Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Nomouse

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 173 posts

Re: Show HN: Nomouse

#131

Post by neivin »

ryandrake wrote: post #50
m-j-fox wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I used to be one of these hardcore guys typing fast and never taking my hands off the keyboard; then I got RSI and learned to appreciate value slow methodical approaches.

Interesting, I find I can type all day and not feel a thing in my wrists or hands, but just 15-30 minutes of continuous mouse usage, and I'm reaching for the pain medication. To me, staying able to use a computer without the mouse is about both speed and comfort.

This is a common problem in people who play computer games, especially those that are mouse heavy. The solution is pretty simple actually.

Simply lower your mouse sensitivity. Now you use your mouse by moving your entire arm instead of your wrist.

Watch how this guy uses his mouse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X89152oocsA

Of course they do it to aim better, but it also puts less strain on your wrist and hand

Re: Show HN: Nomouse

#132

Post by tqkxzugoaupvwqr »

wyager wrote: post #21
tqkxzugoaupvwqr wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you use an IDE on the client (the machine you connect from) and only have sources on the dev machine, or do you work completely in the terminal?

Many people I know just use text editors, no IDEs at all. Modern text editors, whether text-only (vim, emacs) or graphical (Atom, sublime) have plugins to replicate whatever IDE functionality you want anyway.

I should have worded my question better. I wanted to know whether he works directly on the dev server over a terminal or only connects to it and uses programs (IDEs, text editors) on the client machine to work on the code.

Re: Show HN: Nomouse

#133

Post by JupiterMoon »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #92
WesleyJohnson wrote: post #35

I've never understood the sentiment that using a mouse is bad. I see blog posts all the time about how a programmer's job is more thinking than writing code and/or writing good programs is also about taking out just as much code as you put in. So if writing programs is a deliberate and methodical process that - I'd argue it's also slow. Why then is there antithesis that mice slow you down and you need keyboard shortc…

I suspect a lot more of it is perception than people imagine: keeping your hands on the keyboard all the time seems like it intuitively must be faster. Early research in human-computer interfaces suggests that this isn't actually the case, though. From 1989: "We've done a cool $50 million of R&D on the Apple Human Interface. We discovered, among other things, two pertinent facts: (1) Test subjects consistently report…

> Vim and Emacs style movement commands are faster than the mouse in certain contexts, but I'm dubious that's universally true. "I want to jump to line 123" is easy, but what about "I want to move the cursor to the open brace character right there"? No matter how much of a seasoned pro you may be, you're going to have to think for a moment about how to do to that: "let me count the '{' characters between the current point and where I want it to be. Three, so '3/{'." The mouse may make you move your hand, but it doesn't make you have to stop and count.

But vim doesn't make you count either... press "/{" and then repeat "n" until you land on the correct character. Also for selecting lines shift+V and jk{} etc will get me there with no counting. I've used vim for years and I never count I just use visual mode.

Re: Show HN: Nomouse

#134

Post by watwut »

btschaegg wrote: post #114
watwut wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Navigating code with mouse is much faster then with keyboard only. Things like ctrl+click to see function definition or mouse over to see function documention, variable value or its type. Double click the name before I press shout cut for rename and so on and so forth.

Perhaps, if the only thing you're doing is actual navigation. As soon as you want to also edit said code, you loose said benefit since you're constantly switching between mouse and keyboard. Als, if you do other actions than "goto definition", you'll also lose that speed very fast. In VS, "find occurrences" is burried somewhere in a rather convoluted context menu, while I can perform the according hotkey (C-k C-r) in…

I either edit or navigate and switch between the two rarely enough. Obviously I don't type with keyboard.

In eclipse you right click the function and the "show callers" is right there. Along with keyboard shortcut so I have the chance to learn it. Along with all other options so I see them and can learn them too.

It is not as if keyboard shortcuts were mutually exclusive with using mouse - unless someone decided that one of these devices is below him. Majority of people uses both and switch between them fat.

