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- Hacker News
- I do the daily challenge almost every day - I recommend checking it out!
- I very much like the forgiving UI -- you can either go back and correct your mistakes or move on with the typing after mistyping a keystroke.
We can adapt (steal) this idea (thanks vibe coding) and practice our own topcis of interest and learning daily!
by albert_e - I wish you could choose the language. I ended up building my own tool to practice typing in Vietnamese:by itake
- Graphite[0] is my keyboard layout of choice for anyone looking to switch. Huge fan! Had previously used QWERTY and Colemak. These types of sites help tremendously when learning a new layout.
- Wow, that's a great write up.
I used to feel so smug about using Dvorak. Now it feels so outdated.
by stevage - I also use Graphite and previously learned colemak-dh. I love it. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to others because it’s harder to install on Windows and Linux. Also, the symbol placement takes a while to get used to. The best time to switch if you’re courageous enough is after obtaining a split keyboard and during the holidays when you’ll have the spare time to learn a new layout.by anthonypz
- The thought of learning a new keyboard is kind of scary. Is there any true difference? 30 years of typing on a QWERTY here. I wonder how long it would take to get to 75WPM on graphite. A decade?by baw-bag
- I loved it! As soon as I start to do these things, I get stressed and become much worse! Anyone remember the car game where you raced against others by typing? That was fun but forgotten the link.by baw-bag
- nitrotype?by peesem
- I had some typing classes in middle school but they never stuck. The only reason I became a reasonably fast and confident typer—which ended up being amazing for everything from work (emails and Slack more than code!) to HN to writing a lot on Quora—was Type Racer :P
It's amazing how much easier gamification can make it for me to stick with something.
by tikhonj - Maybe https://play.typeracer.com ?by senkora
- https://keybr.com is also a really good tool to learn typing on your keyboard.by nesk_
- this one is good. I tried now. thanksby newtwentysix
- this one actually did get me typing faster. and also helped me get over my desire to look at the keyboard.
it’s been a while since I used it but I recall it being good at targeting certain patterns that you struggled with.
by skavi - I’ve used https://www.typingclub.com for learning touch typing from scratch.
It has worked really well for me
by brewmarche - If you want something with more advanced analytics that also targets your weak points, give https://typequicker.com a try.
- Monkeytype is still my favoriteby squigz
- monkeytype.com is the gold standard here. Typing tests are a dime a dozen because you can make a bad one in 15 minutes, but Monkeytype seems to actually be made with care. Never tried typ.ing before but it seems better than the cheapo ones, but less polished than Monkeytype. It adds keyboard navigation and code snippet presets and syntax highlighting over Monkeytype, which may be why it’s posted here.by kqp
- As noted in the default test, this site is by ZSA, a keyboard company. Their boards are pricey, but excellent. I have both their Moonlander, which sits on my desk at home, and their Voyager, which I went with quieter key switches (brown rather than blue) for taking on the go. Their boards are very comfortable; I highly recommend considering split, columnar keyboards like what they offer if you spend most of your day at a computer.
As a side, I switched to Dvorak when I first bought my Moonlander about 6 years ago. I have only used split keyboards with Dvorak, and I have only used traditional staggered keyboards with QWERTY. My muscle memory is well isolated between the two, and I have no trouble switching between them (though as it has now been many years since I regularly used a physical QWERTY keyboard, my WPM on one is definitely lower than it used to be).
by Zambyte - I loved my ergodox, but it made my laptop keyboard difficult to use due to remapped backspace along with the columnar vs stepped layouts.
Hoping and praying for columnar laptops one of these days
by firegodjr - Anyone else commit the hubris of buying an unmarked Moonlander [1]? perhaps it's finally time to learn to use it...by laptoprabbit
- I love my ZSA Voyager, but after getting into the split keyboard space and having wrist/finger issues, I ended up needing to go with something that supported a concave well, and built in/better tenting.
I've been using my Glove 80 ever since. But the Voyager was a nice step and I still keep it on my desk.
by Jcampuzano2 - Honestly, ZSA deserves so much love. I have a Moonlander and Voyager and they're both so darn excellent.by crimsoneer
- > I have only used split keyboards with Dvorak, and I have only used traditional staggered keyboards with QWERTY. My muscle memory is well isolated between the two, and I have no trouble switching between them
Mostly similar for me, but I never considered that the fact that I’m able to pretty comfortably switch between using my laptop keyboard which is QWERTY, and my external USB keyboard which is Dvorak based, even when not having used one or the other for quite some time might actually be helped by as you say that they are two different kinds of keyboards with different feel.
- I also picked up and heavily customized a minimal (3x5+3 or 3x4+2) columnar split and a novel keyboard layout during Lockdown, and now can type faster with it than I could originally with greater comfort and accuracy. The high number of rolls actually felt pleasurable to type on compared to the scattered movements of QWERTY; at higher speeds, though, it's more demanding as the movements are so minimal and the sequences are more intricate. On long sessions, I can feel some strain on the tendons on the back of my hands; a keyboard with wells or something to grip like a Twiddler could help. Over time, I expect my speed to continue to advance as I sync my keystrokes faster; there is just substantially less finger travel from home row.
I also retained my ability and speed typing QWERTY by continuing to use it on a standard keyboard the majority of the time. Really, I just kept practicing the alt layout by typing out articles and books on the ortho and a laptop. At this point I think I'll maintain muscle memory for vi/emacs in QWERTY and switch on the fly to the alt layout for long entries.
I use Miryoku style meta keys, and layers for arrows, home-page(up/down)-end, mouse-keys, scroll-wheel, numpad, symbols, media, and F-keys. I'm thinking of adding combos for international letters and symbols next. backspace-delete and enter-space+tab are under thumbs like a Kinesis. Escape is a left hand combo. I also set a lock function for the layers with tap+hold and release with a designated key -- it works great with numpad, scroll, mouse, and arrows. I'd like to add a rotory dial.
For switches, I enjoy the light action Kailh box whites that came with my split, but I'd like to try out some silent low-pro ones for travel and more comfort. I have a second ortho with a number row and much heavier linear ones that I'm getting used to; so far it works great and I have more planned for it.
On a regular keyboard I've found mapping the capslock key to be a second backspace is much more ergonomic. I use it in conjunction with Ctrl to delete the previous word and then retype.
- I second the recommendation. I use the Voyager, and it's a delight! I switched when I was suffering from a lot of wrist pain, and it's never come back. I only wish they offered a wireless version for a cleaner desk.
I landed on the Ambients Twilight silent switches https://lowprokb.ca/collections/switches/products/ambients-s...
by masterj - I went with quieter key switches (brown rather than blue)
If you like tactile switches, try the Golden Kiwi from MoErgo [1] (also Choc v1, so fits the Voyager). It pulled of the near-impossible combination of a profound tactile bump, with only 42gf tactile force, while being much smoother and silent than Browns or Sunsets.
Only disclaimer I should add is that I was one of the beta testers for the switch. But I can't go back to anything else.
by microtonal - This, like almost every typing training system out there, suffers from my pet peeve: if you type an extra character or miss a character, then you end up with a series of “mistakes” instead of just one.
Why don’t these programs use some form of edit distance? I’m sure that one could come up with a way to freeze the edit beyond some distance from the caret to reduce the potential for spooky UI action at a distance.
by amluto - The bigger problem is that it doesn't help you learn the correct finger positionsby blehn
- I think what makes that so annoying is having to backtrack which is super jarring.
One idea is letting you press enter to jump to the start of the next word and immediately resume.
by hombre_fatal