At previous article We discussed the three most likely theories as to why our keyboard uses such an unintuitive letter layout as QWERTY. TO over time other alternative distributions have been proposed And, if you used the installation wizard of some Linux distributions, you will have seen that it offers you alternatives. In this article we will review a few.
More about the keyboard. Alternative distributions
It was in the 1860s that a politician, printer, journalist and inventor named Christopher Latham Sholes who spent his spare time developing various machines to make his business more efficient created one of the first typewriters and first patented it in 1868 . The first keyboard of the typewriter looked like a piano in that it was a row of 28 keys arranged alphabetically.
We already told in the previous article how from that keyboard we went to the current QWERTY, but, the truth is that Sholes himself was never convinced that the QWERTY distribution was the best. After selling his designs to Remington he continued to invent improvements and alternatives to the typewriter iIncluding multiple variants of keyboard layouts. The last patent was obtained posthumously.
The Dvorak keyboard
Of the alternatives to QWERTY, without a doubt the most successful is the simplified Dvorak keyboard.
Developed in 1930 by Dr August Dvorak and his brother-in-law, William Dealey, se means that it requires less finger movement and therefore reduces errors, increases typing speed, reduces repetitive strain injuries, and is more comfortable than QWERTY. This assumption is based on the fact that the most commonly used letters of the English language are in the middle row where the hands naturally rest.
However, not everyone is in agreement.
colemark
Another option available in the installation wizard for Linux distributions, colemark It is more recent since it dates back to 2006.
It is ideal if you want to ditch QWERTY but not learn a completely new keyboard layout. Coleman makes 17 changes to the key layout, and also removes the Caps Lock key. Replaces it with a second backspace key.
According to its developers, The advantages of this keyboard layout are:
- Ergonomic and comfortable: Coleman requires 2.2 times more finger movements than QWERTY. There are 35 times as many words that can be typed without leaving the middle row and 16 fewer times of row changes are required.
- Easy to learn - Allows an easy transition from QWERTY. Many common shortcuts (including Ctrl + Z / X / C / V) remain the same. There are typing lessons available.
- Fast - Most of the writing is done with the strongest and fastest fingers
- Free - Free software released under the public domain. Does not require the purchase of a new keyboard
Although there are many keyboard layouts adapted to the peculiarities of different languages such as German, Russian, French, or Chinese, I was not able to find any specific to the Spanish language.
Who killed the dead keys?
A peculiarity of Linux installers is that in addition to discriminating between Spanish from Spain and Spanish from Latin, includes option to remove dead keys.
Dead keys are a special type of modifier keys that are commonly used to attach a symbol to a base key. Dead keys do not generate a character on their own, but instead modify the character generated by the key pressed immediately afterwards. For example the one we use to accentuate a vowel.
Mobile devices
For many of us who learned with old typewriters, virtual keyboards on mobile devices pose a challenge. First of all, it is impossible to use all your fingers to type because most of them are holding the device. While the thumbs that usually limited their role to the spacer bar, they assume a more active role.
That is why various keyboard layouts have been proposed, some of which include key spacing.