I thought myself to touch type a few years ago. It was also never part of my formal education even though it would have helped a lot ! I was using a mix of AZERTY, QWERTZ ans QWERTY and now I exclusively use International QWERTY, it's a standard layout with accents and special characters with ALT modifier.

I was like, wait, what's "touch typing"? Oh writing without looking?

Yeah, been doing that a couple of decades prolly. I even do it on my phone most of the time. That's why I typo quite a lot unless I proofread. I do usually use the suggestions and glimpse at the kb from time to time and you can half see it anyway but yeah.

With a computer I don't really ever look at the keyboard. My speed has been measured a couple of times I think but can't recall anything except getting the highest grade. And I think those tests limit my speed as I don't copy things as fast as when I'm heatedly constructing and argument myself. Feels like I've got much better flow then than when reading a word and then having to output it at the same time.

I need to see whether I can measure my own speed sometime when I get into a nice argument and have good flow again.

No. And I've been programming for the past 20 years.

No. I depress the keys with telekinesis.

A data entry job made me abandon 10-key.

I hated not having access to a backspace, and I was already close to being able to touch type on the number line.

I have no idea if it was actually faster, but it was close enough.

Now I’m trying to figure out what you name spells with the same keys on qwerty vs dvorak

Yes. QWERTY, I learned from both Type Attack and Mavis beacon. Tried Dvorak for the heck of it but that one didn't stick. I (could) think essays straight onto the screen so long as not too many numbers were involved.

I detest laptop keyboards, or even externals that are too flat. I need keys that move or my body memory to work right.

I guess you've got a type, eh?

I landed on EurKey, it's niche but gives me a standard QWERTY layout for programming and German on AltGr and Greek letters on compose

Isnt there a guy online that modified theirs to have mechanical keys, basically doubling the thickness?

Yes, but not in a standard way. I do things my own self taught way and didn't care to adopt anything my schools taught. They did teach how to type all through grade school where I grew up. It's just that I was usually the fastest in the class doing my own weird thing already and that never changed even in high school where I got bonus credits for typing above 80WPM.

I’m probably not as efficient as I could be.

Same here, my average WPM definitely suffers harshly or strangely thrives in weird ways depending on what repetitive keys I need to press I noticed in the Final Sentence typing battle royale demo on Steam that would be solved by typing properly.

Yes qwerty. I'm just a nerd. Lots of angry instant messaging arguments with iamsosmart boys growing up. Probably the best form of practice if you really want to get better (active instant messaging). It also helps to have a real keyboard, and not a laptop. They can get kinda spendy if you go mechanical. But, once you find an ergonomic layout that you like and the keys that you like with the features that you like, and you've improved a lot, it's hard to not, in the same way it's good to invest in good shoes and mattress.

I can touch type, but not with proper form. I use a really fast "hunt and peck" method with my two index fingers and my other fingers for specific keys such as backspace, shift, space, ctrl, etc. I can typically type between 70 - 80 wpm with high accuracy.

The ONE class from High School that taught me something I literally use every single day.

Typing.

I graduated High School in 1988 and have used a keyboard almost every single day and can touch type with alacrity. As far as what layout, QWERTY.

While Dvorak is supposed to be faster and more efficient, I'm an old IT guy and not a typist. While some of my work does include writing presentations and reports, I'm doing more punching commands and using short cuts. It's just not worth the effort to learn another layout.

This is incredible and I thank you for bringing this to my attention

Would you recommend switching to Dvorak for someone who already touch types very fast (80-90 wpm)?

Can you switch between the two easily?

Yes. Custom layout so I was forced to learn touch typing. I'm way faster now than I was with with qwerty after years of programming because I would always find myself looking at the keyboard. So, I guess with qwerty, the same could be accomplished by taking the characters off.

No. I have become very fast at the two-finger hunt and peck method after years of use.

I don't recall much of my process learning touch typing on qwerty but the process was frustrating at first learning dvorak because the qwerty muscle memory kept getting in the way. But I made myself use it in IRC and kept a diagram of the layout on my 2nd monitor. I also played some typing games. Then, over time, I got better and better with it and started moving other programs over until it was my main layout. Now the first thing I do on a new to me PC is go looking for keyboard layout options (and holy fuck MS has moved that shit all over the place).

Wayland (or something in KDE) has the best handling I've seen yet. Gaming was always kinda annoying as different games have different levels of support for alternate layouts.

On windows, some would just work, remapping the default keybinds to the layout (because moving isn't about hitting wasd specifically, but the keys in those places) and text types as expected. Some I'd go into options and remap to dvorak. Some I'd just switch the layout and be annoyed any time I had to type text instead of hitting keybinds.

On Linux, Fedora Cinnamon, it was just random whether the layout would work like I wanted or do something else, like reverse (where even switching layouts keeps the incorrect dvorak layout), or sometimes it just ignored the system layout entirely. I had to remap and reset to defaults a lot.

But then I switched to Fedora KDE and it's perfect. Only "issue" is I had to set the default to qwerty, but then it uses that layout to remap the bindings for other layouts and both bidings and typing just works all the time now.

Dvorak at work, QWERTY away from work. I occasionally start typing Dvorak at home, but it doesn't take much to reset the brain to QWERTY. I learned touch typing in high school in the 80s on a mechanical typewriter.

Thats me, I the ring finger only gets involved if I need to press 2 of ctrl/alt/shift at the same time

I don't use all the right fingers but can type 80+ wpm, so you can be plenty efficient with enough practice.

Partially, only with one hand. I use one finger on the other hand

To be fair, programming is basically the art of making the computer do as much as possible with as little typing as possible.

left side only.

let's call ot WASD-typing :D

I taught myself to touch-type with proper form after I built myself a split keyboard with the Dvorak layout (I figured since I'd never learned to properly touch-type with QWERTY it'd be as good an opportunity as any to pick up a better optimised layout). I gotta say, it does feel pretty great being able to type something with my eyes closed, or more practically, qouting stuff from a textbook without having to look at what I'm doing on my laptop.

Yes, I can touch type. I had a computer class in my year of high school where they taught us all how to do it.

Azerty isn't even a good layout for French, that's how bad is it it is. There's a new and supposedly improved version of it, but nobody makes keyboards for it

i touch type qwerty and dvorak. when i was working in a call center i started learning one-handed qwerty touchtyping, too.

my speed never recovered from switching, but for long sessions, it's more comfortable.

I was never good at typing until I got a job programming. Never took a course or anything so I'm definitely not using proper form, but if you use a keyboard enough your fingers learn where the keys are.

A course might help, but like all muscle memory, the trick is to just practice it enough times that you don't need to think about it anymore.

I've actually leaned that in school, on a fully mechanical typewriter. But i don't use this skill, as touch type is completely useless for programming.

Yes. I started with QWERTY, then I moved to Dvorak, then I moved to Colemak, and then I finally settled on Workman ^[1]^.

I used to be able to. Then I got a new computer... and I was still able to.

Then a few months later my typo rate increased, correcting them quickly got harder, and I derailed more often. (How do I fiz my jeyboarf?) Sometimes it feels like I'm derailed even when I'm not.

QWERTY only, I have never even seen a physical Dvorak keyboard, or any other layout.

For those of you who switched keyboard layouts, did you also switch it on your phone?

Guess you’re skilled with your Fingers eh?