this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2025
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Keyboard Layouts

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Do you use an alternate layout besides QWERTY? If so, what's your history? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 month ago by dessalines@lemmy.ml to c/keyboardlayouts@lemmy.ml
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Like everyone I started with qwerty for ~ 10 years, then in college a friend introduced me to dvorak. I didn't pick it up at first, but after I started working and realized all my time was spent at the keyboard, I learned it in earnest and got back up to my original speed.

Around 2017 I learned about halmak, which was the first AI designed (genetic algorithm, not gen AI) layout, designed to minimize hand movement, and I learned it quickly and loved it for several years.

About a year ago I decided to try out a new one, since halmak has so many same finger bigrams. So I bounced around between a few, but now settled on graphite, as a lot of ppl on the reddit keyboardlayouts community recommended it. I've been on it for ~3 months now, and like it a lot.

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[โ€“] golden_zealot@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I don't, but it does interest me a little bit, having recently invested in custom mechanical keyboards for the first time.

How long would you say it takes for you to get back up to your original speed when typing and using other software? I seem to recall you mentioning somewhere that you use a modal editor (Helix?) and I imagine having to re-learn the muscle memory for modal bindings in addition to regular typing must take some time and be somewhat annoying.

[โ€“] dessalines@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 month ago

It does take a while, I usually do a few hours of practice on keybr.com to get up to about 20 wpm before I even start programming.

Then I do the helixtutor (kinda like vimtutor) a few times, then force myself to keep going. It takes about a week until you can program and type comfortably, and maybe a month or two until you're fully back up to speed.

I can't deny it is an annoying process, but it's generally worth it if you type a lot, and its something you're going to use for years anyway.

I'd recommend starting to learn either at the beginning of a long weekend, or a break, so that you're not under pressure.