Do you type properly?

[abrahamstechnology]

I don't type at all like my junior high typing instructor showed me. As for the correctness of her method I can't say but I do know that I type much more quickly when I followed her instruction. I program and write, fiction and non-fiction but I never felt comfortable touch typing. I only use modifiers with my left hand. I don't think I've ever used my right side shift. I really feel that every person is going to have their own optimal typing method. We all have different sized hands and finger lengths. Typing is also affected by board geometry(certain kinds of typing are faster with certain setups) so their is a lot of variation. I'm full of bad habits I know but I'm either too old or just too stubborn to change.

I'm the same, I don't use the right shift.

[vometia]

We're too precious, you vile fuckers.

Arse biscuits, etc. Also death to whichever sadist invented the mouse double click.

[Muirium]

Or double clicking when a single click will do. Want to make me twitch? Double click a link, menu or button when I’m watching. Can’t override my internal “you’re doing it wrong” response.

Meanwhile, straying onto topic, I type poorly in style but effectively in practice. More of a six to eight finger typist than all you (filthy, should be ashamed of yourselves, and so forth) two finger pokers. Much to my surprise, I seldom stray out of register even without homing indicators (Model F is a harsh mistress). Can’t explain it in truth. Seems just to be pure, inscrutable muscle memory, the way my hands fly about.

I’ve tried staying on home row while learning Colemak. Might as well throw Qwerty while learning a new habit. But I’m still pretty painfully slow there. Need to go cold turkey.

[vvp]

If double click is a problem then what about triple click?
It is supported in linux.

[SwissArmyTin]

I was trained the proper way and can still touch-type but man my form is all sorts of jacked up. I'm just as bad if not worse than how Chyros used to type, and yes, that includes hitting the space bar with my right index finger

Still type fast, never have to look at the keys, and have never gotten carpal tunnel so I guess I'm not doing too bad.

[Muirium]

No typing pain here either. I think that’s my broad hands + floating typing technique. From what I’ve heard, RSIs are much more common if you’ve smaller wrists. As for floating hands, well, it works fine for me. Won’t win any form contests, but since when are those a thing?

If double click is a problem then what about triple click?
It is supported in linux.

Triple click selects a paragraph of text. It’s the next step up from double click to select a word. I use it all the time, on the Mac at least. It’s done that for as long as I can remember. Likely on Windows too, unless they chose to do it wrong.

Now yes, I prefer to select text with keystrokes. But if I’m on the mouse or trackpad already, I’m already on it.

[Chyros]

Your typing style is different from mine. Now you must die!

Your YouTube comments in a nutshell

Hahaha yeah, exactly xD .

[Polecat]

Every criticism. no matter how minor, must be taken as a huge personal affront. "Watch out, mofo, I'm pretty fukkin' sensitive." Indeed, just don't mistake your IQ for your shoe size, or your style, and your toes, will be severely crimped.

Regarding typing properly, I never learned, and I probably would have rejected the proper way anyhow. In fact the very reason I have to have a clicky keyboard is so I can tell whether or not I've hit the intended keys cleanly without looking up at the screen. I never learned to touch type, much less which fingers to use, and it's much too late now.

[vometia]

The thing about being able to automatically position one's hands is curious, and something I so often don't get right even with tactile clues unless I look. I'm also reminded of my bass playing, as mentioned elsewhere, where I'm also not a very good aim and still have to look at where my hands are; but weirdly I sometimes do better with a fretless than I do with a fretted one, which I don't really understand.

I also use the triple-click to grab whole lines from terminal windows: it's quite handy in that regard. For some reason I find double-click to be somehow worse when I'm using Windows, but that may be that it's just the stress of using Windows that makes my dyspraxia worse. And of course Windows has the additional joy of the slow-double-click to contend with, e.g. renaming a file using Explorer. I guess that's my penance for not using the command line, but even with completion and aliases it's quite onerous with all those excessively long pathnames.

Oh, and with the space I tend to use the side of my right thumb, which usually ends up being a bit sore after a while.

[troglotype]

Your typing style is different from mine. Now you must die!

I totally read this in the resonant voice of that dude who does keyboard review videos.

[Blaise170]

Your typing style is different from mine. Now you must die!

I totally read this in the resonant voice of that dude who does keyboard review videos.

Chyros is "that dude who does keyboard review videos".

[sealclubber]

My typing is wrong, and I know it. My home row is basically wherever I have my hands at the time, depending on my posture. Like right now I'm slouched to the left and my left home row is awef and the right is ,l;' Works for me I guess.