Re: Show HN: Nomouse

#135

Post by kleiba »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #123

I find this completely pointless. You wean yourself off the mouse when you have to use the keyboard for most of the work you do. Trying to trick yourself to do "the right thing" (if that's what this is about) is just silly. I use the keyboard almost exclusively, and even had colleagues remark on it rather impressed about it I guess (I don't mind the hacker cred, let's be honest here). I never had to force myself, or…

Anecdotal counterexample: I wanted to learn to use Emacs' keyboard shortcuts for moving the point rather than the arrow keys or page-up / page-down. Leaving aside the question of how useful such a practice is, I only managed to reach my goal once I turned off the arrow keys in Emacs, so that I was forced to "the right thing".

I would argue that it wasn't so silly to do this for my personal use, I'm quite happy with the result.

Re: Show HN: Nomouse

#136

Post by microcolonel »

lathiat wrote: post #93
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect a lot more of it is perception than people imagine: keeping your hands on the keyboard all the time seems like it intuitively must be faster. Early research in human-computer interfaces suggests that this isn't actually the case, though. From 1989: "We've done a cool $50 million of R&D on the Apple Human Interface. We discovered, among other things, two pertinent facts: (1) Test subjects consistently report…

The MacBook Pro setup is faster again because I can use the mouse with my thumb without getting off the keyboard (and the trackpad works very well). Even with the trackpad I use on my desktop I have to move my hands backs and forward.

Have you ever tried a trackpoint? It seems like it'd be right up your alley.

Re: Show HN: Nomouse

#137

Post by mtdewcmu »

mjw1007 wrote: post #126
mtdewcmu wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what task the users were doing when the mouse was discovered to be faster. The keyboard and mouse are not generally interchangeable; the task will generally favor one or the other. I'm assuming that the users were doing something like manipulating a GUI that favored the mouse and was awkward with the keyboard. The purpose of the study was probably to convince people to buy Apple's new mouse-centric…

As far as I remember, in the one study that got reported users were asked to select a number of words scattered through a document and make them bold.

Oh, I get it. There was probably no efficient way to move the cursor around with the keyboard. That might explain why users said the keyboard was faster. It was faster for them to push the right buttons. They might have found the mouse cumbersome. They probably thought of the mouse wasting their time.

Do people still consider the results of this study valid? A mouse in 1989 was nothing like a mouse now.

Re: Show HN: Nomouse

#138

Post by microcolonel »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #127
xchaotic wrote: post #5

Have you found any parts of the OS or your workflow that are really hard without the mouse? I can do keyboard in terminal and text editors, but browsers are so so and Windows RDP is where it all fails the worst for me...

I cheat :) On GNU/Linux (well, X11) I use keynav, a nice little utility that lets you drive the cursor by keyboard. It's often a little clunkier than actual mouse, but you don't have to take your hands off the keyboard and it covers the "I only need to click that one button that somehow isn't possible to hit from the keyboard."

Do I need a compositor for the keynav grid to show up? I've tried prettymuch all the versions off the AUR and none of them show anything.

Re: Show HN: Nomouse

#139

Post by to3m »

mjw1007 wrote: post #126
mtdewcmu wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what task the users were doing when the mouse was discovered to be faster. The keyboard and mouse are not generally interchangeable; the task will generally favor one or the other. I'm assuming that the users were doing something like manipulating a GUI that favored the mouse and was awkward with the keyboard. The purpose of the study was probably to convince people to buy Apple's new mouse-centric…

As far as I remember, in the one study that got reported users were asked to select a number of words scattered through a document and make them bold.

This is the sort of thing the mouse is actually rather good for. Though you're probably better using Ctrl+B to embolden than you are the toolbar or menu.

Re: Show HN: Nomouse

#140

Post by microcolonel »

stephengillie wrote: post #99
Koshkin wrote: post #74

Interestingly enough, there has been an opposite trend, in software engineering, to have the user rely on the mouse for pretty much everything except typing text. One curious example is Plan 9's text editor called Acme , where to perform certain actions you even have to click more than one mouse button simultaneously, a.k.a.'chords'. (I am not sure how long an average mouse would be able to withstand this kind of abu…

I use a mouse with a 12-key thumb pad to move part of the keyboard onto the mouse. Under my thumb are these keys: F5 Up F2 Left Down Right Tab Delete Backspace Enter Space ESC Using this, I can click any page or terminal window, and quickly navigate, while others are still finding their keyboard with their hand. This helps maintain the state of flow while enabling the random selective capability of a mouse.

I think I would sweat bullets if I knew there were an enter key on my mouse, but to each his own.
Post reply on HN