[Gllug] Dvorak Keyboards and vim

[Sarah Ewen]

> I've seen some stuff on Google about remapping keys in so I can use
> 'htns' instead but I wondered if anyone else on the list used both
> Dvorak and vi, and what their opinion was.

Well..I can raise my hand here. If you start remapping - the plot
quickly thickens.

You do:

noremap h j
noremap t k
noremap n l
noremap d h
noremap e d
noremap S :

..and then realise that now when you search, you clobbered 'n' (for
next found item) with 'l', so you do:

"noremap m n
   " for 'next search', as i clobbered 'n' with 'l'.

..and you clobber more things. In the end I used a kinesis keyboard,
which has the arrow keys within range of the index & middle fingers,
so haven't remapped any keys - I'm just using the arrow keys.
I use other vim navigation tricks a lot - { and } for paragraphs,
w for words, etc. Or, just search and type a few chars to get yourself
to where you want to be. It depends what kind of doc you're working with.

The worst thing about the dvorak layout for a geek is the location of the
curly and square brackets - they're far flung and awkward. I'm over it
now though, it's too late for me to try mapping them.

If you seriously want to convert, don't touch a qwerty keyboard for two
weeks. Only swap between them once you're touch typing dvorak without
screaming in frustration.

and if you have a deadline coming up, forget it :) I switched over a
Christmas holiday.

Good luck! the first few days are ..tough. Eventually, where vi is
concerned, your fingers will get used to their new vi-command locations.
In the mean time back up everything. It's a bit like learning to
play descant recorder and then learning treble. The fingerings are the
same..they just don't give you what you think they do. But you can 
learn to play both.

Sarah.
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