fingerfans.dreamhosters.com

[sheats]

Hey there,

I'm planning on purchasing a TouchStream keyboard from Ebay and was wondering how much I could really expect it to help my RSI symptoms. I have heard several people claim that their RSI symptoms cleared up as a result of using one of these keyboards, but I guess I was just wondering how serious their problems were in the first place.

I'd be interested in hearing any of you guys' stories and how the keyboard helped...

Thanks!

[jmadison]

Please read this conversation:

http://fingerfans.dreamhosters.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=308&highlight=

I also have a writeup that I submitted to FingerWorks way back when.... But I don't know where it is right now. If/when I find it, I'll post that here too.
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Touchstream LP

[sheats]

Thanks for the reply -- I tried to look around but couldn't seem to find the right discussion.

So I won the ebay auction this morning - only cost me $900

I'm looking forward to learning how to use it -- I also want to switch to Dvorak -- maybe I will try at the same time???

Thanks again,

Peter

[ivanw]

Welcome sheats. Now you're one of the happy few who saved a piece of the Fingerworks comet

Don't forget the Wiki

And your questions are welcome, as they will give us a chance to talk about the experience.

[jmadison]

I have a qwerty TS/LP, but I type Dvorak. I started with typing qwerty, but I do highly recommend beginning to learn Dvorak. In my opinion, it's easiest to go "cold turkey" and switch all the keyboards and layouts at once for a couple of months so that you can reprogram your brain to the new layout. It's also very helpful to have a printout of the Dvorak layout taped to your monitor for easy reference. Hmmm... try this:

http://madisonnet.googlepages.com/TSlayout-jason.pdf

You can print this file and cut it out to have a visual reference.
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Touchstream LP

[bharley]

Dvorak is much easier to learn than QWERTY. I was lucky in that I was using voice recognition at the time I transitioned from QWERTY to Dvorak (and later got my first TS)--so I wasn't totally dependent on typing to be productive. I found this Dvorak typing tutor to be both well-designed and fun!:

http://www.gigliwood.com/abcd/abcd.html

Also, if you have a laptop, I highly recommend using the Dvorak settings in your computers OS, not setting the TS to Dvorak--you'll have to reprogram the TS only to "descramble hotkeys for US/English Dvorak" (under "Device" in mygesture editor). It'll mean your laptop keyboard will be remapped to Dvorak along with the TS, and you won't have to mess with switching back and forth every you want to briefly use the built-in keyboard. The exception, I'd suggest, is if you use other people's computers frequently, and want to be able to plug-n-play without setting their keyboard layouts to Dvorak too! (or, if you have a desktop, and only the TS plugged in, it won't really matter). In these cases you'll want to program the Dvorak into the TS.

good luck

[The00Dustin]

A few additional thoughts on "hard wired" dvorak vs OS dvorak (most of these could be seen elsewhere in the forum if you knew what to search for):

1) Some people find that because of th different layout of the TS vs a standard qwerty keyboard that it is easier to use qwerty on standard keyboards and dvorak on the TS and just have two totally separate sets of muscle memories. I would rather use dvorak on all, but I do this because I am on often sitting at other computers to help people, so none of them would be dvorak, not that it wold be impossible to learn to switch between dvorak and qwerty on standard keyboards, but it would presumably take a bit more effort.

2) Very few OSes (if any) have international dvorak layouts, so if you like US International / Acentos (sp?) layout for the additional character shortcuts, you would need to use the hard wired dvorak option.

3) Another unmentioned option if you want to use dvorak on your standard keyboards but still want the TS to be dvorak in locations where the standard keyboards are qwerty is a built-in 4 corner config menu. By touching (and holding) the four outer corners of your TS for a short amount of time (preferrably with cursor focus on a program like notepad, you will get this output:

## Choose Mode: 1=Mac 2=Win 3=3rdButton 4=Linux 7=Emacs ... enabling QWERTY key layout ##

the portion after the ... is based on input, I pressed q to switch to qwerty. v switches to qwerak, and V switches to dvorak. Two important things to remember with this option: it doesn't tell you how to switch between layouts, and there are other options you might change if you hit the wrong key, so you need to find out what options are available in the documentation and not forget. You also have to know where the key you want to hit is on the layout you are using, as it assumes your input is based on the current layout, so if you accidentally hit v instead of V in qwerty while trying to go to dvorak, you had better know where the v key is in qwerak.

