[joe kuhn]

Got a new cell phone (Galaxy mini) and I think it's a good time to try the Dvoarak keyboard, which I've wanted to try for a long time now, but never took the time to learn. I figure I can learn to thumb type on a phone Dvorak and still retain my full hands on skills at work as a computer programmer with the old QWERTY arrangement.

Link to crash course listed above.

Vowels are on the left which has been helpful in learning already.

Anyone else ever try this?

 

[chuckie68]

What could possibly be the advantage? We were all taught the "qwerty" keyboard back in the dark ages----B.E.T. "Before Electric Typewriters"!!!

Chuck

 

[grntitan]

I'll stick with the key arrangement I learned in High School on the old manual typewriters. I'm with Chuck, what is the advantage of teaching an old dog new tricks in this situation?

Good luck with it.

 

[joe kuhn]

After just 1 day I'm asking myself the same question. My answer: because you're using your thumbs, not your fingers. I think there's room for a thumbs only keyboard. Here we go...

 

[joe kuhn]

Found three other options in 10 minutes. Above is the W10 link. This keyboard actually requires double key presses for some letters; for example, you get 'm' by typing 'n' twice. Nah.

 

[joe kuhn]

Here's a QWERTY keyboard that dynamically modifies the size of the keys based on what the next key is likely to be. Click on the video on the left. Looks wierd, but might try.

 

[joe kuhn]

And a third called the KALQ keyboard designed by Germans. I think I'll go with the Germans next.

Later

 

[joe kuhn]

One more called the 'minimum keyboard'. Made by Geeks.

 

[joe kuhn]

I like the German one already. There's a space key for each thumb. The keyboard layout looks weird, but my typing seems to flow better than with the Dvorak.

 

[joe kuhn]

My point of impact is along the red lines, a whole lot different from a standard keyboard home row. Notice the vowels on the right.

Quote from above article on the German KALQ keyboard: "Designed to save your thumbs stretching across the screen and making repeated taps, Kalq splits the keys into two blocks, 16 to the left, 12 to the right. Commonly used letters are clustered together and frequent pairs of letters placed on alternate sides, so each hand does the same amount of work."

 

[joe kuhn]

Discovered the microphone key at the bottom for voice entry. It typed everything I said perfectly. Forget about typing! Now I don't need a keyboard to text the family. Hey!

 

[joe kuhn]

You can see in the above picture another strategy to solving the keyboard problem - word prediction. It's built in on my phone. Good strategy, but not as fast a talking into the phone while it types.

I pushed the microphone option to a limit by saying:

"At the end of a sentence you must type a period."

I got this:

"At the end of a sentence you must type a pe."

Hah. I bet there's a way around this. More study needed...

 

[joe kuhn]

I'm finding I talk person to person even less now with my new smart phone. Interesting trend. Since I have wi-fi at home and at work, maybe all I need is a wi-fi device. I don't want to be called when I'm shooting anyway.