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Picking up Dvorak

No special reason for it, but I decided to learn the Dvorak keyboard layout. I’ve been curious about it for awhile, but never thought I had the time. It’s definitely easier on my hands than the Qwerty layout and should eventually give me a speed boost. Ultimately, I just want to be a better touch typist and take care of my hands.

As it turns out it’s pretty easy to get started in most OS environments. In OSX it’s as easy as visiting System Preferences -> International -> Input Menu (Control Panel -> Regional and Language Options -> Languages -> Details… in Windows)and adding the Dvorak or Dvorak-Qwerty layout. Both get you running with the alternate layout, but the Dvorak-Qwerty layout has the special ability to revert back to a Qwerty layout when you hold down the Command or Option keys. That’s nice for keyboard shortcuts that are more about position than anything else. You can also switch between all your layouts with the keyboard shortcut Command+Option+Space (Alt+Shift in Windows I think).

To practice I’ve been using these lessons, but it’s nice to have something to track your progress too. So I grabbed Dvorak7min and got it running in Terminal.

$ cd /usr/local/src/
$ curl http://www.linalco.com/ragnar/dvorak7min-1.6.1.tar.gz | $ tar xfc -
$ cd dvorak7min-1.6.1.tar.gz

You’ll need to uncomment this line, (remove the #)

#CC      = gcc

now we can build and install.

$ make
$ sudo make install

Now you can use the tutor by firing up Terminal and running dvorak7min.

Have fun!