The first remapping is to make Ctrl and Alt modifier keys more accessible. I put Back Space on Caps Lock and hit it with my pinky. Then Ctrl goes on the Back Space key, Alt on the Delete key. Delete goes on left Ctrl.
The second remapping is to swap Home with Page Up and End with Page Down. The reason for this is, if you want to scroll down a web page with your keyboard, you can hit Space or hit Page Down. This lets you do that with either hand.
The third remapping is to swap right Ctrl with the Windows key. The Windows key is useful in Linux for some keyboard shortcuts, and this makes it more reachable.
The fourth remapping is in software, with xmodmap (or whatever) because it doesn't swap entire keys. It's to switch parentheses with square brackets. So now you press Shift+9 to insert '['. The reason here is that typing ") {" is so common in C++, and moving from the top to the sub-bottom row of the keyboard is really hard. Making parentheses the primary function of a key is also useful in general. The remapping is in software because at least on the 1st generation Kinesis, using the remap functionality to map something to Shift+9 was glitchy.
Because I'm a Dvorak user there's a few other remappings of punctuation. You'd want to put [{ and ]} back on their labeled keys at the bottom, and then you'd want to put /? back to the right of P and the best location for =+ is to the right of 0. Then `~ goes left of 1. The bottom left backslash key remains backslash. The bottom left `~ key goes unused.
I don't think this is a good opportunity for you to switch keyboard layouts. The muscle memory will map over after a brief adjustment period.
I just plugged in this Advantage into the Mac I'm writing this post on to double-check what my mappings were -- I'm used to using it on Linux. If you're on a Mac I'd recommend putting Delete on the left Alt key (instead left Ctrl as described above) and finding whatever way suits you to make left Ctrl behave as the option key.
The main issue with it is that if you're typing one handed, Qwerty is actually better. Because of the iPhone and iPad, I'm used to using Qwerty on a touch screen, which means I need both layouts enabled when using a Windows tablet.
Sometimes annoyances come up, like Ubuntu's installer having you type your disk encryption passphrase before configuring the keyboard layout. You don't realize what happened until you've booted into your new system, and now you've got to figure out how to type on a Dvorak layout your passphrase that you'd defined using Dvorak on a Qwerty layout.
Another annoyance is every single freaking time you have to setup the layout.
An underacknowledged advantage of Dvorak is that underscore is on the home row.
I could switch back to Qwerty any time I wanted (I'm typing with it right now just to make a point of it) so I guess that means I believe Dvorak is worth the minor annoyances.
As opposed to what?
If you don't have strong QWERTY muscle memory using this keyboard yet, it may be a great opportunity to learn something else.
Really, any thoughtfully designed layout will do. Dvorak, Colemak, Norman, Workman, anything. Typing well with QWERTY means constantly contorting your hands, which I assume is something you would like to avoid.
That's hard to say. I use Workman, because the focus on digraphs really meshed with me, and I like the feel of it.
It definitely took a solid effort to learn another layout, especially since I spent the time choosing a favorite. I feel like it's absolutely worth it, though.
> but I'm concerned about being productive at work.
I'm honestly not sure what to say to that, considering you will be very slow at the beginning. You may be able to keep using QWERTY at work, and practice a new layout in your free time, though.
