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colemak_org

The Colemak Community Web Pages

Web pages for www.colemak.org

This repo holds a GitHub web page for the user-controlled colemak.org domain.

The official Colemak site run by Colemak's creator Shai Coleman is at colemak.com.

For now, the colemak.org pages will mostly be a short intro to the Colemak keyboard layout and a link page to various Colemak-related online resources.

For more info on mods, typing enhancements and learning, please see the DreymaR's Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks pages.

This repo is maintained by @DreymaR and @abrickinthehallway, with the permission and cooperation of Shai Coleman.

DISCLAIMER ABOUT THIS README

  • This README.md file isn't really meant for the public.
  • The colemak_org repository exists for the purpose of hosting the colemak.org web page, so that's what you should look at.
  • Most of the below is WIP notes used for the web page.
  • You may find something that hasn't made it to the page yet, if you search.
  • Mostly, just go view the Colemak Community page at www.colemak.org. Now shoo!

FAQ: LAYOUT LEARNING

☑ "Should I learn Colemak? Is it worth it?"

☑ "What about Vim, or other programs that use shortcuts?"

☑ "Which Colemak is better, Classical/Vanilla or Curl/DH?"

☑ "Is Colemak-DH the same as...?"

☑ "Why is Z in the middle of the board on Angle-ANSI? Would DH work without that pesky confusing Angle mod?"


FAQ: LAYOUT DESIGN

☑ "Isn't Workman/Norman/Whatever better than Colemak? Its documentation says so!"

☑ "Which layouts are better than Colemak?"

☑ "I want to tweak Colemak a little to suit my needs!"

☑ "Wouldn't it be better to swap R and S on Colemak? It's so hard to learn!"

☑ "Is mapping the CapsLock key to Backspace a part of the Colemak layout?"


FAQ: PRACTICAL LAYOUT QUESTIONS [WIP]

☑ "My right pinky gets tired! And typing you is uncomfortable! What's wrong?"

☑ "How can I train my fingers to get better at typing for instance you, then?"

- At the [Big Bag Training page][bigtrn] there are tips for training hard n-grams. Try a list of words containing 'ou uo yo oy uy yu'!
- If you have a programmable keyboard you could make a chord for hard n-grams. E.g., press 'yu' at the same time for 'you'.

☐ Where can I learn to type better and faster with a layout?

- There are many options and people are different.
- The best advice is to enjoy the experience!
- See the Big Bag Training page for answers.

☐ "How can I get a layout up and running? I downloaded this installer..."

- On Windows there are four main ways: [MSKLC][bigklc], [AHK][ahkdotcom], [EPKL][epklgi] and [Registry/SharpKeys][sharpkeys]. All have their strengths and weaknesses.</li>
- On Linux and MacOS, [XKB][xkbcmk] and [KMonad][kmonadgit] (as well as the mostly deprecated [XModMap][xmodmapwi]). Differences.</li>
- Hardware implementation. Programmable boards and the [QUICKIE](https://dreymar.colemak.org/typing-tricks.html#usb2usb) QWERTY-In-Colemak-Out USB device.</li>

FAQ: LAYOUT DESIGN ANALYSIS [WIP]

☑ "I want to tweak Colemak a little to suit my needs!"

- Same-finger bigrams is a crucial factor in layout design! You may not notice them at first though.
	- Some say that a SFB% of, say, 0.2% for one bigram – 1 in is so little that you won't notice it.
- Beyond simple SFBs you have roll direction and redirects, skip-grams and whatnot. Here be dragons!
- "In the world of layout design there is no beginner's luck, only beginner's mistakes" ~ DreymaR, 2021

☐ English bigram frequencies from Norvig/Mayzner:

  ##: Bigram	##: Reverse 	Sum  	Ratio | - Comment
=======================================================================================================
- Common bigrams in English:
	  --------------------------------
	  TH: 3.556%	HT: 0.130%  	3.69%	 27   | - TH and HE are the two most common bigrams
	  HE: 3.075%	EH: 0.026%  	3.10%	118   | - HE is also relevant to Colemak-DH
	  ER: 2.048%	RE: 1.854%  	3.90%	  1.1 | - ER/RE is the most common bidirectional bigram
	  OU: 0.870%	UO: 0.011%  	0.88%	 79   | - OU is also relevant to Colemak YOU
- Relevant to a Colemak R-S swap:
	  --------------------------------
	  ST: 1.053%	TS: 0.337%  	1.39%	  3.1 | - ST/TS is in the top 20 English bigrams
	  RS: 0.397%	SR: 0.006%  	0.40%	 66   | - RS is nicer to roll inwards
	  TR: 0.426%	RT: 0.362%  	0.79%	  1.2 | - TR/RT vs RS/SR isn't so important here?
	  SC: 0.155%	CS: 0.023%  	0.18%	  6.7 | - Colemak has SC/CS, WR/RW, SF/FS relevant SFBs
	  WR: 0.031%	RW: 0.013%  	0.04%	  2.4 |     - In sum, 0.24% relevant SFBs
	  SF: 0.017%	FS: 0.006%  	0.02%	  2.8 |     - Cmk total is 1.67% on the Colemakmods analyzer
	  CR: 0.149%	RC: 0.121%  	0.27%	  1.2 | - R-S swapped Cmk has CR/RC, FR/RF, WS/SW SFBs
	  FR: 0.213%	RF: 0.032%  	0.25%	  6.6 |     - In sum, 0.58% relevant SFBs
	  WS: 0.035%	SW: 0.024%  	0.06%	  1.5 |     - That's a factor 2.4 over Cmk's
- The most frequent Colemak SFBs:
	  --------------------------------
	  SC: 0.155%	CS: 0.023%  	0.18%	  6.7 | - E, KN UE SC Y. are the most common SFBs on Colemak
	  UE: 0.147%	EU: 0.031%  	0.18%	  4.7 | - UE feels easier as an upper-to-middle-row SFB
	  NK: 0.052%	KN: 0.051%  	0.10%	  1.0 | - NK/KN is easily alt-fingered with index-middle fingers

☐ SteveP's SFB analysis using the colemakmods analyzer:

- SFB frequencies on the Colemakmods analyzer:
	Colemak                     	1.669%
	Colemak (angle-cheat)       	1.789%
	Colemak-RS                  	2.034%
	Colemak-RS (angle-cheat)    	2.044% 
	
- So the difference is bigger than 0.24% in this analysis
- is that due to the difference between Norvig/Mayzner and the carpalx (which I use) datasets?
- I've always thought that if people are determined to swap RS, then they should do a FL swap as well:
	Colemak-RSFL                	1.872%
	Colemak-RSFL (angle-cheat)  	1.763% (Improves hand balance too!)