workman-layout / workman

Workman keyboard layout

Workman keyboard layouts

Workman keyboard layout originally proposed by OJ Bucao at https://workmanlayout.org.

When learning cold-turkey, try printing the included keyboard image as a desk reference.

Important design notes

The original Workman-P proposal by OJ Bucao sought to reverse keys for backtick (`) and brackets ([]), however when considering the Objective-C and PHP programming languages, both make heavy use of the original, primary characters. Swapping them makes those frequent characters more work. In this repository, only the number keys are reversed to special characters.

Some of the original key mapping files written by OJ used Colemak positions for alternate/multi/dead key configurations, therefore all the configurations proposed by OJ on his wordpress blog have been modified and bug-fixed by David Norman and hosted at http://github.com/workman-layout/Workman.

workman's Issues

Right pinky finger

The web page says the load on the right pinky finger is reduced compared to colemak, but I don't see why. 'I' is slightly more frequent than 'O'.

How to install in Gnome?

Hello,

I have Archlinux with DE of Gnome. I really want to use Workman but I cannot find any guide on how to do that. Any help would be much appreciated.

metrics on C++ std lib or some coding sample rather than natural language books

I loved the compression of layouts in https://workmanlayout.org/

do you have a code to run the same compression on coding sample such as c++ or python or javascript standard libs?

Can I release my Windows10 implementation of the Bulgarian Workman Layout?

[REQUEST]I have created a Bulgarian Workman Layout for Windows but I am unsure if I can release it to the public or if I have to keep it in a private repository. The layout is Phonetic Traditional.

WorkmanLayout.com is Down

Hello!

The http://www.workmanlayout.com seems to have been blocked since November of 2016. The root redirects to http://www.workmanlayout.com/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi, and the page says:

The website you were trying to reach is temporarily unavailable.
Please check back soon.
If you are the owner of this website, please contact Technical Support as soon as possible.

Setting keyboard for Login / Lockscreen on Mac OS X Yosemite

I have followed the instructions to get it working on login and lock screens for OS X, but it does not show as an option on either one of those screens.

To be clear, I have installed the bundle file on /Library/Keyboard Layouts.

Are Ctrl+ keys working as they displayed on Windows?

Ubuntu PPA

Could you please offer a packages via an Ubuntu PPA on Launchpad to install what is needed on Ubuntu via apt-get?

Qwerty CMD for Workman Dead Keys

The workman dead keys are super amazing. However I'd still like to use the default keymaps for the CMD + combos. Would it be possible to create a Workman Dead - Qwerty CMD version of this config?

The left arrow key is non-functional when using xmodmap

I press the key and it doesn't do anything, the Numpad left arrow still works. I have made my own patch to fix the problem on my home computer, I'm on a Chromebook right now which has workman built-in and working so I can't create a pull request right now.

Mac icns files don't quite match the system icons like Colemak

Capslock o is lower-case on Android

If this is the wrong place to report this, please help me get it to the right people.

[Windows] Can't tell which layout is active

Hi, I just installed Workman on Windows, I noticed that there's no difference in the taskbar when I switch keyboards, both just say ENG, there's no way to see which one is active without (mis-)typing. Is there anything I can do about that? Thanks!

No documentation

Are these layouts ready to use?

CTRL+SHIFT outputs lowercase characters on Mac keylayout files

It should output uppercase letters

Any plans for multilingual support?

On other languages there are special symbols, and Colemak does a great job there
https://colemak.com/Multilingual is a good starting point.

Is there any possibility to include in Workman?

Download link from official site

https://workmanlayout.org/ has link to download compressed file from kdeloach fork (which is behind workman master branch). It should be link to this repo.

It is probably resolved by #39

Curate standard bindings for vim-like applications

I would like to propose that the workman-layout GitHub organization endorse some standard Vim bindings for the Workman layout, and then curate a set of configs for applications with vim-like bindings. Check out my repository here to see the kind of thing I have in mind.

Android Support?

I couldn't find it anywhere. Is it available? If so can you link to it. if not can you make it/get someone to make it?

Can't add acute (^) accents using xorg's workman-p international with dead keys

The problem is that I copy/pasted the top row (with the numbers) from the standard workman-p into workman-p-intl, while the remaining keys came from workman-intl (9c0566f).

I'm not sure how to fix it.

Support for the 105-key ISO physical keyboard layout?

Is there a variant of Workman for 105-key ISO keyboards? If not, since the keyboard has one key more than the 104-key ANSI keyboard, will that key be dead?

