Using the colorForth dvorak keyboard

The dvorak keyboard is operated by pressing buttons on a control panel. All control panels in colorForth are built from the same set of 27 keys; only the assignments differ, and when entering text with the dvorak keyboard, the assignments change from time to time as you type. These keys are as follow:

colorforth keyboard

The four fingers of the left hand are placed on the qwerty keys "ASDF" and are moved up one row or down one row. This is the standard keyboard "home" position for the left hand, and the left hand is responsible for the keys marked red in the above illustration.
The four fingers of the right hand are place on the qwerty keys "JKL;" and are moved up one row or down one row. This is also standard home position; keys are marked green.
The thumb(S) press the qwerty keys "N", "Spacebar", and "Alt", marked blue.
All other keys, not marked with colors above, are ignored.

The default keyboard map for the keys is:

default colorforth keyboard map

The fingers of the left hand are on the "aoeu" keys
The fingers of the right hand are on the "htns" keys.

Qwerty "N" is not programmed,
Spacebar is labeled "9" and invokes the number key function.
Qwerty "Alt" is labeled "x" and invokes the extended key function.

When this keyboard is invoked in the Editor for Text Entry, the bottom hint line reads .9x and the Qwerty "N" key terminates text entry and returns to the main Editor control panel.

Once you have begun entering characters the keyboard map changes to:

colorforth default keyboard map while entering characters

Qwerty "N" is labeled "X" and will abort word entry and return to the default keyboard map.
Spacebar is labeled "." and enters the word and returns to the default keyboard map.
Qwerty "Alt" is labeled "x" in either of those modes and invokes the extended keyboard map for 23 alternate characters.

alternate extended character colorforth keyboard map

Qwerty "N" is not programmed in this mode.
Qwerty "Alt" returns to the normal keyboard menu.
Spacebar is not shown as programmed, but it will complete entry of a word and return to the normal keyboard menu.

On the normal keyboard map the Spacebar is labeled "9" and invokes number keyboard map in decimal or hex mode Below is the decimal keyboard map.

decimal number entry keyboard map

Qwerty "N" is labeled "-" and enters a negative number.
Spacebar is labeled "a" and returns to the default text keyboard map.
Qwerty "Alt" is labeled "f" and selects the hex keyboard map.

hex number entry keyboard map

Qwerty "N" is labeled "-" and enters a negative number.
Spacebar is labeled "a" and returns to the default text keyboard map.
Qwerty "Alt" is labeled "9" and selects the decimal keyboard map.

When one enters a yellow number on the command line one will see the number that is being entered and will be visible in the stack picture window on the left side of the command line. Text is entered from the right side of the line and each word is executed when a space is entered. When text is entered the number that represents the packed characters in the colorforth word as it is being entered. When the spacebar is pressed colorforth will in the case of number entry leave a number on the stack, or in the case of text entry will attempt to find and execute the word that was typed on the command line.