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Kinto: Mac-style shortcut keys for Linux and Windows

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Re: Kinto: Mac-style shortcut keys for Linux and Windows

#31

I used to get annoyed by the differences between platforms and apps. I had my Windows desktop tweaked out just so , and I knew how to set it up that way on a new install in a matter of hours. It kept me tied to Windows for longer than it should've. Then I went switched to Apple and stuck with it for many years, learning a new way. Then, just like with Windows, the rug was pulled out and I had little say in it, and I…

What made you switch from Windows to Mac? Was it the Metro UI everyone hates? Because you can get rid of that in 5 minutes and forget it ever existed after that.

Probably employment, that was my case.

Re: Kinto: Mac-style shortcut keys for Linux and Windows

#32

Everyone is talking about keyboard shortcut but just 2 months old mac user (due work) the biggest "fuck you" feature I encountered in Mac was key-repetition. In PC and Linux, if you push down any letter key and keep it pushed, it repeat the key with a certain speed. In mac you can't by default do this. You have to use the terminal and go to a system file, change a variable and reboot the mac. You can, in system prefe…

Huh. I am also a "vim user", and I somehow never noticed this after using macOS for now over a decade. I guess I am confused by your comment, though, as the reason I seem to have never noticed is directly because I am a "vim user"... Terminal and iTerm both do key repeat (and in fact when I first tested just now I was like "I mean, seems to work?" and then I decided "oh, I guess I should check apps other than vim"... but why would anyone use software other than vim ;P).

Re: Kinto: Mac-style shortcut keys for Linux and Windows

#34

I used to get annoyed by the differences between platforms and apps. I had my Windows desktop tweaked out just so , and I knew how to set it up that way on a new install in a matter of hours. It kept me tied to Windows for longer than it should've. Then I went switched to Apple and stuck with it for many years, learning a new way. Then, just like with Windows, the rug was pulled out and I had little say in it, and I…

What made you switch from Windows to Mac? Was it the Metro UI everyone hates? Because you can get rid of that in 5 minutes and forget it ever existed after that.

I switched from Windows to Apple around 2010, after using Windows 7 for a year, and away from Apple a year or two ago, after Mountain Lion.

With Windows and Mac both, it wasn't any one thing in particular, just a "death by a thousand cuts", so to speak, of a general feeling of the platform changing shape without me having any say in it, without any bi-directional feedback, just changing at someone else's whim, and having little power over it.

Not only was it changing, but it was continuously disempowering me, with more and more things becoming controlled by the OS system, also without me having any say in it.

In the beginning, with Windows there was the seemingly additional friction of the whole drive letters and backslashes thing, and my doing most of my development in GNU-land... But then I realized that Mac GNU is almost as far away from what I develop on anyway, and I found it more comfortable to use a GNU/Linux VM to write code on anyway. I only used Mac for stuff like media playback and low-risk web browsing.

After that, it was only a matter of time.

Stallman was right, and I'm so grateful to have this wonderful platform which works reasonably the way I want it to, doesn't upgrade without my consent, and is infinitely configurable and meldable to my liking. Sure, there's a whole slew of crap being grafted onto it like systemd, Wayland, Chromium, etc... But it's all optional, and I don't have to use it. Thank you, GNU, thank you rms, thank you all the devs! I'm forever grateful to you for all your hard work.

Re: Kinto: Mac-style shortcut keys for Linux and Windows

#35
post #25
post #23

I just switched back to Windows at work for the first time in like... almost 20 years. I'm dying without readline-style controls. If this can offer those, I'm going to jump for joy. I already have the Magic Keyboard Utilities to let me use my mac keyboard as a Windows keyboard and put things in sensical places. (Left Fn & Ctrl -> Ctrl, Left Option -> Meta, Left Command -> Alt, Right Command -> Function modifier, Righ…

Nope, guess not.

Can you elaborate what you mean by readline style controls? Looked it up but that didn't help.

Re: Kinto: Mac-style shortcut keys for Linux and Windows

#36

i've always lamented the incompleteness of mac keyboard shortcuts compared to windows, but it's been a long time since i've used windows, so it's hard for me to remember specifics. but i do remember that multi-key shortcuts generally made more sense in windows. and you could alt-tab easily between windows of different applications, not just applications or just tabs/windows of the same application.

Although I too have lost my muscle memory, not having used Windows as my primary O/S in a while, one thing I miss is the ability to traverse through menus with a series of keystrokes; e.g., Alt-F, then p to print, as opposed to Ctrl-P. This came in handy for menu items with an obscure shortcut, or no shortcut at all. Similarly, I would preface some programs in the Start menu with a unique number; e.g., Win, P, 1 open…

You can access the menu by keyboard with Ctrl-F2, but it isn't exactly what you want; that said, a nifty property of macOS is that you can modify the keyboard shortcuts if any app--including adding shortcuts for things that don't have one--in the Keyboard Shortcuts settings panel under App Shortcuts (it works by doing a string match on the menu item name).

Re: Kinto: Mac-style shortcut keys for Linux and Windows

#37

I used to get annoyed by the differences between platforms and apps. I had my Windows desktop tweaked out just so , and I knew how to set it up that way on a new install in a matter of hours. It kept me tied to Windows for longer than it should've. Then I went switched to Apple and stuck with it for many years, learning a new way. Then, just like with Windows, the rug was pulled out and I had little say in it, and I…

I've got this way with e.g. Typescript and Rust syntax. They're similar in a lot of ways and I write a lot of typescript in my day job and at times my hobby projects are primarily Rust. Typescript uses semicolons at the end of each field definition in an interface, while Rust uses comma seperators between each field in a struct, and each time I switch from one to the other it takes a while for my brain to remember what language I'm writing (similarly for -> vs : for return type specification). Java, which is the other language I use a lot in work is sufficiently different that I don't seem to run into this.

Re: Kinto: Mac-style shortcut keys for Linux and Windows

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What made you switch from Windows to Mac? Was it the Metro UI everyone hates? Because you can get rid of that in 5 minutes and forget it ever existed after that.

I switched from Windows to Apple around 2010, after using Windows 7 for a year, and away from Apple a year or two ago, after Mountain Lion. With Windows and Mac both, it wasn't any one thing in particular, just a "death by a thousand cuts", so to speak, of a general feeling of the platform changing shape without me having any say in it, without any bi-directional feedback, just changing at someone else's whim, and ha…

Haha okay thanks, gotcha, sounds like you're pretty happy with Linux :) glad it worked out for you!

Re: Kinto: Mac-style shortcut keys for Linux and Windows

#39
post #12

The difference between Mac and PC keyboards is a real usability problem. If you're used to PC's or Linux, moving to a Mac and dealing with their shortcuts is painful, and vice-versa. The worst is using a mixture of both Mac's and PC's on a daily basis. Moving back and forth between platforms daily means you either have to get used to hitting the wrong shortcuts or use a hack to swap keys around on one platform so you…

This is why I don't bother investing too much time learning 'shortcuts' in the first place - it's a false economy.

Re: Kinto: Mac-style shortcut keys for Linux and Windows

#40
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, guess not.

Can you elaborate what you mean by readline style controls? Looked it up but that didn't help.

On macOS, Ctrl+a (^a) goes to the beginning of the line, Ctrl-e (^e) goes to the end. On Windows you can do [Home] and [End] respectively iirc.

I think "readline-style controls" refers to a more letter-based approach, instead of special keys? i.e. ^a, ^e, ^w...

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