[Laser]

Just a heads up, I don't know - it's never too late to learn to touch type: when I started learning, it was after finishing my Univ, and I already knew how to type "wrongly" using 3-4 fingers. With the right tool (a program that takes you from start to finish), it can take 1 week with 1 hour per day or less. And, at least for me, the learning process was pretty satisfying, too - you really get the feeling that you can advance fast and accomplish something useful in the long term, in a short time. Also touch typing opens new possibilities: it's so MUCH easier then to use keyboard-based editors (such as Vim or Emacs) or window managers (such as StumpWM, or i3) since every key or key combo can be reached in an instant and without looking at the keyboard. And, of course, Vim movement with h,j,k,l starts to make a lot of sense, too

[frydaja]

No, I don't. I feel like my right hand does more than my left hand. Or at least it moves more. I don't keep index fingers on F and J, but instead D and K.
Finger use is also different - on right hand, I use index, middle and ring finger, but on right hand I use mainly only index and middle finger. Maybe that explains why I feel like my right hand moves more.
Spacebar depends. Sometimes I hit it with index finger, sometimes with a thumb. When typing something, I always hit it with my right hand. When playing games, I always hit it on the left side.

I tried to learn to touchtype at high school, but I didn't do well and went back to self-taught typing. Also with self-taught method I already type fast enough (80WPM on typeracer).

And I don't use right Shift at all.

[Chalba]

I'm actually astonished at the number of people who say they type properly with QWERTY. I grew up teaching myself to type to friends on AIM and absolutely developed my own QWERTY style. However, I got bored one year and taught myself Dvorak properly and have used it as my main layout at home ever since. With QWERTY I still have to glance down occasionally but I never do with Dvorak because I learned it with blank caps!

[stratokaster]

I’m a self-taught typist. Initially I had a weird “7-finger” typing style. Over the years I taught myself to use all 10 fingers, but I still don’t use my thumbs to hit the spacebar...

[vvp]

I'm actually astonished at the number of people who say they type properly with QWERTY.

I'm not. It is easy to learn. It allows you not to even glance at your keyboard while typing. And most importantly, this is a site for keyboard enthusiasts.

[Chalba]

Committing to touch typing does not automatically necessitate learning the traditional/"correct" fingers though. There is no correct way to type (in my opinion), and you can learn to never glance down while typing without ever changing your typing style. You may say this excludes the hunt-and-peck typists, but they simply haven't memorized the layout - something that again does not require a proper technique to do. I learned Dvorak with the "proper" fingerings, but over the years I've tweaked it to fit my own style and to address the imperfections of the layout, because of course there is no perfect layout either - and now I think I'm arriving at a point. "Proper" technique is not superior, but touch typing is - memorizing your keyboard is, and they are NOT dependent on one another.

[Laser]

Well, the traditional technique does have an advantage - first it assumes the index fingers are on F and J (on a QWERTY layout), so not only the fingers are on the "home row", but it's a "blindly" verifiable position since F and J keys are marked in a way or another; and second, if the fingers are placed like that (ASDF, JKL;), then the "correct" technique tries to minimize the movement of the fingers, so technically it takes the least effort to type using it; *and* you don't ever have to look down and reposition your fingers since the index fingers will search for and feel the F and J "blindly" (and automatically, after a while) and so the hands can always land back on the home row.

[snufflecat]

Not sure if I type correctly or not, but I've noticed that since after getting into old boards I've started using some of my right hand fingers differently; for example I might use my right hand index finger to hit keys that sit really far right on my board whereas before I'd use my right middle finger. Not sure if that counts though. On the other hand (no pun intended), I'd be really interested in try to learn a layout that was more optimised for Norwegian since that's my first language.

[godoy]

I learnt to type in QWERTY and I have tried to be as orthodox as possible with time. For example, I corrected the bad habit of using only left shift and left control. Now, I never use two fingers of the same hand to type simultaneously. My typing record is 90 words per minute, which is okay although I've seen way faster typists.

I still make quite a lot of mistakes when typing numbers and the symbols -_+= . I remember having looked for which are the right fingers to press the keys in the number row but didn't find a categoric answer, so I guessed that the following might be the best:

LEFT HAND:
Pinkie: `1
Ring finger: 2
Middle finger: 34
Index finger: 56

RIGHT HAND:
Pinkie: =
Ring finger: 0-
Middle finger: 9
Index finger: 78

Advice/methods to improve typing these would be very welcome. Something that is coming to my mind lately is: what about switching to a 40% keyboard layout? Numbers (symbols), with which I make a lot of mistakes, would then be way more at reach in the QWERTY (ASDFG) row. I would need two modifiers at hand to type them, which could be two of the keys resulting from splitting the space bar in three (like in the Vortex Core 40%). All this thoughts have made me wonder why the space bar is so freaking wide in the vast majority of keyboards. That does not make much sense to me. Comments of clarifications about this would also be very welcome.

I have to say also that as a vim user, it was great to remap some keys. Basically, I switched 'caps lock' to 'escape' and also 'control' and 'alt'. The reason: when do I use 'caps lock' or 'alt'? Hardly ever. And 'control' and 'escape'? Constantly. These must be at hand! I cannot stress enough how big an improvement this was. Getting the same keyboard layout in Linux and Mac took me quite a lot of time but I managed to do it and it was 100% worth.

