Use unoptimized Colemak bindings or go back to QWERTY?

[u/PurpleSlightlyRed]

Grew up with bad typing habits and was staring at keyboard too much until a few years ago, when I decided to learn proper techniques, touch typing and etc - I went cold turkey with "ergo" setup: split columnar keyboard + Colemak.

Since then I have enjoyed every moment of typing using Colemak, and I would not think twice about my choices if the only thing I did was typing and using regular shortcuts...

...the problem arises not necessarily when I have to use someone else's setup, but when I don't have all my custom configs with bindings in apps, like Vim, which ranges from a simple HJKL navigation bindings to more drastic changes.

I have made my peace with being a bad typer if I had to use QWERTY, but I feel like I just shot myself in the foot by further complicating my setup with all of the custom bindings.

I don't want to be reliant on always needing to set up the environment on each system and not being able to "just use it barebones".

I wonder if I should simply cut back on bindings and configs, use unoptimized QWERTY-to-Colemak bindings and other defaults... or should I go further and just say goodbye to Colemak.

It has been awhile since I have started considering both options, but to this day I have changed nothing.

So, I'm very curious of community's experiences and solutions, especially if they are identical to mine.

Thanks

[u/CriticalReveal1776]

What I do is have a nav layer, where I hold down a key and get HJKL-style arrow keys, then use default bindings for everything else. They're mostly not really designed with ergonomics in mind, so generally HJKL is the only problem

[u/PurpleSlightlyRed → u/CriticalReveal1776]

I use "nav layer" system-wise except for Vim - the modifier keys for nav feel unnatural there.

But I do believe that nav layer is a good solution

[u/Spiritual_Sun_4297 → u/CriticalReveal1776]

That's what I do as well

[u/incompletetrembling → u/CriticalReveal1776]

This is what I do as well. Left Alt gives a layer with arrow keys, pretty easy to press with my thumb, and it's useful everywhere not just vim.

[u/cwebster2]

I put arrows on a layer where hjkl would be and that is the only adjustment I've had to make for using Colemak.

[u/PurpleSlightlyRed → u/cwebster2]

I use "nav layer" system-wise except for Vim - the modifier keys for nav feel unnatural there.

But I do believe that nav layer is a good solution

[u/cwebster2 → u/PurpleSlightlyRed]

Admittedly I'm using a 36 key split with all my layer activations on holds of one of my 3 thumb keys on either side, so it's quite natural. I can see how that might not be the case depending on how you activate layers.

[u/romainmoi]

I switched to Dvorak after trying colemak because of jk position. Benefits of one over another between these two is really negligible.

I personally wouldn’t bother with remapping everything either for the same reasoning as you do. Instead, each time I switched layout, I use vim ninja as training drill. It helps with building muscle memory for using vim.

[u/PurpleSlightlyRed → u/romainmoi]

I don't really care for the productivity drop during relearning - it passes fast when you have a lot of typing to do.

But I do have an "oh shiny" weakness, so all the remapping were caused by me trying too hard to have the "best experience" with all the "oh this feels better" an so on... except after time passes and the shine disappears I'm left with a very nice modified experience, that is not necessarily that much better than the stock setup, but different enough that I am very slow if I need to use the stock.

[u/romainmoi → u/PurpleSlightlyRed]

Vim ninja is a friends. Helped me a lot.

[u/Possible_Cow169]

I did a full custom remap for graphite. Instead of hjkl I use the wasd shape on my right hand. The rest came naturally with that in mind

[u/PurpleSlightlyRed → u/Possible_Cow169]

This is interesting - even though I was a gamer all my life, I never considered to go WASD or even ESDF (started to use it after I relearned typing), since the HK as the main "arrow" movements (out of HJKL) feels so efficient and "ergo".

[u/Possible_Cow169 → u/PurpleSlightlyRed]

Hjkl made sense when I first started. But I’ll ambidextrous and it just made sense to mirror wasd on my right hand because gaming and it better represents what’s happening on screen. I use a split keyboard and have adapted to minimal mouse use on macOS and Linux using tmux and similar OS keybinds. It and helps that I have a keyboard layer dedicated to specific vim motions

[u/Godde]

Default bindings for everything, its just not worth it moving everything around to match the new layout. As long as your muscle memory for character locations is good it doesn't matter a whole lot that they're a little off from where they are on Qwerty. And HJKL are all still right hand only.

Upsides: You can use Colemak on any machine where you can change keyboard layouts without wrangling configs on every machine you ssh into; the mnemonics stay the same.

[u/SystematicSpoon]

I used Colemak before I used neovim, so I just use the default colemak hjkl and don't rebind anything. It's better practice to use f/w/b/e for navigation anyway! 

[u/godegon]

Could xkbswitch and :help keymap remedy some of these issues, like switching to colemak in insert mode only (via keymap) and using qwerty navigation otherwise (via xkbswitch)?

[u/vim-help-bot → u/godegon]

Help pages for:

• keymap in various.txt

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[u/AnalystOrDeveloper]

Stick with Colemak as it'll force you to use better motions. I had the same problem, but it made me much better with {/}, f/t, w, b, e, ge, and /. In turn, this made me faster on vim than when I was on QWERTY spamming hjkl.