My meow dvorak keybindings

[eshrh]

I recently switched to the dvorak keyboard layout, and for some reason i wasn't particularly satisfied with the suggested keybinds, so I decided to redo the whole thing for myself.

If you're not familiar with dvorak, it's basically an optimized keyboard layout that puts a big focus on alternating hands and minimal home row movement. IThe fundamental idea with this keymap is to take inspiration from dvorak and apply the hand alternation principle to editing. The way this works here is to assign "selection" commands to the left hand and "actions" are assigned to the right
hand. I put a lot of editing commands thus on the right hand homerow, with the disadvantage that standard movement keys get pushed up a row. I think this is worth it since they are still relatively comfortable to press.

                                                               Meow Cheatsheet

┏━━━━━━━━━┯━━━━━━━━━┯━━━━━━━━━┯━━━━━━━━━┯━━━━━━━━━┯━━━━━━━━━┯━━━━━━━━━┯━━━━━━━━━┯━━━━━━━━━┯━━━━━━━━━┯━━━━━━━━━┯━━━━━━━━━┯━━━━━━━━━┯━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃       ~ │       ! │       @ │       # │       $ │       % │       ^ │       & │       * │       ( │       ) │       { │       } │        BKSP ┃
┃         |         |         |         |         |         |         |         |toggle-c…|         |         |         |         |             ┃
┠─┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┤             ┃
┃       ` │       1 │       2 │       3 │       4 │       5 │       6 │       7 │       8 │       9 │       0 │       [ │       ] │             ┃
┃         |    ex →1|    ex →2|    ex →3|    ex →4|    ex →5|    ex →6|    ex →7|    ex →8|    ex →9|    ex →0|         |         |             ┃
┠─────────┴───┬─────┴───┬─────┴───┬─────┴───┬─────┴───┬─────┴───┬─────┴───┬─────┴───┬─────┴───┬─────┴───┬─────┴───┬─────┴───┬─────┴───┬─────────┨
┃        TAB  │       " │       < │       > │       P │       Y │       F │       G │       C │       R │       L │       ? │       + │       | ┃
┃             |negative…|   ←thing|   thing→|         |         |     ex ←|     ex ↓|     ex ↑|     ex →| undo-sel|         |add-numb…|         ┃
┃             ├┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┨
┃             │       ' │       , │       . │       p │       y │       f │       g │       c │       r │       l │       / │       = │       \ ┃
┃             |     find|  ←thing→|  [thing]|         |         |        ←|        ↓|        ↑|        →|     undo|avy-goto…|         |         ┃
┠─────────────┴─┬───────┴─┬───────┴─┬───────┴─┬───────┴─┬───────┴─┬───────┴─┬───────┴─┬───────┴─┬───────┴─┬───────┴─┬───────┴─┬───────┴─────────┨
┃               │       A │       O │       E │       U │       I │       D │       H │       T │       N │       S │       _ │             RET ┃
┃               |         |         |    ←sym→|block-ex…|         |     yank|   append|      rep|   open ↑|         |subtract…│                 ┃
┃               ├┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┤                 ┃
┃               │       a │       o │       e │       u │       i │       d │       h │       t │       n │       s │       - │                 ┃
┃               |     line|         |   ←word→|    block|         |     save|   insert|      chg|   open ↓|     kill|   swiper|                 ┃
┠───────────────┴─────┬───┴─────┬───┴─────┬───┴─────┬───┴─────┬───┴─────┬───┴─────┬───┴─────┬───┴─────┬───┴─────┬───┴─────┬───┴─────────────────┨
┃                     │       : │       Q │       J │       K │       X │       B │       M │       W │       V │       Z │                     ┃
┃                     |         |         |         |     ←sym|     sym→|         |         |         |         |paren-mo…|                     ┃
┃                     ├┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┼┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┤                     ┃
┃                     │       ; │       q │       j │       k │       x │       b │       m │       w │       v │       z │                     ┃
┃                     |  reverse|     quit|     grab|    ←word|    word→|paren-mo…|     join| quit sel|   repeat|      pop|                     ┃
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┷━━━━━━━━━┷━━━━━━━━━┷━━━━━━━━━╅─────────┴─────────┴─────────┴─────────╆━━━━━━━━━┷━━━━━━━━━┷━━━━━━━━━┷━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
                                                    ┃                                   SPC ┃
                                                    ┃                                       ┃
                                                    ┃                                       ┃
                                                    ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛

