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Dvorak-QWERTY-Ctrl

A Windows counterpart to the Mac OS X "Dvorak - QWERTY ⌘" keyboard layout

What?

A keyboard layout for Windows which behaves the same as the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard for normal typing, but when Ctrl is held down, it behaves like a normal QWERTY layout.

Why?

When I started using the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard layout, I found that the hardest part was adjusting to the different keyboard shortcuts. For example, the shortcuts for cut, copy, and paste (Ctrl + X, C, and V, respectively) are conveniently at the bottom-left of a QWERTY keyboard, allowing for the left hand to perform these commands while the right hand remains on the mouse. However, using the Dvorak layout, these three keys are scattered towards the right-hand side of the keyboard, resulting in uncomfortable stretches to perform many common keyboard shortcuts (including Close Window, Refresh, New Tab, Save, Find, Undo, Cut, Copy, and Paste, to name a few of the more annoying ones).

Mac OS X provides a keyboard layout called "Dvorak - QWERTY ⌘", which attempts to address this issue. While typing normally, this layout is identical to the standard Dvorak Simplified Keyboard. However, when pressing a keyboard shortcut which includes the Command key, the layout behaves as a QWERTY keyboard would. This means that all shortcuts involving the Command key are the same on this layout as on a QWERTY layout -- and on Mac OS X, most common keyboard shortcuts involve the Command key. However, Windows doesn't have any similar keyboard layout.

Using the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator, I created this custom keyboard layout to emulate the behaviour of the Dvorak - QWERTY ⌘ layout. Of course, since there'sno Command key in Windows, this layout switches when using the Ctrl key instead.

How?

The Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator allows you to use an existing keyboard layout as a starting point for your own custom layout. However, instead of the obvious choice of starting with a Dvorak layout and setting a different value for each key in the Ctrl shift state (which didn't work), I started with a QWERTY layout and changed all the key scan codes, using the following procedure:

  1. Start with any key, e.g. the bottom-left of the keyboard (which is Z on QWERTY)
  2. Find what key is in the corresponding physical location on the Dvorak layout (semi-colon, for this key)
  3. Find where that key is on a QWERTY keyboard (to the left of the Enter key)
  4. Grab the key-code of that key, 28 in this case (having another untouched instance of MKLC open is useful for this)
  5. Change the scan code of the original key (bottom-left key on the keyboard) to this scan code (from 2c to 28)
  6. Repeat this process for all keys -- you can skip those that are the same on both layouts (A, M, the numbers, \ and `)
  7. Validate the layout, (Project > Validate Layout) making sure there's no duplicate scan codes or other errors/warnings
  8. Export the DLL and setup package, then install it

I needed to restart after these steps, for it to finally work, but YMMV.

This Git repo contains the final DLLs and installers, as well as the .klc file (if you don't want to trust my binaries).

Installation

Copy the full repo somewhere and run usdvqwct/setup.exe.

Or, download MKLC from here (as of Sep 18 2020, the download is no longer avalable) and open Dvorak-QWERTY-Ctrl.klc, then go to Project > Build DLL and Setup package. Click "Yes" when it offers to open the output directory, and run setup.exe.

  • if you are on pre-windows 10 computer, this will add the "United States-Dvorak (QWERTY-Ctrl)" layout in Control Panel > Languages.
  • If on windows 10, go to Setting > Time & Language > Language > Prefered languages, select English then click Options, under keyboard, you will see United States-Dvorak (QWERTY-Ctrl)

Then restart your computer to load the configuration.