just a joke?

[Ool]

Is this really true or just a joke?

No, it’s true. More specifically it was the first typewriter that ever used the QWERTY layout that would jam too often unless certain letters, which could have been laid out to be typed by alternating hands, were deliberately spaced so they would have to be typed by the same hand, but still far enough apart that the finger would have to travel a certain distance.

That was at a time when touch-typing with ten fingers hadn’t even been thought of yet…

[enWTFp]

That's really cool, man! :thumbsup: Well done!

I think my fingers already 'know' the standard keyboard so fluently that no change would be able to improve my actual speed, even after years of retraining. But if I was 10 years old, for example, it sounds exactly as one of the crazy things I used to do - to make my keyboard more efficient by using a custom layout.

The only problem I see with non-standard training is that you sacrifice flexibility. If you are used to the popular keyboard, then your speed is not changed on most machines. If you frequently work with very different computers, then this might be counter-productive.

[Ool]

The only problem I see with non-standard training is that you sacrifice flexibility. If you are used to the popular keyboard, then your speed is not changed on most machines. If you frequently work with very different computers, then this might be counter-productive.

Yes, except that these days there’s hardly any computer on which you can’t switch to Dvorak with a few mouseclicks. I use Dvorak on this computer at home, on my parents’ computer at their home when I visit them, on my sister’s computer in the US when I visit her, on the SUN workstation at the library, and on the PC workstations running Linux at work.

I don’t work on Macs, but I hear they have a Dvorak option, too.

In the days of typewriters or at times when you would have needed the operating system installation CD in order to add another keyboard layout I wouldn’t have switched, either. But these days it’s no longer an issue…

[alphawolf]

I am very reluctant to customize mine, as I would get used to it and any other keyboard would just feel broken to me.

I already had enough problems after being a long-time linux user and required to use micros~1 at a new job.

[MichaelH]

I am very reluctant to customize mine, as I would get used to it and any other keyboard would just feel broken to me.

That's why I haven't gone over the Dvorak side. When I think of all the computers I have to switch between, making each Dvorak-friendly would be prohibitive. It's a shame, as I would prefer to use the better layout. [Edit: after reading the comic at dvzine.org (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) I've decided to learn it and use it starting this weekend.]

More props for the IBM Model M! The modern "customizer" version isn't bad, but it's not the same either. (I speak from experience.) The old Model Ms had a very heavy key feel and were built like tanks. I absolutely loved mine until it finally gave out. Crap, now I want another Model M. Back to eBay...

Customized layout: replace caps lock with control. Does anyone actually use caps lock in 2008?

[Doppelbock]

Q've rqplqcqd qll my vqwqlls wqth q's. Dq yqq lqkq qt?

DB ;-)

[metamagnet]

speaking of keyboards, i've heard that "they" make one handed keyboards, that you can use with one hand and never have to take your other hand off the mouse. sounds awesome for web browsing, anyone know of any? or where you can buy them?

[MichaelH]

I just found this neat search engine at google.com! It can even find
one-handed keyboards! (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) ;)

[Webweasel]

Das keyboard for me!

Been typing since 2 so single finger typing style was hard to break.

Not being able to see the keys taught me to touch type in a few weeks and everyone at work is afraid to touch my pc. Moo Hoo ha ha ha !! <wrings hands>

[Ool]

speaking of keyboards, i've heard that "they" make one handed keyboards, that you can use with one hand and never have to take your other hand off the mouse. sounds awesome for web browsing, anyone know of any? or where you can buy them?

You can as easily switch to left-handed Dvorak as you can to normal Dvorak.

There’s just one problem: It doesn’t work on an ergonomic, split keyboard and, unfortunately, that’s exactly what I have.

Bummer.