For comparison: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout#/media/File:Physical_keyboard_layouts_comparison_ANSI_ISO_KS_ABNT_JIS.png

[REQUEST] UK Workman Layout

Hi,

I'm a bit new to Github & alternate keyboard layouts.
If I can, can I suggest a UK Workman layout?
Same as the US, but with the following changes.
Keycode/normal/with shift/with altgr/with altgr&shift
KC_2/2/"
KC_3/3/£
KC_4/4/$/€
KC_5/5/%/¥
KC_GRV/`/¬/¦
KC_NUHS/#/~

Thanks
Steve

ABNT2 for Brazilian Users ...

Hello, good morning everyone.

I would suggest adding a tailored, this layout for the Brazilian keyboard version.

What makes us different keyboard is a unique key for the character "ç".

In addition, the keys accents "^" and "'" are different.

I can contribute with a windows installer layout, but more "official" implementations would have to be disclosed, and I am unable to do so currently.

I remain available.

Note: Sorry for my english, I'm using google translate

[REQUEST] ARM64 Windows installer

I noticed the repo only has AMD64 and x86 installers for windows

Website is down

I'm trying to access the workmanlayout.com website but I keep getting

Don't mess with modifiers

I realise this is a contentious issue.

• People apparently don't like Caps Lock very much. I happen to like it, as I frequently type with one hand and not having Caps Lock makes me much slower.
• Ctrl-Alt-arrows is commonly used to switch desktops under Linux, and having the right Alt-Ctrl combo means one can switch using a single hand.

I believe that changing modifiers should be a customisation on top of the layout. OS's generally have a utility to do such customisations, for example mine have the Menu key be 3rd level, and PrtSc be the Compose key, amongst other things.

I kindly ask that, at least, a version of the Workman layouts be produced that doesn't change the modifiers, or just has them set to the "default" qwerty positions.

How can I apply workman methodoly to another language than english ?

Hello,

I love the workman layout, it gives such a pleasant writing experience that for me it wasn't a problem starting back to 20wpm.

But this is when I write in english only. In this globalised world, a lot a people use they keyboard for multiple language. Like a lot of programmer from a non-English speaking country I use at least two language: English for code/work/internet and my mother-tongue. And maybe a third one if one day I decide to move to another country.

My first question is how could I do a mapping like the workman layout for another language ? More specific: given a set of character and their respective frequency , how can I come out with an ergonimical layout ?

Also I believe the joy of using workman come from the fact that one would not the same finger twice, and "rolling" sequence like 'th' will happen quite often.

So my second question is how could I improve the layout I got from the first question to reduce the number of 'same finger' sequence and increase the number of 'rolling' sequence ?

Would you share some code, tools , article that helped you building the workman layout ?

Thanks you in advance :)

How can I learn this layout by heart?

I learnt the qwery layout back in primary school and I remember some exercises that the teacher would give us. Now I was trying to do the same thing with this layout (which so far with a couple of test paragraphs I could see how really productive and efficient it can be) but I'm not really sure that that's the way to go.
Is there any kind of guide that I could follow in order to learn and master the Workman layout?
Thanks in advance.

Layout not showing on OS X login screen

I got the same issue as this guy:
#3 (comment)

I repaired permissions in disk utility and even tried copying to /System/Library/Keyboard Layouts, nothing made it selectable in the login screen.

I'm on Mountain Lion 10.8.5.

workman-p CentOS 7

Hello,

I have followed the instructions in xmodmap and xorg but I still didn’t get the workman-p

Are there further steps ?

Thanks

Workman-Dead: dead key enter

Pressing , space produces expected , |, where | is a cursor position.
However pressing , enter produces ,,| in any web text area, and ,| in terminal.

It is very inconvenient, if line ends with ,
In terminal, I have to press enter twice to get to the next line.
In web forms, I have to first delete second comma and then press enter again.

Workman-P for Kinesis

Pretty please?

Mac based on wrong unicode character layout

Though the original Colemak layout proposed building on the US Extended layout, Apple accepted the layout based on more traditional U.S. deadkeys, thereby setting the standard by which all successor layouts will likely be accepted. The original workman keylayout files for Mac were also based on US Extended layout and should probably be changed to the U.S. unicode set.

Is Workman leaning towards the left hand?

I'm right handed and I am pretty sure my left hand is typing more with workman. It caused some strain (not bad though). Has anyone else experienced this? Has this been analyzed?

Documentation for wayland?

I would like to learn workman but i'm using wayland on arch linux (gnome) and i can't find find out how to actually use this on arch.
Is there a way i can use this on Wayland with no xorg installed?

