Left-Handed DVORAK Keyboards
Keyboards are great, but if you want to use both your keyboard and your mouse effectively, at the same time, you're SOL. You can get expensive, cool, things like the FrogPad, or you can come up with a simpler, cheaper solution. After all, you have all the keys you need on the keyboard that you got with your computer, they are just placed badly for one-handed use! Well, the solution was invented a while ago, by Dvorak. He designed a keyboard layout for folks without a right arm, which is cool, because that arm can then be using a mouse. The actual keyboard layout is documented by the good folks at Wikipedia.
I have made a keyboard layout for MacOSX that transforms your current keyboard into a lefty-dvorak keyboard. Toss it in /Library/Keyboard Layouts/, Log out, log in again, and use a sharpie to write the new letters on your keyboard. You can always take it off with rubbing alcohol later.
Without further ado: Dvorak-Lefty.tgz
Note: Thanks to Tom for pointing out some issues with caps-lock, the new file deals (I hope) with this issue.
December 6th, 2006 at 2:19 am
I wanted to write to thank you for covering this topic and for providing the Dvorak-Lefty keyboard layout.
i've been testing this keyboard layout for about half an hour, and already i love it! I'd love to be able to fluently type with one hand. I've got an Apple Bluetooth keyboard and found the keys easy to pop-off and re-position. I found a handy piece of software which helps you learn to type using whatever keyboard layout you wish. It's called TypeTrainer4Mac. Drag-n-drop a rich-text file into the app to practice using any text.
http://homepage.mac.com/typetrainer4mac/Menu1.html
A couple of problems I'm having: capslock doesn't work properly. Keys pressed while capslock is active seem to be of the standard QWERTY layout. ie: when capslock and the left-handed-dvorak key "A" are pressed, the screen prints the letter "K".
Also, the Dvorak-lefty number keys, (the ones found immediately to the left of the return key), seem not to be functioning properly either, and when pressed return the qwerty equivalent.
December 6th, 2006 at 5:09 pm
I downloaded this keyboard layout yesterday, and began the slow process of training myself to type one-handed. Not bad!
I think there are a few problems with your layout file though, especially with the way that it handles keys when caps-lock is engaged. No worry, today I downloaded the excellent freeware Ukelele, and re-built the layout.
[url=http://www.themagpie.ca/downloads/NewDvorakLefty.keylayout.zip]Here's my version of the Dvorak Lefty layout.[/url]
December 8th, 2006 at 2:45 am
Oopsie, your guy's comments got jacked by my spam filter (probably because you included URLs), no worries, the're back. Tom, your updates are on the site. Sorry about that, you have no idea how much spam comes through this place, and my site is small fry!
January 5th, 2007 at 11:13 am
I use a left handed, one handed, Dvorak keyboard but it seems to have dropped the cap lock. Hope to find a new board.
July 2nd, 2007 at 11:24 am
[...] The Mac OS X Hints article Install a left-handed typing keyboard layout points to Daniel Staudigel's New Dvorak Lefty layout from his Left-Handed DVORAK Keyboards post. It looked promising, but is a Unicode-only layout. [...]
September 5th, 2007 at 12:16 am
[...] Website: Left handed Dvorak keyboard [...]
December 30th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
Thee chevrons/angle brackets/less than and greater than key are rendering ‹ and › but should come up as < and >.
May 21st, 2010 at 12:14 pm
Hey, thanks for providing this! Recently had surgery to fix a torn muscle, and figured I'd take advantage of my arm being in a sling for a while to finally learn LH Dvorak. I type around 100 wpm on standard Dvorak, so curious what I can get to here… was surprised this layout didn't come with OS X, though. Anyway, a couple issues:
1) shift+spacebar doesn't register (used for paging up in browsers, etc.)
2) more minor, but inconsistent with the standard — the parens on '0' and '9' should be switched, as would result from rearranging keycaps or applying standard stickers…
3) I actually appreciate that command+1,2,3,4 maps to the original number positions — I use these for switching desktops.
May 21st, 2010 at 1:14 pm
I take back what I said in (3) above — this currently blocks command+F from working as it should, for example. So this is actually a bug. :)
May 21st, 2010 at 2:04 pm
Hmm, another, similar to the angle bracket problem above.
The asterisk key emits a Unicode asterisk, not an ASCII asterisk.
I.e., ∗∗∗∗∗ instead of *****.
This is a problem when coding, of course.