| I switched to the german neo layout¹ years ago (after a year of dvorak). Having done the jump twice: it takes some time, and in the beginning you really feel sooo handycapped, but it gets better quickly. I used to play some text centered ultima-online-like morpg which I used to get better at typing. I don't know if it's faster, but it feels great. I can still type qwerty with 6-8 fingers rather quickly (I made the dive in to 10-finger typing with dvorak). I do change my keycaps, because I can't type blindly without using 10 fingers (like hitting any key with just you index finger while giving a presentation and standing a step away). The big benefit of this layout for me: I have 2 more "shift" keys for these things: 1. (holding capslock) ¹²³›‹¢¥‚‘’ <- number keys
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2.: (holding altgr)for the left hand: arrow keys, del, backspace, esc, enter (really helps when your vi keybindings are all messed up) For the right hand: number block (good on small laptops without one, space becomes 0) The only downside currently: it's optimized for german wtih a bit of english, but I type more english. Vocals are popular everythere though, so it's mostly the same. ¹ http://neo-layout.org/ |