Windows PKL workman-p states wrong

Wanted to point out that the current workman-p PKL layout images incorrectly label '{' and '}' as '[' and ']'

incorrect

correct

window 10 installation problem

when i installed it on windows it gave

while the colemak working fine

Chrome keyboard shortcuts don't work

I installed Workman today on Windows 7 and it works everywhere except Chrome keyboard shortcuts. For instance, when I type ctrl+f in Workman, Chrome interprets it as ctrl+e, which is in the same place on QWERTY. I've used Colemak for a couple years with no problems so it seems like a bug in the Workman implementation.

I've tried restarting my computer, and reinstalling the keyboard layout. Neither helped. I've tested the keyboard shortcuts in a couple other applications besides Chrome and they seem to work.

Edit: I tried creating my own keyboard layout in the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator, based on Colemak with only a few changes, and the keyboard shortcuts worked fine in Chrome. This is a very strange bug.

Edit 2: After loading Colemak in the keyboard layout creator, I noticed that each key is given a name of the form VK_key, and Colemak has somehow moved these codes around. For instance, Colemak's D key is called VK_D, not VK_G. However, I can't figure out how to use the keyboard creator to change the VK_ values with the keyboard layout creator. Workman uses the default QWERTY values for them, which seems to be the problem.

Hopefully final edit: I found an article about how to resolve this. After modifying the keys, you have to open the .klc file in a text editor and manually change the VK codes.

Some shortcuts on OS X don't work

When using the Workman layout, some shortcuts, like ctrl-k to delete text from the cursor to the end of the line, don't work anymore. I noticed that in the Safari address bar for example.

There is a mistake on the site

There is a mistake on the site's main page (where statistic about all books is shown) for qwerty layout. Here it is

Thank you for your great work!

Mac -P doesn't swap number values

[REQUEST] Workman PIO layout

hey, found out this layout today and having fun time with it. but being 11 yrs colemak user I find io swap very confusing
does io swapped have more benefits to colemak’s version?
if not, could you please make combined P and IO layout
(gosh 17 wpm is tyring)

Choice of ALT keys is not uniform across platforms

There are three things to settle in the implementation and I think the choice Apple made in adopting Colemak is what should be shifted throughout all the platforms.

1. Which ISO platform to base on - ISO-8859-1, ISO-8859-15, other? Apple picked ISO-8859-1 (I think).
2. Should the ALT keys allow any special characters - Apple says yes.
3. If doing ALT ISO caps, then should the values shift into the Workman keys or stay in their QWERTY locations? (Apple says to shift)

The NetBSD, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD files I just added only change the base and shift key values. Solaris I shifted the ALT values with the base. I suspect if I look at the Linux and Windows files, they do not shift the ALT values to Workman locations. Modeling from Colemak files also uses ISO-8859-15, but I'm wondering if maybe systems like FreeBSD don't need to have the same ALT key implementation as Apple has. Even if they are different, I now have Workman Extended options for Mac in the repo.

A lot of old issues

More than half of issues in this repo are older than 5 years. At the first sight, it's difficult to judge, if files are valid, or if these issues still exist.

I think, we should close all invalid issues and fix the valid ones, to not mislead newcomers. I can try to handle linux and windows related requests. But what about mac? Is there anybody who can take care of it?

Scandinavian layout (FIN/SWE) missing?

Hi!

Workman seems like the best keyboard layout there is, but it lacks scandinavian letters(ö,ä and å). How would I get on implementing them?

Best regards

Is this picture open such that I can add it to Wikipedia?

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kdeloach/workman/gh-pages/images/keyboard_graded1.png

Testing against various pieces of code

As a programmer I rather see tests results from of pieces of programming (JS, C++, PHP etc) instead of complete novels.

Please add some analytics where you show Workman's comparison for code bases instead of novels. Curious to see if the results differ.

Adding French accents

Please forgive me, I am new to GitHub and not quite certain how to share or collaborate.

I've been using the Workman keyboard layout for about 2 years, and AHK for 1. I type in English and French and added a "custom" way of typing accents (an unconventional way you might say). I also added a custom abbreviation symbol with accents (m̂), that is often used when taking notes in French.

I've only included the lines of code to be added (this is not a standalone, working ahk file).
Workman_French Accents.txt

Cheers!

People

Typing "people" on this layout is very awkward. Back to Dvorak.

Workman with dead keys for Windows

I mostly use Linux and there I use Workman with dead keys with no effort as it seemed to come with the Ubuntu installation but sometimes I come to my Windows 10 and using the installer version I see there is no dead keys alternative.

I'm currently running a version of Workman US with dead keys I updated on Microsoft Leyboard Layout Creator but I'd like to know if there actually is already a dead keys version for installing on Windows that I'm missing. Is there?

If not I could send a PR with the installer folder for the version I made here if possible.