NOTE:
ex means this command will expand current region.
←thing→ (inner), [thing] (bounds), ←thing (begin) and thing→ (end) require a THING as input:
    latex ->  x     round ->  r    square ->  s     curly ->  c    string ->  g
   symbol ->  e    window ->  w    buffer ->  b paragraph ->  p      line ->  l
    defun ->  d  sentence ->  .

Key points:

• Movement keys moved up a row to FGCR (YUIO)
• important and frequent selections are on the left hand home row
  • a: line, o: string, e: word, u: block, i: para
• key editing commands are all on the right hand home row
  • Delete line becomes "as" (a; on qwerty) which is just both pinkies of both hands which is extremely fast
  • change word becomes "et" (sk) which is also home row
  • so on

Obviously a big disadvantage is that mnemonics totally go out the window, but I think this is a worthwhile tradeoff for me, Here's my keybind config,

There are still some prime unoccupied keys, namely I, p, y, but I am still deciding what i want to put there,

;; movement
(meow-normal-define-key
 '("'" . meow-find)
 '("\"" . meow-negative-find)
 '("<" . meow-beginning-of-thing)
 '(">" . meow-end-of-thing)
 '("k" . meow-back-word)
 '("K" . meow-back-symbol)
 '("x" . meow-next-word)
 '("X" . meow-next-symbol)
 '("_" . meow-goto-line)
 '("c" . meow-prev)
 '("C" . meow-prev-expand)
 '("g" . meow-next)
 '("G" . meow-next-expand)
 '("r" . meow-right)
 '("R" . meow-right-expand)
 '("f" . meow-left)
 '("F" . meow-left-expand))

;; selection
(meow-normal-define-key
 '("," . meow-inner-of-thing)
 '("." . meow-bounds-of-thing)
 '("a" . meow-line)
 '("o" . (lambda () (interactive) (meow-inner-of-thing 'string)))
 '("O" . (lambda () (interactive) (meow-bounds-of-thing 'string)))
 '("e" . meow-mark-word)
 '("E" . meow-mark-symbol)
 '("u" . meow-block)
 '("U" . meow-block-expand)
 '("i" . (lambda () (interactive) (meow-inner-of-thing 'paragraph))))

;; selection actions
(meow-normal-define-key
 '("D" . meow-yank)
 '("d" . meow-save)
 '("h" . meow-insert)
 '("H" . meow-append)
 '("t" . meow-change)
 '("T" . meow-replace)
 '("s" . meow-kill)
 '("n" . meow-open-below)
 '("N" . meow-open-above)
 '("l" . meow-undo)
 '("L" . meow-undo-in-selection))

;; other actions
(meow-normal-define-key
 '("w" . meow-cancel-selection)
 '("j" . meow-grab)
 '("m" . meow-join)
 '("v" . repeat)
 '("q" . meow-quit)
 '("b" . meow-paren-mode)
 '("z" . meow-pop)
 '("<escape>" . ignore))

;; extras
(meow-normal-define-key
 '("*" . toggle-case-dwiam)
 '("+" . add-number)
 '("_" . subtract-one)
 '("/" . avy-goto-word-1)
 '("-" . swiper))

anyway, i'm looking forward to thoughts and suggestions!

[DogLooksGood]

Oh no, why you switched to Dvorak...

[DogLooksGood]

Actually, I found it's pretty interesting. It's a position based, ergonomic layout.

[eshrh]

I've been making several changes to this since I posted in first. My config has grown so big and so different from vanilla meow keybindings I extracted it from my local config and will continue to develop it here: https://github.com/eshrh/nyaatouch/