[newbie] Dvorak keyboard layout
Hi all, The article Sridhar cited says, Sholes figured he had to take the most common letter pairs such as 'TH' and make sure their typebars hung at safe [mechanical] distances. That is, he didn't rearrange the letters to slow people down, he did it to lessen the mechanical problems associated with the previous layout. But put another way, he did it for the benefit of the machine rather than the benefit of the typist. And that's really the bottom line. As a seven-year Dvorak typist, let me offer my opinions up front: 1) The Dvorak keybord is superior. 2) Qwerty typists should continue using qwerty. 3) Children should be taught Dvorak. 1) Winter 1993, Dr. Scot Ober performed a study called Relative Efficiencies of the Standard and Dvorak Simplified Keyboards. The study was extensive, and here are some of his conclusions: In QWERTY, 31% of typing is done on the home row. In Dvorak, 70%. In addition, The Dvorak layout has 35% more right-hand reaches, 63% more same-row reaches, 45% more alternate-hand reaches, and 37% less finger travel than the QWERTY layout. It offers a right-hand, left-hand, right-hand typing pattern. There are only a few words that require one-hand typing with the Dvorak layout. There are thousands of words in QWERTY that require one-hand typing. Here's my experience, aside from these things I just quoted you: it's less work on the hands; the work is more evenly divided between the two hands; the extra reaching favors the right hand. It's more comfortable. 2) During my seven years, I've had only a few people ask me if they should switch to Dvorak. I invariabley say, No. If your typing skills ain't broke, then don't fix 'em. The transition can be difficult, and any increase in speed will be negligable (if it improves at all). However... 3) There is absolutely NO reason for children to learn an inferior layout. The only reason children learn it is because it's handed down by blind tradition. Few people consider that there's anything better than qwerty, and if they discover Dvorak they consider it too different, or too much work to implement. They stick with what is comfortable, even if it's worse. It's the SAME mentality that us Linux advocates face day in and day out. Ironically, monopoly is one of the words that must be typed with a single hand on the qwerty keyboard. Miark Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
[newbie] Dvorak
Actually, I agree with him. Ease of use is probably real world larger than the Adobe Photoshop factor. I think that Mandrake has gone the furthest in that direction. It's my favorite distribution. Michael Garcia Sign Up for NetZero Platinum Today Only $9.95 per month! http://my.netzero.net/s/signup?r=platinumrefcd=PT97 Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
[newbie] Dvorak on Linux
John Dvorak has an interesting piece entitled Is Linux Your Next OS? at http://www.pcmag.com/article/0,2997,s=1500a=23172,00.asp As usual, there are some things in there that border on the outrageous, but I thought that some might find it interesting. Regards, Chuck -- Charles Muller Toyo Gakuen University Digital Dictionary of Buddhism and CJK-English Dictionary www.acmuller.net Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Dvorak on Linux
I agree with most of Dvorak's comments. I am concerned that if Linux were to follow such a direction it would lose that personality that attracts me to using and playing with it. I use XP too, but it is like picking up a shovel, driving the car to the store for milk. and similar. I don't get a thrill in doing these things I just do them and get them done. Would love a standard, but you can only have so much when people feel threaten with changes in the things they prefer or enjoy. People can be difficult and difficult people are troublesome. - Original Message - From: Charles Muller [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Newbie [EMAIL PROTECTED]; TLUG [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 18, 2002 8:02 AM Subject: [newbie] Dvorak on Linux John Dvorak has an interesting piece entitled Is Linux Your Next OS? at http://www.pcmag.com/article/0,2997,s=1500a=23172,00.asp As usual, there are some things in there that border on the outrageous, but I thought that some might find it interesting. Regards, Chuck -- Charles Muller Toyo Gakuen University Digital Dictionary of Buddhism and CJK-English Dictionary www.acmuller.net Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
[newbie] dvorak keyboard/file manager/cut and paste
I have been using Linux off and on for about a year now and I've been incredibly impressed with it's stability. I decided some time ago to switch over to it as my primary OS, but I just didn't have enough time to invest in it. I just installed Linux Mandrake and I LOVE it. I was already familiar with Red Hat 5.2, but with the KDE and the other included applications and updates it's so much more useful for me (for example, my videocard isn't supported under Red Hat 5.2 so I had to install the newest XFree86 components every time I reinstalled it). Anyway, I still have a few questions I need answered before I can truly switch over to Linux Mandrake from the ridiculously unstable OS I currently primarily use (take a guess what it is). First: How do I get KDE to use a Dvorak keyboard layout? It works fine at the command prompt before I start X, but not in anything in KDE, including kvt windows. I use the Dvorak keyboard almost exclusively and I really can't switch to Linux unless I can get it to work all the time. This is one place where Red Hat 5.2 is better than Mandrake 5.3--it works in X as well as the command prompt. Second: How can I get the kfm to work more like the Win9x Explorer? I know that may be heresy, but I'm used to some luxuries like being able to hit Win-E to open an Explorer window at the root dir (and I'm sure I'm not the only one). I would love to be able to do the same sort of thing in KDE. Failing a keyboard shortcut, I would like to be able to put it on the toolbar so one click will open a window of the root dir. The other part is that I would like to have the tree and long views open by default. I went into the configuration and didn't see an obvious way to set that up. Third: How do I copy/cut and paste between apps? I have been mostly using KDE apps for everything because open windows are saved between sessions, even after a rare crash (I LOVE that!!!) but sometimes I want to use Netscape and I want to copy a URL from the KDE browser to Netscape. I copy it, and it shows up on the clipboard list but it won't paste into Netscape (and possibly any non-KDE app, I'm not sure). Is there a common clipboard like there is in Windows? If not, I can work around it but it would really be unfortunate...! Linux, X, and KDE are better in so many ways I'd hate to see them beat in something like clipboard functionality. All in all, I think Linux Mandrake is incredible...the stability and versatility are awesome. KDE takes the concept behind Win98 and takes it to a higher level. Thank you to everyone involved, and thank you in advance to anybody that can answer my questions or at least tell me where to look! --walker.
