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Learning a new layout
(lemm.ee)
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this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2023
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I typed dvorak at about the same speed as you, and got up to 110~120 on semimak when I tested it, before moving on. I have no doubt I could have gone faster by keeping at it (my problem was with the stuffy feeling of the 3-finger vowel cluster), so I think you'll have no problem exceeding your dvorak speed. During my test drive, I was able to switch back to fluent dvorak typing after perhaps an hour or two of acclimatization (fwiw, I mirrored the left/right hands on semimak, which eased the learning, but may have made frequent switch more difficult.) A different physical keyboard may help: I did find it easier to switch back on my Microsoft Natural, which is what I used for years with dvorak.
Wow that's very good news for me lol. I appreciate your feedback. I've been doing a bit of practice daily and I've gotten up to 30wpm semimak while roughly maintaining Dvorak. I can see how the vowel cluster could feel a bit bad to use but I'm liking it so far. Too early to tell for sure though whether I will want to stick with it indefinitely.
Are you still using Dvorak now? If not what layout are you using that you like? Semimak seemed appealing for the extremely low movement but there are of course a bunch of layouts out there so I would love to hear what you're using as a former (present?) Dvorak user
Nowadays I'm mostly using a layout that I made based on the original Maltron layout as designed by Lillian Malt (where you put 'e' on a thumb key, and 's' on the vowel hand index home position) and only fall back to dvorak as a last resort (travel on a laptop etc.) It's more about reducing the use of bottom row mid/ring/pinkies than speed or other related statistics (the theory is that by restricting them to the top two rows, they stay longer in their more natural curvature, thereby reducing tendon stress). With 'e' on a thumb, you avoid the double stacking of the vowel cluster of most modern layouts, but still have the vowel hand index finger freed up for consonants, which then makes it easier to only have infrequent letters on non-index bottom row.
Oh interesting. I've seen some layouts with keys on thumbs but I'm not really super into the idea for portability reasons, even though realistically it's not like I'll be able to use semimak on someone else's computer anyway.
Maybe it's something I'll give a shot later down the road, but I'll do semimak for now at least
Semimak is an excellent layout, have fun switching!
It's been a challenge so far. I'm on day 4 sitting at 30-35 wpm lol. Big downgrade in speed so far