Anyway, good luck with your new tool.

[TorbenGB]

In my opinion it is better to switch the layout in the TSLP rather than the OS keyboard. That way other people can still use a regular keyboard and you still get yours in Dvorak. In particular if you use an international layout, you'll be better off to customize your TSLP because there simply are no international Dvorak layouts available...

[jmadison]

Throwing in my thoughts again:

I've found that Windows XP is unreliable at remembering the proper key mapping. This has been true for me on at least three different computers with XP installed. You can change the key layou in the OS, then for an unknown reason, it will switch back on you, or it will switch again... meaning that it will further scramble the letters using the Qwerty -> Dvorak scramble a second time.

In my experience, I found that I needed to switch all computers I used to Dvorak for a period of about 2 months. After that, I was able to use the TS in Dvorak mode and start using "regular" keyboards in Qwerty. Although I would prefer the whole world switch to Dvorak, I now have developed the muscle memory for both layouts, and can switch easily. I think there is some other type of learning that has happened here too, because now that I've been operating this way for a long time, I actually find it difficult to type in Dvorak on a "regular" keyboard. And, it's nearly hopeless for me to type in Qwerty on my TS. My brain has been sufficiently wired that the feel of keys automatically invokes the Qwerty muscle memory, and the feel of the TS pads invokes Dvorak without me having to think about it.
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Touchstream LP

[TorbenGB]

[The00Dustin]

If you have XP switching between layouts, you probably have multiple layouts installed. It uses the default layout for the most part, and changing your selection typically only changes it for the most recently active application. This may be what you are exeriencing. What I do is (during Windows install) add my layout, set it to default, and delete the standard layout. These same steps should suffice post-install as well. When only one layout is installed, Windows shouldn't be able to bounce between them.
As an aside, some programs might have their own built-in layout translators that can still throw you off, but in such cases, there is no escaping, as when you are OS configured, they will change the keyboard to their layout (post OS translation), and when you are hard-wired, they will scramble it because it is translated based on what the program thinks you are using based on the OS setting. For example, I wouldn't be surprised if you could find a Dvorak typing tutor that would do that.

[bharley]

>What I do is (during Windows install) add my layout, set it to default, and delete the standard layout. These same steps should suffice post-install as well. When only one layout is installed, Windows shouldn't be able to bounce between them.

Yes, you can acess the keyboard settings any time via (Control Panel--Regional and Language Options--Languages--Details)--to set up your own layout, or to enable dvorak on a neighbor's computer that you're using briefly.

That's exactly what I do, and the reason I was suggesting it is that I want to switch back and forth easily between the TS in my lap and the native laptop keyboard. I touch type on both, and barely look at the keys (both of which look like querty anyway). I got so tired of managing the "dual" layouts when the TS was internally programmed to dvorak, that I just set the default in Windows to dvorak and put the TS on qwerty (BUT descrabled for dvorak "input locale" to get all the macros right). Of course other people have other needs, with different solutions.

Note that I haven't found in necessary to delete the qwerty layout in windows--it's still accessible via the language bar icon on the taskbar (set up in the same language dialog as above)--but I would only turn it on if someone else needed to use my machine, which is pretty much never. In that case, I'd probably set it to "default" and reboot, until they were done, and then switch back.

The other reason windows could bounce unexpectedly between layouts is that the default hotkey for layout toggle is left ALT-SHIFT, which might be pressed inadvertently. It's easy to disable the hotkey though, in the language bar under settings, with the "Key Settings" button in the language dialog. If you aren't switching back and forth regularly (which is the whole point--to avoid that), you certainly don't need a hotkey.

Hope this helps.