Right at the beginning, I have to excuse to my english-only-speaking readers that almost all of the links point to sites written in german, but there is not a lot of information available in english about this topic.
After two years of typing on the Dvorak keyboard for economic reasons, I found something new: the NEO keyboard layout (english site here). I thought: Great, finally a interesting keyboard layout that is optimized for my language and has the german Umlauts (ö, ü, ä) and the “eszett” (ß) available. Very soon I got disappointed when I looked at the Wikipedia page about NEO because what I discovered first was that the symbols one needs for writing C code for example were very inconvenient to reach so I would not be able to speed up when hacking on code.
Then finally I found out that the layout I had seen was not the last word spoken in the NEO layout. There is a second version under development here. I checked out the new version from svn and there is a lot of stuff for xmodmap, latex, grub, windows, macos, and this file where you can see what the layout looks like. All the symbols needed for programming are placed on the letters in combination with the third-level modifier. The third-level modifier is on the key next to the return key as well as on the Caps Lock key which finally makes this key useful.
These are my experiences with NEO2 SVN so far:
- It is definitly worth the inconvenience if you have the time.
- I got used to it a whole lot faster than it took me to get used to dvorak.
- When typing german text, I am a lot faster than with english texts.
- I learn it best when hacking on my Python and C code.
- I still have a lot of typos after about 10 days of usage, but they keep getting fewer every day.
- When I am concentrated the typos go towards zero although I type at my maximum speed.
- The curly and square brackets are a lot easier to type than on the german layout – no more finger cramps because [Alt Gr] is no longer needed for them.
- Sadly the windows layout (yes, I have to use a windows machine at work even if I don’t want to) can’t make use of the Caps Lock key which relativates the previous point because [Alt Gr] is the third level modifier on windows.
18. May 2008 at 15:39 |
i’m typing neo 1 for about one year now on a touchstream lp. on quertz i wasn’t able to 10 finger type as i never had the patience to learn and i was quite quick in a 6 fingers and look system. when i switched to neo, i practised with a typing trainer prog and the lessons provided on hanno behrens site. so i finally learnt the 10 finger system, but with neo!
i must say it’s a fine layout and i especially like that i have all vocals at my left homerow. i have rearranged the keys directly on my touch typing keyboard, so when i connect it to another computer, i have neo there intantly without drivers (presumed they have a german quertz layout set up).
i’m just using the first level order of neo and set up the third layer a bit differently with all the brackets and other stuff at my right hand. it’s also a bit because of the way modifiers are chords on the touchstream. for this third layer i still need a keyboarddriver/xmodmap – there would be a possibility to change it directly on the keyboard, but i would loose the ability to access ctrl+alt+anykey shortcuts.
a week ago i switched to neo 2 and have a few problems with getting used to it. i just don’t remember the new q position… it’s exactly on the other side of the keyboard.
all in all i like neo very much, sad that quert* still didn’t die. exactly the same with the layout of keyboards – the buttons are still inclined. i don’t understand this, it’s unlogical. they should be right above each other. even the ms natural keyboard has a bit inclined buttons… at least with my touchstream this is ‘corrected’.