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Workman vs Colemak Mod-DH

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When comparing Workman vs Colemak Mod-DH, the Slant community recommends Colemak Mod-DH for most people. In the question“What are the best keyboard layouts for programming?” Colemak Mod-DH is ranked 3rd while Workman is ranked 4th. The most important reason people chose Colemak Mod-DH is:

Some people find moving D and H to the bottom row much more comfortable (especially with flat keyboards). Curved keyboards like the Kinesis Advantage also help with lateral motion. Regular Colemak on these keyboards might be the ideal solution since then you help resolve some of the cons of regular Colemak without adding on the ones from Mod DH.

Specs

Bottom Row Key Freq.12.0%

Consecutive Same-Hand Keystrokes (L/R)46.5%/53.5%

Home Row Key Freq.53.7%

Left Index Finger Travel27.9%

Left Index Finger Usage15.4%

Left Little Finger Travel0.7%

Left Little Finger Usage6.3%

Left Middle Finger Travel24.5%

Left Middle Finger Usage11.5%

Left Ring Finger Travel10.6%

Left Ring Finger Usage9.3%

Right Index Finger Travel22.6%

Right Index Finger Usage14.2%

Right Little Finger Travel0.9%

Right Little Finger Usage5.9%

Right Middle Finger Travel7.1%

Right Middle Finger Usage14.0%

Right Ring Finger Travel5.8%

Right Ring Finger Usage8.2%

Spacebar Row Key Freq.15.3%

Thumb Usage15.3%

Top Row Key Freq.19.1%

Bottom Row Key Freq.13.5%

Consecutive Same-Hand Keystrokes (L/R)40.2%/59.8%

Home Row Key Freq.56.0%

Left Index Finger Travel34.3%

Left Index Finger Usage16.8%

Left Little Finger Travel0.9%

Left Little Finger Usage6.4%

Left Middle Finger Travel14.5%

Left Middle Finger Usage10.1%

Left Ring Finger Travel5.1%

Left Ring Finger Usage7.8%

Right Index Finger Travel31.4%

Right Index Finger Usage16.2%

Right Little Finger Travel0.7%

Right Little Finger Usage6.2%

Right Middle Finger Travel7.8%

Right Middle Finger Usage14.0%

Right Ring Finger Travel5.4%

Right Ring Finger Usage7.4%

Spacebar Row Key Freq.15.3%

Thumb Usage15.3%

Top Row Key Freq.15.2%

Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking

Common Questions

What are the best keyboard layouts for programming?

Workman

Colemak Mod-DH

Pros

Pro
Less lateral motion than Colemak

Colemak's focus on the home row is flawed. Due to differing finger lengths and the natural range of human hand motion, the center columns (even on the home row) take more effort to reach than the top row with the longer middle fingers. Workman takes this into account.

Pro
Common English bigrams are optimized

This is an emphasis shared with Colemak, but Workman focuses on the easiest keys instead of the home row.

Pro
Finger travel is very low overall

This is good for preventing RSI.

Pro
Very comfortable for Vim

Works so well out of the box that I can only think the creator thought about it beforehand.

Pro
Good for programming

Common characters {} [] <> () / ' " are easily accessible by the right hand on the right of the keyboard.
Combinations ( { + } for example) are placed side by side on the keyboard which is useful as well.

Pro
Works on any keyboard, but additional benefits from Matrix style keyboards

Someone mentioned a CON because it was designed for Matrix style keyboards, but it was designed on a standard keyboard. However, matrix style keyboards adds additional benefits on top of this key layout. For those who don't know matrix keyboards are those where the key rows are not offset, but are directly above one another.

Pro
Ctrl- AZXCV shortcuts are still accessible with one hand

AZX are in the QWERTY positions, and CV have only shifted one key right. This lets you use the mouse with the right hand and the shortcuts with the left, unlike Dvorak.

Pro
Mac version has Dead Keys version

The macOS version of Workman has the comma (,) key as a dead key, which allows you to access harder keys on a secondary layer.

Pro
Most symbols and shortcuts are the same as QWERTY

Pro
Much less lateral hand movement compared with regular Colemak

Pro
Easy to learn from Colemak

No keys change fingers from Colemak (with the possible exception of Z , which is rarely used, in one variant).

Pro
'HE' easier to type compared with regular Colemak

Pro
Letter G goes back to its original QWERTY position

This puts ING all on the middle row. Regular Colemak has G in the top row.

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Cons

Con
Certain Keybindings don't work in certain applications

In certain apps (like kitty terminal emulator), keyboard shortcuts like Control+C do not work.

Con
Designed to be used on a matrix style keyboard

This keyboard layout wan't designed to be used on a normal keyboard.

Con
Regular Colemak is more standard

Mac and Linux have regular Colemak keyboard options. This isn't an issue if your keyboard is programmable through QMK, VIA, etc.

Con
H, M, V, B change from original QWERTY position

Regular Colemak has these in their original QWERTY position. The learning curve increases somewhat in Mod-DH.

Con
Breaks up ZXCV slightly

Breaks up ZXCV (moves V over one space). Could cause copy paste confusion if also using other layouts like QWERTY. For ANSI layouts the Z is also moved to a new position.

Con
No Innate Layout Configuration In Keybr

Keybr supports Standard Colemak but in order to adjust to DH Mod you must use an extension like tampermonkey and run a Script like this one and adjust to fit whichever variant.