This Heatmap is why I made the switch to colmak-dh.
this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2025
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I think this makes sense for people who type only in English. If you type in other languages, this becomes way less relevant.
Not to mention the limitations in hardware.
French has the bépo layout which applies the Dvorak methodology to French
I type in other languages as well on Colemak dh, it's still way better
I type in English, Portuguese and Spanish (mainly in English because code, then Portuguese because I live in Brazil) and I use Dvorak. I don't use accents or other special characters, but because I'm a "gringo" I get a pass.
Yeah no definitely. This is a heatmap generated off of English words.
However Germanic/latin languages may be similar
I think I will bind E to my spacebar.
Lol yeah the spacebar is so much wasted real estate. Thats why ergo mech keyboards map it to a thumb cluster.
Swedish. Of course, these all lack three letters. And I don't think this tool counts special characters?
I use QWERTZ the Swiss version. (It's not optimal as it has to accomodate 3 languages)
QWERTZ with Slovene/Croatian letters
I use Colemak, but just learned about Colemak-DH in this thread, I might give that a try, as the hjkl keys seem to be better positioned and have been trying to get back to vim.
Programmer dvorak
I also taught myself Colemak and Workman, but I prefer Dvorak
How difficult was it to learn and switch?
When I considered I ultimately didn't commit to practice - because it's so different and seemed like not worth the effort.
How do see the impact it has? It is considerably more comfortable or efficient?
Dvorak for over 25 years.
I switched to Colemak-dh about 2 year ago when I bought a ZSA Moonlander after getting a terrible case of rsi in my left wrist. When I type on other keyboards (which I try to avoid whenever possible) I still use qwerty. Curious thing, I write at about 70 wpm with 99% accuracy with colemak-dh on my Moonlander but I can't pass 10 wps when using colemak-dh on other keyboards, and I have no hope in hell writing with qwerty on the Moonlander at all. The motor memory is completely decoupled between the split keyboard and the non-split keyboard. Which I guess is good, since then when using someone else's keyboard I won't have issues using their keyboard.
What you just described is pretty much exactly my experience with colemak and split keebs too.
When i was learning colemak i decided to take the time to teach myself proper touch typing at the same time. Now i can only touch type colemak on a split ortho. I cant type qwerty at all on it.
QWERTZ
German spotted hehehe.
Croatian actually :D
Qwertz.
I teu tried neo couple of years ago but did not use it long enough to get proficient.
Plover. I'm still not any good at it.
I know that feeling.
QWERTZ, which is just the standard layout for Germany. It switches out Y and Z, adds Umlauts and changes the positions of various special characters.
I'm curious, what made you switch to AZERTY?
It is so similar to QUERTY, that I just shrugged when I accidentally ordered the wrong 15 euro keyboard. So technically I also use QUERTZ, but I still tell my PC it is a QUERTY keyboard. Fun times when someone attempts to use my PC and gets confused.
Also QWERTZ, but the Swiss version that has these guys on the umlauts with shift äöü -> àéè
What do you do when you want them capitalized?
There are two methods:
- You can use caps lock for the capitalized umlauts and caps lock and shift for the capitalized French accented vowels
- You can use the accent buttons and combine with a normal capitalized vowel. For example, the button between ü and enter is the two dots button ¨, so you press two dots, then shift-o and get a capital Ö. Same for the French accented vowels the two buttons on the left of backspace have ´ and ` (with alt-gr and shift respectively) and you can combine those with shift-e for É È.
The second method sounds convoluted, but you get used to combining keys anyway. For example for the circumflex ^ because â ê î ô û don't exist pre-combined on this keyboard layout. The same goes for some rarer combinations like ï, which despite the dots isn't a German umlaut, it's an i with trema for use in French for example in haïr, to hate.
German only really introduced capitalized umlauts for printing around 1900, so people used to use the combinations of the vowel with e for capitalized umlauts in print. Then the first mechanical typewriters again didn't all have umlauts, or sometimes had only small umlauts. The combinations with e is also used for systems that have technical limitations. If they are ASCII based for example. Therefore even today people are somewhat used to it, so if you were to write Oeffnungszeit instead of Öffnungszeit nobody would bat an eye.
Caps lock is a key I never want to touch but dead keys (for combining characters) are what one uses for accents (but not umlaute) in the German QWERTZ too.
Moving to Belgium for a new job so...
Belgian AZERTY has the @ on a different key than the French one. No, don't ask.
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AZERTY is not really about being similar to QWERTY. It's the French standard keyboard layout.
Similarly QWERTZ is the German standard keyboard layout.
Most (European?) countries use some variation of QWERTY with the symbols and special characters moved around to fit their respective languages better. Over here in the Netherlands we are a bit of an outlier in the sense that we use the US layout of QWERTY, but with additional modifier keys to make special characters available (It's called US International)
There is also niche layouts like DVORAK (optimized layout for English) and BÉPO (optimized layout for French).
What is the reason you switched to AZERTY, if I may ask? I'm quite curious.
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I’ve always wanted to use DVORAK but just don’t have the time to learn something so large and new (to me) at this stage of life. Gotta pick your battles.
I used Dvorak for a couple months but every time I sat down I had to force myself not to revert to muscle memory. Also, at the time at least, I had to remap they keys in every game I played so they were spread all around the keyboard. Just wasn't with it.
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I use Dvorak on a 36 key Corne.
I started developing Ulnar Tunnel due to having really bad typing form from never learning the correct way to type. I was never going to unlearn the horrible (but fast) typing form that I had been using for years, so I decided to completely relearn how to type from the ground up using a different key layout on a completely different keyboard layout. It was a long and arduous process, but now my wrist pain is completely gone, and my typing speed has recovered.
I'm French but I'm a programmer. I fully switched to standard Colemak in 6 months. There was no difference between QWERTY and AZERTY to me and I had pain in my wrists. Colemak removed that pain in a few weeks and I still get to keep the standard shortcuts (Ctrl+C/V...) because some keys stay in the same place. It's annoying sometimes when you're learning but it's definitely worth it.
Settled on it after 2 years of Dvorak, 1 year of Colemak, and 1 month of Workman.
Though, I mainly use Plover stenography when I'm working, Norman for gaming, and Qwerty on mobile or as-needed (e.g. other people's computers or while taking notes on my iPad for D&D)
I've been using Dvorak for maybe like 5 years now. There's like a 2 or 3 day period whenever you're learning a new keyboard layout in which you can't type at all lmao. QWERTY or Dvorak or whatever. Just takes a bit for your brain to adjust.
The interesting thing is tho, if I sit down at a computer I don't use every day and start typing, I can type QWERTY no problem, but if I ever have to type QWERTY on my personal computer (lookin at you RDP), its really hard.
I've been meaning to try out a Colemak layout, since it tries to keep a lot of the common computer shortcuts in the same place. (Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V on Dvorak are in kind of an odd place and its a pain if you ever need to use them 1 handed, like if you're holding a tablet pen)
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