keyboard-tools

This is a simple repo for me to aggregate all my Colemak and Keyboard resources.

Why?

Because I love to type with Colemak, and I want to have access to my tools everywhere I compute.

Nothing's more frustrating than navigating all over the internet to get set up on Colemak on a new machine, or having to figure out how to get productive without administrative access. Also, when helping a new Colemak user, this is where I want to send them for helpful advocacy and practice materials.

CAPSLOCK to Backspace

On MacOS, you can remap CAPSLOCK to delete (backspace) with this command:

hidutil property --set '{"UserKeyMapping":[{"HIDKeyboardModifierMappingSrc":0x700000039,"HIDKeyboardModifierMappingDst":0x70000002A}]}'

To make sure it runs on startup, you can add that snippet to a shell script and then add a login hook like so:

sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook ~/bin/colemak.sh

To remove the login hook, run:

sudo defaults delete com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook

More info here.

Stuff in this repo

AutoHotKey (Windows)

My AHK Colemak file for working on Windows machines is in this repo. Use PortableApps.com to install AHK.

Hammerspoon (macOS)

I use Hammerspoon to map F18/F19 to extend/hyper. The init.lua script is in this repo.

Karabiner (macOS)

My old Karabiner scripts are in this repo. The main one of interest is the Python script for creating a Karabiner-Elements json config.

Handy links

More information about Colemak at colemak.com.

✅ Downloads

• Download from PortableApps.com
  • gVim
  • AutoHotKey
• The PKL app from colemak.com is unmaintained, but DreymaR's is better and includes Extend.

✅ Basics

• colemak.com by Shai Coleman
• The Colemak forums
• Colemak Subreddit
• Steam group
• Discord
• Logos and images

✅ Learning

• keybr
• Learning with Tarmak
• Training with Amphetype(++)
• Viper's Speedtyping Guide
• Typing Test

✅ Advanced

• DreymaR's Big Bag Of Keyboard Tricks
• DreymaR's Extend Extra Extreme
• Mod Colemak-DH
• Mod Extend

✅ Advocacy

• Keyboard layout analyzer
• Carpalx Colemak results
• Keyboard Heatmaps

✅ Testimonials / Articles

• mctape
• arstechnica did an article in 2014. Part 1, part 2, the finale, and reader reactions.
• NPR wrote about Colemak too

✅ Topic: vim

• Shai posted his vimrc here, but mine is in my dotfiles repo.
• Ryan Heise had a pretty cool idea of NEST remappings for vim arrows
• I prefer JENK for my .vimrc

✅ Games

• ztype

✅ Sister communities

• dvzine

✅ History

• Smithsonian - fact fiction
• The Atlantic - lies you've been told
• BBC - how QWERTY became popular

Angle mod

Colemak Angle mod:

QWERTY Angle mod:

TLDR;

QWERTY heatmap:

Colemak heatmap: