Re: Dvorak layout except when modifier key is pressed

[B. T. Raven]

Vincent C wrote:
> Is it possible to have dvorak keybindings except when hitting a ctrl
> or meta key combinations? (ie: switch back to QWERTY in that case)

Bad idea (imho). See Xah Lee's sensible suggestions here (and at associated 
links):

http://xahlee.org/emacs/ergonomic_emacs_keybinding.html

I think that if the developers could be persuaded to adopt even a small part 
of Xah's suggestions, that would probably go farther to making emacs 
palatable to more users than even the imminent conversion to Unicode in 
Emacs 23.

At a minimum, find some way to reassign the modifier keys so that they are 
laid out (in a direction away from the space bar) in the order Ctrl, Alt, 
Windows, AppKey. The latter two can be used for super and hyper modifiers.

I am using the Dvorak layout now and even with my non-Space-Cadet keyboard I 
can touch type Alt, Wind, Ctrl with middle, ring, and little fingers 
respectively. If/when I upgrade from w98 to 2000, I will immediately convert 
to many of Xah's keybindings (all of them if the developers adopt them). The 
most important, after the modifier keys, are the cursor movement keychords 
with Ctrl:(h,t,n,c for left, down, right, up, with the Dvorak layout).

Ed.