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

In Praise of Chorded Input

v21.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 49 posts

Re: In Praise of Chorded Input

#11

Post by falcolas »

The older I get, the less I like key chording. This is particularly exacerbated by the lack of a common key chording scheme between Windows, Linux, and OSX. It becomes a mental stutter as I have to constantly override my muscle memory. It's probably why I like VIM editor schemes so much - there's significantly less chording required.

I've also noticed the preference come up when playing games. Ideally, I would simply assign additional abilities to modified keys, but for the life of me, it's just simpler to assign them, one to one, to keys on the keyboard. My hand needs to move around the keyboard a bit more, but it has to contort a lot less.

Also, it's somewhat telling that some the fastest typists in the world don't use shift - they use caps lock.

ref. http://www.seanwrona.com/typing.php the final paragraph

Re: In Praise of Chorded Input

#12

Post by kqr »

Timpy wrote: post #4

I've been searching relentlessly for a qwerty chording solution that works for me. I was hoping to find something useful here, but there's only a couple of Wikipedia links that I've already scoured through. QMK firmware seems like a good solution, but it's only available on DIY mechanical keyboards or expensive ergonomic keyboards. There are a few hacks out there for other keyboards, but I don't want to brick my dail…

For English, Plover is the obvious choice. For other European languages, I have a frozen work-in-progress called Qweyboard on GitHub.

Re: In Praise of Chorded Input

#13

Post by falcolas »

melling wrote: post #7

People are still building chorded input devices. This was shown at CES: https://www.charachorder.com/ Mobile devices lack good input methods. There’s a possibility they might prove useful for those on the go.

This looks less like a chording keyboard (which tend to have fewer inputs), and more an evolution on the "Data Hand" keyboard (which allows access to every character by moving fingers in different directions).

ref. http://octopup.org/computer/datahand

Re: In Praise of Chorded Input

#14

Post by melling »

falcolas wrote: post #13
melling wrote: post #7

People are still building chorded input devices. This was shown at CES: https://www.charachorder.com/ Mobile devices lack good input methods. There’s a possibility they might prove useful for those on the go.

This looks less like a chording keyboard (which tend to have fewer inputs), and more an evolution on the "Data Hand" keyboard (which allows access to every character by moving fingers in different directions). ref. http://octopup.org/computer/datahand

It looks like both. You can move keys in multiple directions, but you also get chorded input:

“ Over 17 Billion (17.1529*10^12) possible chord combinations per profile."

Re: In Praise of Chorded Input

#16

Post by blunte »

I used a BAT (http://xahlee.info/kbd/bat_keyboard.html) long ago for enough time that I was able to type _prose_ at about 50wpm. For that use, it was quite decent - especially if you were using some system that required a lot of mousing and didn't have good keyboard control options. There, having one hand always on the mouse while the other could provide input was faster and less frustrating than current keyboard+mouse. What was not at all good was programming. Symbols often require modifier keys; but on a chorded keyboard like the BAT, that meant two chords for each symbol: the chord to set the modifier, and the chord to choose the actual key that goes with the modifier.

Still, I think there's a lot of room for improvement of human interfaces (at least until we hopefully someday get neural interfaces which bypass hands and even eyes).

Re: In Praise of Chorded Input

#17

Post by Timpy »

falcolas wrote: post #11

The older I get, the less I like key chording. This is particularly exacerbated by the lack of a common key chording scheme between Windows, Linux, and OSX. It becomes a mental stutter as I have to constantly override my muscle memory. It's probably why I like VIM editor schemes so much - there's significantly less chording required. I've also noticed the preference come up when playing games. Ideally, I would simply…

I don't doubt the report that Wrona is using caps lock instead of shift, but it baffles me. How did he manage to make that faster? I only use left shift, which is pretty similar except he has to hit twice as many keys to accomplish the same thing.

Re: In Praise of Chorded Input

#18

Post by falcolas »

melling wrote: post #14
falcolas wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This looks less like a chording keyboard (which tend to have fewer inputs), and more an evolution on the "Data Hand" keyboard (which allows access to every character by moving fingers in different directions). ref. http://octopup.org/computer/datahand

It looks like both. You can move keys in multiple directions, but you also get chorded input: “ Over 17 Billion (17.1529*10^12) possible chord combinations per profile."

You can do the same with a standard keyboard and drivers - such as plover, autohotkey, etc.

36! is a pretty large number as well. ;)

This isn't an attempt to denigrate the product, it does look nice. One of my favorite chorded input methods was the old steam controller text input that combined 8 positions on the left stick with the right 4 face buttons of a standard controller. But it's design is closer to a standard keyboard than chorded keyboard.

Re: In Praise of Chorded Input

#19

Post by roosterdawn »

trey-jones wrote: post #15

Emacs users will agree. Indeed I am 100% convinced that being an Emacs user enabled me to pick up the piano and be better at it than I was the last time I played 20 years ago.

This is fascinating and something I've wondered about. It'd make for an interesting study, and actually, I wonder if you know about any research that has been done on this subject. I'd be curious to know if the data backs up the intuition!

Re: In Praise of Chorded Input

#20

Post by melling »

falcolas wrote: post #18
melling wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like both. You can move keys in multiple directions, but you also get chorded input: “ Over 17 Billion (17.1529*10^12) possible chord combinations per profile."

You can do the same with a standard keyboard and drivers - such as plover, autohotkey, etc. 36! is a pretty large number as well. ;) This isn't an attempt to denigrate the product, it does look nice. One of my favorite chorded input methods was the old steam controller text input that combined 8 positions on the left stick with the right 4 face buttons of a standard controller. But it's design is closer to a standard…

Yes, but I don’t want to carry a standard keyboard with me.

That’s why I mentioned usage with mobile devices.

I’d like to sit on a park bench on a nice spring day and write my blog with my phone.

Starbucks, library, picnic table, deli, ....

Post reply on HN