Colemak Keyboard on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
Colemak is a
The Colemak layout was designed with the
A series of intermediate layouts known as Tarmak have been created with the intention of making it easier for new users to adopt the layout. The layouts change only 3–5 keys at a time in a series of 5 steps.
Colemak has been criticised for placing too much emphasis on the middle-row center-column keys (D and H), leading to awkward lateral finger stretches for common English bigrams such as HE. To address these concerns, the Colemak user community developed a modified version of Colemak named Colemak-DH.
The Colemak community has created several other modifications and variants; some of these are not directly related to Colemak but would work on other layouts as well.
Official Colemak website
(including community forum)
Community Colemak website
Colemak Mod-DH
{{Latin alphabet Computer-related introductions in 2006 Keyboard layouts Latin-script keyboard layouts
Colemak is a keyboard layout
A keyboard layout is any specific physical, visual, or functional arrangement of the keys, legends, or key-meaning associations (respectively) of a computer keyboard, mobile phone, or other computer-controlled typographic keyboard. Standard keybo ...
for Latin-script alphabets
The lists and tables below summarize and compare the letter inventories of some of the Latin-script alphabets. In this article, the scope of the word "alphabet" is broadened to include letters with tone marks, and other diacritics used to represen ...
, designed to make typing
Typing is the process of writing or inputting text by pressing keys on a typewriter, computer keyboard, mobile phone, or calculator. It can be distinguished from other means of text input, such as handwriting recognition, handwriting and speech ...
more efficient and comfortable than QWERTY
QWERTY ( ) is a keyboard layout for Latin-script alphabets. The name comes from the order of the first six Computer keyboard keys#Types, keys on the top letter row of the keyboard: . The QWERTY design is based on a layout included in the Sh ...
by placing the most frequently used letters of the English language on the home row
Touch typing (also called blind typing, or touch keyboarding) is a style of typing. Although the phrase refers to typing without using the sense of sight to find the keys—specifically, a touch typist will know their location on the keyboard thr ...
while keeping many common keyboard shortcuts
In computing, a keyboard shortcut (also hotkey/hot key or key binding) is a software-based assignment of an action to one or more keys on a computer keyboard. Most Operating system, operating systems and Application software, applications come ...
the same as in QWERTY. Released on 1 January 2006, it is named after its inventor, Shai Coleman.
All major modern operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...
s, including Microsoft Windows
Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
(as of Windows 11, version 24H2
The Windows 11 2024 Update (also known as version 24H2, codenamed Hudson Valley) is the third and latest major update to Windows 11. It carries the build number 10.0.26100.
Overview
The first preview was released to Insiders who opted in to ...
), macOS
macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...
, Linux
Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...
, Android, ChromeOS
ChromeOS, sometimes styled as chromeOS and formerly styled as Chrome OS, is an operating system designed and developed by Google. It is derived from the open-source operating system and uses the Google Chrome web browser as its principal user ...
, and BSD
The Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), also known as Berkeley Unix or BSD Unix, is a discontinued Unix operating system developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berkeley, beginni ...
, support Colemak natively. A program to install the layout on older versions of Windows is available. On Android and iOS, the layout is offered by several virtual keyboard apps like GBoard and SwiftKey, as well as by many apps which support physical keyboards directly.
Overview
The Colemak layout was designed with the QWERTY
QWERTY ( ) is a keyboard layout for Latin-script alphabets. The name comes from the order of the first six Computer keyboard keys#Types, keys on the top letter row of the keyboard: . The QWERTY design is based on a layout included in the Sh ...
layout as a base, changing the positions of 17 keys while retaining the QWERTY positions of most non-alphabetic characters and many popular keyboard shortcuts
In computing, a keyboard shortcut (also hotkey/hot key or key binding) is a software-based assignment of an action to one or more keys on a computer keyboard. Most Operating system, operating systems and Application software, applications come ...
, supposedly making it easier to learn than the Dvorak layout for people who already type in QWERTY without losing efficiency. It shares several design goals with the Dvorak layout, such as minimizing finger path distance and making heavy use of the home row. 74% of typing is done on the home row compared to 70% for Dvorak and 32% for QWERTY. The default Colemak layout lacks a Caps Lock key; an additional Backspace
Backspace (, ⌫) is the keyboard key that in typewriters originally pushed the carriage one position backwards, and in modern computer systems typically moves the display cursor one position backwards,The meaning of "backwards" depends on the dir ...
key occupies the typical position of Caps Lock on modern keyboards.
Coleman states that he designed Colemak to be fun and easy to learn, explaining that Dvorak is hard for QWERTY typists to learn due to it being so different from the QWERTY layout. The layout has attracted media attention as an alternative to Dvorak for improving typing speed and comfort with an alternate keyboard layout.
Variants
A series of intermediate layouts known as Tarmak have been created with the intention of making it easier for new users to adopt the layout. The layouts change only 3–5 keys at a time in a series of 5 steps.
Colemak has been criticised for placing too much emphasis on the middle-row center-column keys (D and H), leading to awkward lateral finger stretches for common English bigrams such as HE. To address these concerns, the Colemak user community developed a modified version of Colemak named Colemak-DH.
The Colemak community has created several other modifications and variants; some of these are not directly related to Colemak but would work on other layouts as well.
See also
*Chorded keyboard
A keyset or chorded keyboard (also called a chorded keyset, ''chord keyboard'' or ''chording keyboard'') is a input device, computer input device that allows the user to enter characters or commands formed by pressing several keys together, like ...
* Dvorak keyboard layout
Dvorak () is a keyboard layout for English patented in 1936 by August Dvorak and his brother-in-law, William Dealey, as a faster and more ergonomic alternative to the QWERTY layout (the ''de facto'' standard keyboard layout). Dvorak proponen ...
* EurKEY Colemak-DH
* Kinesis contoured keyboard
* Path dependence
Path dependence is a concept in the Social science, social sciences, referring to processes where past events or decisions constrain later events or decisions. It can be used to refer to outcomes at a single point in time or to long-run equilibria ...
* Velotype
Velotype is the trademark for a type of keyboard for typing text known as a syllabic chord keyboard, an invention of the Dutchmen Nico Berkelmans and Marius den Outer.
History
Marius den Outer invented the Tachotype in 1933. Herman Schweigm ...
References
External links
Official Colemak website
(including community forum)
Community Colemak website
Colemak Mod-DH
{{Latin alphabet Computer-related introductions in 2006 Keyboard layouts Latin-script keyboard layouts