After reading up on the Dvorak keyboard layout and hearing that it feels more natural, is faster, and is better for people wanting to avoid RSIs, I decided to switch. (My wrist tendonitis has been flaring up like wild lately so I'm positively desperate for ways to mitigate that long-term.)
It's been three days and I'm getting a little faster and a little more accurate every day. It really does feel like a more natural layout, all the letters you use most often are on home-row and there's a lot less reaching all over the keyboard to hit the letter you need. My problem right now is I keep forgetting where q j v k are--they're all in the bottom row now and I have to move my hands to see them.
I expect I'll be up to a semi-reasonable speed after a week or so (I'm at like 25 wpm right now). Going cold turkey probably helped. I swapped my keys around for it too so NO GOING BACK NOW! I've already forgotten where everything was in qwerty XD
Dvorak is something that I've really wanted to explore for a long time now. What type of Dvorak keyboard are you using? or did you just do the layout conversion + letter stickers?
I really want to explore it, but like you mentioned, you tend to forget qwerty. :(
I have a laptop so I just popped all the keys off and rearranged them. They're all the same size so they're perfectly interchangeable. Probably wouldn't work with a detached keyboard, I think all the rows are different sizes on most of those.
Some of the threads I've read on the subject say that when you need to go back to qwerty you'll remember it really fast. I dunno, I'll tackle that issue when it comes up. It's pretty simple to switch between the two layouts in Windows so I'll probably just do that and switch back when I'm done if I need to use a public comp or a friend's comp.
Ah. Yeah I've been trying to just buy a Dvorak keyboard. I've read that there are differences with the way the qwerty converted to Dvorak vs dedicated Dvorak works. It's not just the location of the keys, it's the way they're positioned and aligned? If that makes any sense.
I haven't seen anything on the subject so I can't really say. I can see how that could affect things though.
The problem with that is how expensive a dedicated Dvorak keyboard can be. Might be worth it to switch first, see if you like it, and then put in the cash investment.
Yeah, I am (was, lol) too, but the adjustment has been surprisingly smooth in light of that. Doing a full set of lessons right off the bat helped a lot I think. I'm nowhere near touch typing in Dvorak yet, but at least I broke my qwerty instincts.
It's been three days and I'm getting a little faster and a little more accurate every day. It really does feel like a more natural layout, all the letters you use most often are on home-row and there's a lot less reaching all over the keyboard to hit the letter you need. My problem right now is I keep forgetting where q j v k are--they're all in the bottom row now and I have to move my hands to see them.
I expect I'll be up to a semi-reasonable speed after a week or so (I'm at like 25 wpm right now). Going cold turkey probably helped. I swapped my keys around for it too so NO GOING BACK NOW! I've already forgotten where everything was in qwerty XD
I really want to explore it, but like you mentioned, you tend to forget qwerty. :(
Some of the threads I've read on the subject say that when you need to go back to qwerty you'll remember it really fast. I dunno, I'll tackle that issue when it comes up. It's pretty simple to switch between the two layouts in Windows so I'll probably just do that and switch back when I'm done if I need to use a public comp or a friend's comp.
The problem with that is how expensive a dedicated Dvorak keyboard can be. Might be worth it to switch first, see if you like it, and then put in the cash investment.