Do you use the pinky finger while typing?
I'm starting to learn to touch type correctly on a keyboard, but typing something like :q with the pinky finger always feels so awkward to me. Is it worth using it?
Definitely. Keep your palms high to make it easier for the pinky to reach. If you rest your palms on the keyboard, it will make it awkward to use the pinky for keys in the upper rows.
Yes. All the time.
Not for me, but then again I have residual nerve damage in my pinky fingers from a case of meningitis back in 2004.
However, I do still use my left pinky for the left shift key, and my right pinky for the enter key. At least those keys are big enough that the mild numbness doesn't cause me to miss those keys.
Yes. I'm using the standard typing system on an ANSI keyboard which requires pinkies.
Yes, q,a,z, shift, and control.
Yes, i do and yes, it's worth it.
Also, practice the number row, too! That's my weakest area by far. I can touch-type everything else but i always have to check the number row.
I just switch to the num pad. Also worth practicing on if you do a lot of typing.
Yeah, i can touch type on a numpad.
But neither my 60% nor my laptop have numpads.
This advice can't be overlooked. When I was in HS I was out sick for the week we practiced the number row and man, many, many years later I still can't blind type numbers (but can on a 10key).
You'll get used to it with practice. It's fine if you prefer to type differently, but you'll probably hit a plateau with how efficiently you can type (or you'll rely on looking at the keyboard, which is not ideal).
I've got my caps lock key remapped to escape.
I use my left pinky for ctrl, shift, a, and my remapped caps lock/escape key.
I use my right pinky for shift, enter, and I'm pretty sure that's all.
I use my ring fingers for backspace, tilde, tab, q, backslash, quote, and that probably isn't a comprehensive list.
I use my middle finger for semicolon/colon! I never realized that before. Wild.
I do...mostly. I hit Q and P with my ring fingers instead of pinkies. For AZ;/ and shift and enter I do use my pinky fingers always, except (as I've just noticed) when I'm typing a capital A or Z. I seem to almost always hit the left shift instead of the right, so I end up using my left ring finger to hit the A or Z in that case.
Yes, I decided i wanted to learn touch typing a while ago, I switched to a different layout from QWERTY called Coleman, it's fairly similar but puts the most common letters on the home row or near your first and second fingers, while keeping the position of common shortcut keys like Z, X, C.
I also switched my keyboard to an Ortholinear style which i found helped with my accuracy as i was learning.
Similarly I learned to properly type (which means using your pinkies) with Dvorak back in 2007. I stuck with it since anything is a gain beyond QWERTY & _ on the home row helps with programming & config.
If you haven’t learned to touch type, you may as well use a layout that is gonna strain you less in the long run.
Yes, I use Dvorak exclusively, and touch type.
Yeah, mostly I use the pinky for hitting shift. Apostrophe, question mark, and brackets are next used. I play games so I also use it for hitting ctrl quite regularly by bending my pinky in and hitting it with the top of my nail.
Yeah. I use it for ctrl, shift, enter, etc.
Yeah. But I'm also using a keyboard layout where frequently used keys aren't on my pinky, and a keyboard where modifiers are on my thumb cluster, rather than on my pinky.
I switched to a somewhat custom keyboard and only use my pinkies for 1 key each during normal typing. It's probably not an issue for most people, but for me the pinkies were the most affected by repetitive strain before i switched.
The pinky is smaller and less flexible, but it’s like piano and you just have to move your hand a bit to use them effectively.
As I was thinking about this, I thought that I don't use my pinky's nearly as much as I'm finding that I do after a brief evaluation. Yes, go all in on learning to touch type with proper form. I also don't use my pinkies for :q, however. Well, I used the pinky on my left for the shift key but the ring finger on my right to type the colon.
Never thought about it, but I think it's mainly left shift and control key.
Yes. I also use the heel of my hand, at least on the left side, at least for modifier keys. Everyone who has ever observed this (well, minus one, to be technically accurate) seems to have been personally offended by it.