Editing
Alternative keyboard layouts
(section)
From Deskthority Wiki
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
==== Philosophy and Performance ==== AdNW is based on roughly the same ideas as "Dvorak" keyboard. Being in the Dvorak tradition, the following aspects are important: * Same finger use (low) * Adjacent finger use<sup>(*)</sup>(low) * Inward motions versus Outward motions (high) * Home row use (high) * Row jumps (low) * Finger balance (less on pinkies, more on middle and index) <small>(*)On QWERTY AS and SD which are right next together is a negative mark against the layout. The AD and SF positions are seen as better. The idea is that adjacent fingers, especially the pinky and ring finger are not completely independent. Making "rolls" with adjacent finger less pleasant and therefore to be avoided. "Rolls" on index and middle finger (e.g. ER on QWERTY) are less problematic and get a lower penalty for that reason. </small> As a result of these criteria, the AdNW layouts also have a balanced Left/Right distribution (roughly 50% of effort on each hand, compared to QWERTY that puts most work on the right hand) and a high hand alternation. Alternation means that common letter combinations like ER or IN are not typed on one hand (like in QWERTY) but on two hands. In AdNW, E and I are on the left side, R and N on the right. To make the differences between QWERTZ and AdNW clear, they are compared both visually and statistically. The graphs and data are produced by the AdNW optimizer. In the graphs, the letter 'flow' is shown. The more common a digraph is (e.g. ER), the fatter the line that is drawn between these two letters. [[File:Adnwqa2.png|thumb|800px|center|AdNW and QWERTZ compared.]] Looking at the graphs, one sees that QWERTY uses the left hand a lot, especially the top row. Some of the most frequent bigrams are on the left top row (WE, ER, ET, RT). On the right hand the frequent IN bigram includes an home row jump, which is seen as highly unwanted. Compared to QWERTY, AdNW is more balanced, has more home row use, and much less one handed bigrams. Frequent bigrams (like WE, ER and so on) are not typed with one hand, but alternate between hands. Even though AdNW was optimized for 50/50 English/German, it performs quite well for English solely. Comparison Below: [[File:Qwertzadnw2.png|thumb|791px|center|AdNW and QWERTY compared.]] Compared to QWERTY: * AdNW is more balanced left/right (52.7 versus 59.0) * AdNW is more home row oriented (72% typed on homerow, versus 32.6% in QWERTZ) * AdNW is more balanced over fingers (less use of right hand index and middle finger; more of other fingers) * AdNW has more hand alternation (70.8% versus 52.2%) * AdNW has less adjacent finger bigrams * AdNW has less same finger use * AdNW has higher home row usage
Summary:
Please note that all contributions to Deskthority Wiki may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here.
You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see
Project:Copyrights
for details).
Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)
Navigation menu
Page actions
Page
Discussion
Read
Edit
Edit source
History
Page actions
Page
Discussion
More
Tools
Personal tools
Not logged in
Talk
Contributions
Create account
Log in
Navigation
Main page
Deskthority forum
Support Deskthority
Search
Main categories
Guides
Keyboards
Keyboard switches
Keycaps
Keyboard modding
Pointing devices
Brands & companies
Group buys
Other topics
Wiki info & links
Recent changes
Random page
All pages
Deskthority wiki help
MediaWiki help
Tools
What links here
Related changes
Special pages
Page information