Re: Re: COLEMAK layout?

Steven Marzuola wrote:
> He didn't have to contend with any modifier key except the Shift -- no
> Ctrl, Alt, Windows, or Menu (context) keys. And he didn't include
> non-alphanumerical characters in his scheme, which really affects
> programmers.
>
> His assumption was a typist enters text.  Some of us do just that, but
> we also spend a lot of keyboard time doing other things, including
> moving cursors, mousing, clicking, Alt-Tabbing, navigating around
> documents and web pages, using drawing programs, and on and on.
>
>
>
> Finally, I think he could have done something else with the thumbs,
> instead of limiting them to entering spaces -- same as Qwerty.
>
> I respect him enough to believe that if he were around today (or at
> the dawn of the PC era), he would have done a great job on a layout. 
> I just don't think he would have come up with the same keyboard today
> that he did in 1932.
>
> When I tried Dvorak for a few months, it was fabulous for raw text
> input.  I would finish typing a paragraph or a page, and think, my
> fingers hardly moved at all! 
>
> But it drove me nuts when I had to revise my work, mostly because of
> the layout of the control and cursor keys. I am a translator and spend
> all day at a keyboard. Most of my job is not simply typing, but
> editing -- my own translation, or someone else's, or the output from a
> TM (translation memory) program.  When I'm in edit mode, my right hand
> is far to the right -- on the cursor keys and closer to the mouse,
> while my left hand is mostly working with Ctrl-V, C, and X.
>   

Wow, if anyone ever needed to try the Kinesis contoured keyboard, it's 
you.  Medical transcription involves a ton of crtl plus ?, arrow key, 
page up and down, crtl alt combos - basicaly everything you're 
describing in translation, and the Kinesis was my best friend.  Why?  
Thumbs & constant homerow hand placement.  Crtl, Alt, delete, backspace 
are all under the thumbs where you 1) don't have to move your hands off 
the home row to reach them and 2) you don't have to wrench your wrist 
and strain your pinkie to use those keys.  The arrow keys are all on a 
bottom row so that, again, you never have to move your hands off of the 
home row in order to use them.  On no other keyboard can you so easily 
highlight, crtl C to copy, crtl to paste - whenever I'm on my laptop it 
drives me nuts that ALL of my usual key shortcuts are suddenly off of 
the home row so that I have to both look for the keys and then strain my 
hands into funny places to reach them.  Add to that that the contoured 
design means you hardly have to MOVE your fingers to reach the keys, and 
it's a fantastic hardware design.  Dvorak would have approved, I think :)

I'm typing in Dvorak, but these particular key placements are all in the 
same place if you use the Kinesis in QWERTY mode as well.  Computer 
programmers swear by this keyboard for the same reason - if you have to 
use the crtl, alt, arrow keys every line or 2, you HAVE to have them 
ergonomically placed.

http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/images/kb_adv-blk720x471.jpg


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