Re: [newbie] dvorak keyboard/file manager/cut and paste
On Son, 21 Mär 1999, you wrote: / Am Son, 21 Mär 1999 schrieben Sie: walker logan hagius wrote: [snip] Hmmm... After playing with it for about 15 minutes, I'm really getting the impression that KDE sucks alot more than I'd ever imagined. I had tried to put another copy of 'Home Directory' onto the panel, then modify the execute string to use the root directory instead of my home directory. It looks like kfm wants to be able to put some files into the directory and since I don't have permissions to do that, it fails. Pardon? Desktop - *right click* - New URL. New URL - *right click* - properties - URL: / And you are set. Clicking this icon opens kfm at /. BTW: For this kind of questions comp.windows.x.kde would be a much better place to ask... [snip] -- Steve Philp [EMAIL PROTECTED] tom
Re: [newbie] dvorak keyboard/file manager/cut and paste
Thanks for the tips! I'll take a look-- On Sun, 21 Mar 1999, you wrote: On Son, 21 Mär 1999, you wrote: / Am Son, 21 Mär 1999 schrieben Sie: [snipped] First: How do I get KDE to use a Dvorak keyboard layout? It works fine at the command prompt before I start X, but not in anything in KDE, including kvt windows. I use the Dvorak keyboard almost exclusively and I really can't switch to Linux unless I can get it to work all the time. This is one place where Red Hat 5.2 is better than Mandrake 5.3--it works in X as well as the command prompt. Some Nicholas Leipe [EMAIL PROTECTED] recently asked this at the kde-user mailing list. Maybe you should contact him, if he has got a solution for this already. Second: How can I get the kfm to work more like the Win9x Explorer? I know that may be heresy, but I'm used to some luxuries like being able to hit Win-E to open an Explorer window at the root dir (and I'm sure I'm not the only one). I would love to be able to do the same sort of thing in KDE. Failing a keyboard shortcut, I would like to be able to put it on the toolbar so one click will open a window of the root dir. The other part is that I would like to have the tree and long views open by default. I went into the configuration and didn't see an obvious way to set that up. There is an app called kexplorer which mimicks the behaviour of that MS one quite good. You can get it at: ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/unstable/apps/multimedia/cdrom/kexplorer-0.1.tar.gz As for the key bindings, I remember there was a thread recently on comp.windows.x.kde. Maybe a search on dejanews (www.dejanews.com) will wield some results. Third: How do I copy/cut and paste between apps? I have been mostly using KDE apps for everything because open windows are saved between sessions, even after a rare crash (I LOVE that!!!) but sometimes I want to use Netscape and I want to copy a URL from the KDE browser to Netscape. I copy it, and it shows up on the clipboard list but it won't paste into Netscape It does: mark the URL in kfm with your mouse and then click with the middle mouse button in the 'go to'-panel of Netscape. [snip] All in all, I think Linux Mandrake is incredible...the stability and versatility are awesome. KDE takes the concept behind Win98 and takes it to a higher level. Thank you to everyone involved, and thank you in advance to anybody that can answer my questions or at least tell me where to look! Same here ;-) --walker. tom
Re: [newbie] dvorak keyboard/file manager/cut and paste
Tom Berger wrote: On Son, 21 Mär 1999, you wrote: / Am Son, 21 Mär 1999 schrieben Sie: walker logan hagius wrote: [snip] Hmmm... After playing with it for about 15 minutes, I'm really getting the impression that KDE sucks alot more than I'd ever imagined. I had tried to put another copy of 'Home Directory' onto the panel, then modify the execute string to use the root directory instead of my home directory. It looks like kfm wants to be able to put some files into the directory and since I don't have permissions to do that, it fails. Pardon? Desktop - *right click* - New URL. New URL - *right click* - properties - URL: / And you are set. Clicking this icon opens kfm at /. Wow, I really ended up going around my thumb to get to my a*hole on that one, didn't I?! My apologies. -- Steve Philp [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [newbie] dvorak keyboard/file manager/cut and paste
On Son, 21 Mär 1999, you wrote: / Am Son, 21 Mär 1999 schrieben Sie: Tom Berger wrote: [snipped] Wow, I really ended up going around my thumb to get to my a*hole on that one, didn't I?! My apologies. Nevermind ;-) And thanx a lot for that wonderful phrase of yours *grin*. -- Steve Philp [EMAIL PROTECTED] tom