[flowerlandfilms]

I learned to type on a keyboard at home, before they ever tried to teach us typing at school.
Therefore I am faster with my style than with theirs.
I do like to use touch typing websites though.
It's a fun game when you're bored to see how well you can do without looking.

[deeyay]

Whole my life up until about 5 years ago I've been typing using the "point finger waltz". I could touch type a little when going in school at around age 13. Problem was we did not have a computer at home then so I never typed and forgot all about it. I've always wanted to be able to touch type the qwerty way though later in life so one day I decided to just learn it. And I did so with a software program (Typing Master Pro) that I payed $50 for. It was so worth it because a few days later I could type without looking albeit very slowly. But I quickly made progress and today I type at around 100wpm and I will probably never advance past this speed as I don't type that much.

[AJM]

... I still make quite a lot of mistakes when typing numbers and the symbols -_+= . I remember having looked for which are the right fingers to press the keys in the number row but didn't find a categoric answer, so I guessed that the following might be the best:

LEFT HAND:
Pinkie: `1
Ring finger: 2
Middle finger: 34
Index finger: 56

RIGHT HAND:
Pinkie: =
Ring finger: 0-
Middle finger: 9
Index finger: 78

Advice/methods to improve typing these would be very welcome. ...

That's how I learned it in typing class (and I find it quite obvious, too):

LEFT HAND:
Pinkie: 12
Ring finger: 3
Middle finger: 4
Index finger: 56

RIGHT HAND:
Pinkie: -=
Ring finger: 0
Middle finger: 9
Index finger: 78

.... All this thoughts have made me wonder why the space bar is so freaking wide in the vast majority of keyboards. That does not make much sense to me. Comments of clarifications about this would also be very welcome.

I would say it simply dates back to the origin = mechanical typewriter. There were no modifiers apart from Shift and no other keys in the row of the spacebar.
You also had to use the spacebar "more", by which I mean you had to press it more often: When you had to type spreadsheets or just a date on the right side of the page (in the head of a letter) you couldn't just hold the spacebar to "jump" over multiple columns. You had to press the space bar for every single space. Even touch-typists used all four fingers of one hand on the spacebar in such situations.
Over time the spacebar has shrunk, but only slowly - just nibbling away as much as was needed for the new modifier keys.

[madrobby]

There's no right or wrong way to do type. The important thing is that you type.

What I find fascinating about typing is the different words per minute speeds that you will get from different keyboards, even if they're generally the same layout. Plus, what feels best to you might not even relate to typing speed. For example, I think Topre switches feel very nice, but I'm faster typing on Cherry MX browns or on Alps white. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Gampela]

I type almost "properly", the way the Typing Master teaches you to. Except recently I've pretty much given up using my pinky fingers on the number row, it's just too awkward and slow. My ring fingers handle those keys now, unless I'm typing big numbers, then I move my hands entirely on the number row and 1 & 0 keys are then easy to reach with my pinkies.

[keyboard Kultist]

For decades I've been a hunt and peck look at the keyboard type. Since I don't really type long
documents I never saw a reason to change.

However since my keyboard fetish has been rekindled I am making some efforts at more 'proper'
typing.

Not for any reason of productivity mind you, doing it this way seems to allow more contact time with
those oh so sensuous keys

On the Gold Badge Northgate today.....yum

[Ralph_IT]

99% of the time, yes.
I learned typewriting (qwerty layout) with an old Olivetti Lexicon 80.
Man, my fingers ache for weeks after the firsts lessons, specially the pinkies. As a result I can achieve an average speed of 70WPM (keyhero speed and only with Spanish texts) easily, but with the drawback of pressing the keys harder the faster I go. At the mentioned speed I don't press the keys. I smash them.

As for what I do "out of the norm":
- Space bar always pressed with right thumb, no matter what.
- Caps always pressed with left pinky, but trying to change it and do it "properly".
- Press the '6' in the num row with either hand and even looking at it, because it is placed in the middle of nowhere.

IMHO, one of the advantages of knowing typewriting properly, (or at least memorizing the layout) is that I can take any keyboard with any layout, change it to what I am used to, and type correctly. In fact I'm already doing this @work, because the physical layout of my keyboard is italian, but it writes spanish.

[Ir0n]

Hell no.

I "learned" to type around 13 or 14 when I was super into IRC chatting and I just got better and faster as time went on.. my fingers just know where every key is through muscle memory and are all over the place.

My typing teacher hated me in high school and would nag me 24/7 to keep my damn fingers on the home row etc even though I was the fastest typist in that class and would finish literally 20 minutes ahead of everyone else so most of the time I was just sitting there and that made her even more angry for some reason.

For the record I'm not amazing at typing I'm only around 60-70 WPM.

[Pumaeggs]

the answer for me is nnnnnnyyyyeesss? i dont really know. I actually built a 60% recently and went for blank black PBT caps so i could force myself to learn to touch type. It worked sort of, basically i do a cross between hunt and peck and touch typing, but i still use the homing bumps and the homerow to orient my typing. so im gonna say yes, yes i do type correctly.