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Ask HN: Does anyone use keyboard/mouse extra buttons for coding?

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Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use keyboard/mouse extra buttons for coding?

#51

Post by Macha »

screye wrote: post #42

Along the same lines: 1. How often do people use 'home' and 'end' keys ? I don't, but I know quite a lot who swear by them. Do they actually increase productivity ? 2. Should caps lock be removed as a large button in the most valuable real-estate-area on the keyboard ? I literally never use it. Even when typing long ALL-CAPS sequences. I just use 'shift' instead. 3. Do you use space bars with both hands ? I only use…

1. I use home/end a lot, both for text editing and jumping to the start/end of lists with keyboard navigation.

2. I've tried rebinding to escape but just got frustrated by inconsistency, so now I just leave it unused.

3. Thinking about it, I have two modes, "gaming" where my right hand is in the mouse and left on wasd, where I tend to use my left thumb for spacebar, and "working" where I have both hands on the keyboard and just use whichever is most free at that point.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use keyboard/mouse extra buttons for coding?

#52

Post by canadianfella »

dyingkneepad wrote: post #4

I have a Dygma Raise which is a ~60% keyboard and uses layers. My layer 2 is full of useful macros. I need macros even for the keyboard arrows because my Keyboard doesn't have arrows (arrows are layer2+hjkl or layer2+esdf). I also make heavy use of custom mappings in Vim and Bash aliases. I have a macro for ctrl+shift+v on my Keyboard since it's the Evolution (Linux mail app) shortcut for moving emails. I also have m…

> I also sometimes think about implementing a keyboard macro that does a BnB combo in Skullgirls :). Maybe one day lol, but that's cheating and I wouldn't do it online (also I'd get screwed on whiff or block).

I must be getting old because I have no idea what you are saying.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use keyboard/mouse extra buttons for coding?

#53

Post by Zenst »

Given the number of buttons afforded some mice, you could technically implement a microwiter keyboard in full upon just the mouse. I say technically possible, I personaly never played with the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwriter in it's day or since, though read reports of good typing speeds.

But then, why stop there, just use two mice as such per hand and have the craziest developer desktop going.

Another article that has info upon one handed keyboards like the microwriter https://skippy.org.uk/home-made-keyboards-part-2-more-ideas/

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use keyboard/mouse extra buttons for coding?

#54

Post by cjbprime »

Zenst wrote: post #53

Given the number of buttons afforded some mice, you could technically implement a microwiter keyboard in full upon just the mouse. I say technically possible, I personaly never played with the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwriter in it's day or since, though read reports of good typing speeds. But then, why stop there, just use two mice as such per hand and have the craziest developer desktop going. Another arti…

Blast from the past! My parents had an AgendA around 1995. I remember making a "Choose Your Own Adventure" game for the organizer part and learning the chords.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use keyboard/mouse extra buttons for coding?

#58

Post by planet-and-halo »

SavantIdiot wrote: post #16

No. 1. I change platforms too frequently, so I cannot have a custom setup; and 2. when I try to run distributed with VNC or MSRemoteDesktop, there are too many conflicts when configuration, so it makes a mess. If you only ever work on one computer, it is a great idea, but you will find it challenging to acclimate to another computer.

This is my problem. I did find a programmable keyboard at one point that actually stores config within the hardware, so you could store hotkeys and move between OS's, but most of these sorts of things require installations and some kind of platform-specific config. I gave up using my macro keyboard professionally after taking on a client that uses Macs, with which it isn't compatible. Agreed with your last point though. If your environment is stable it can definitely help.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use keyboard/mouse extra buttons for coding?

#59

Post by grzm »

cjbprime wrote: post #57
thecrumb wrote: post #34

Have an Electron Huge. Button to popup Alfred. Button to popup my clipboard utility. And a few things that kick off macros in my editor. I try to use mouse less but it's handy.

What's an Electron Huge?

I suspect they're referring to the Elecom HUGE trackball:

https://www.elecom.co.jp.e.gj.hp.transer.com/products/M-HT1D...

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use keyboard/mouse extra buttons for coding?

#60

Post by notjustanymike »

I used to use JiTouch which allowed you to draw a symbol with two fingers. I then bound each symbol to an app: C for chrome, T for terminal, F for Firefox, and so on. It was wonderful, but unfortunately development support of JiTouch stopped.
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