Kinto: Mac-style shortcut keys for Linux and Windows • Hacker News Board

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

#241

Post by desmap » Sun, Mar 14, 2021, 3:41 PM UTC

limeblack wrote: post #240

desmap wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The TrackPoint Keyboard II? Do you know what scan codes (or in general what characters) those Japanese keys next to the spacebar send when the keyboard layout is set to US?

No the Lenovo ThinkPad Compact USB Keyboard with TrackPoint(I don't mind the differences so much.) Using SharpKeys this is really easy. I do have a traditional Thinkpad keyboard non Japanse though. All you do is press the key in the "Type Key" blank in SharpKeys. I have actually gotten a Japanese Thinkpad keyboard for my laptop although its for the T420 model. I would have to check my Desktop to see how this works ag…

Hey, I got the scan codes, they're 7B and 79, check here https://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/linux/kbd/scancodes-8.html

(1) Where did you get the (internal) JP keyboard for your Thinkpad, Ebay or Lenovo parts sales?

(2) Imagine those 5 keys on your JP keyboard...

     _  _  _____  _  _
    |1||2||Space||4||5|

...how convenient is it for your left thumb to hit 1 and 2 and for your right thumb to hit 3 (Space), 4 and 5, each on a scale from 0 to 10? Bonus question: do you have small, medium or big hands?

And how did you get the idea to use a JP keyboard?

ps I use AHK, have to check out Sharpkeys!

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

#242

Post by limeblack » Sun, Mar 14, 2021, 4:31 PM UTC

desmap wrote: post #241

limeblack wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No the Lenovo ThinkPad Compact USB Keyboard with TrackPoint(I don't mind the differences so much.) Using SharpKeys this is really easy. I do have a traditional Thinkpad keyboard non Japanse though. All you do is press the key in the "Type Key" blank in SharpKeys. I have actually gotten a Japanese Thinkpad keyboard for my laptop although its for the T420 model. I would have to check my Desktop to see how this works ag…

Hey, I got the scan codes, they're 7B and 79, check here https://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/linux/kbd/scancodes-8.html (1) Where did you get the (internal) JP keyboard for your Thinkpad, Ebay or Lenovo parts sales? (2) Imagine those 5 keys on your JP keyboard... _ _ _____ _ _ |1||2||Space||4||5| ...how convenient is it for your left thumb to hit 1 and 2 and for your right thumb to hit 3 (Space), 4 and 5, each on a scale fro…

1) that was slightly tricky I had to use buyee.jp

2) I have 2 of the 3 Japanese keys mapped to control/modifier and and the third mapped to space. Your picture seems to be off there aren't four modifier keys but three. The switch is quit seamless between a Mac and Windows. Medium Hands. I was analyzing keyboard layouts.

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

#243

Post by deagle50 » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 4:29 AM UTC

silon42 wrote: post #136

fishywang wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then deal with all the Mac nonsense? No thanks.

+1 I'm not touching a mac without swapping ctrl/command and finding an app for proper Alt+Tab window switching.

I like this one

https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/

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

#244

Post by saurik » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 6:15 AM UTC

NalNezumi wrote: post #139

saurik wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"...…

There's a risk that I'm mixing things up at the moment, but I do remember that the "hjkl" navigation did not work properly on VS code with VIM extension. Since I've already switched this behavior now Terminal & iTerm have adapted to it. For a while I couldn't put my finger at why this was, and then I realized that scrolling up/down is essentially disabled without key repetition for vim. It also seems to act slightly…

I mean, VS Code != vim, so that explains the problem.

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

#245

Post by thomastjeffery » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 1:13 AM UTC

quesera wrote: post #218

thomastjeffery wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the traditional perspective. My perspective is that control characters were a bad idea from the beginning. Then again, so are ubiquitous predefined keyboard shortcuts like C-c. Having user interaction predefined makes it more difficult to change keyboard layouts and shapes.

Control chars are in-band signalling. This is always "bad", but sometimes it's all you have. Certainly back in the early days of wired serial connections, that was the case. So if you have in-band signalling, you need a method to generate those signals. I don't think there was any other viable way to solve this problem, and honestly it has worked almost flawlessly. Of course Microsoft is a big exception, but that cou…

So your entire point is that control characters are still good because they were a good solution to a problem that only existed 20-30 years ago? I'm not convinced.

My point here is that we are so steeped into tradition that usability suffers.

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

#246

Post by desmap » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 7:37 AM UTC

limeblack wrote: post #242

desmap wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, I got the scan codes, they're 7B and 79, check here https://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/linux/kbd/scancodes-8.html (1) Where did you get the (internal) JP keyboard for your Thinkpad, Ebay or Lenovo parts sales? (2) Imagine those 5 keys on your JP keyboard... _ _ _____ _ _ |1||2||Space||4||5| ...how convenient is it for your left thumb to hit 1 and 2 and for your right thumb to hit 3 (Space), 4 and 5, each on a scale fro…

1) that was slightly tricky I had to use buyee.jp 2) I have 2 of the 3 Japanese keys mapped to control/modifier and and the third mapped to space. Your picture seems to be off there aren't four modifier keys but three. The switch is quit seamless between a Mac and Windows. Medium Hands. I was analyzing keyboard layouts.

Hey me again, just checking out buyey.jp in order to order some stuff as well, so this is not just a freight-forwarder but an agent, means they do the actual buy of the product on the respective merchant sites such as Yahoo Auction etc.

How was your experience, would you use them again? And I assume you did a full managed buy?!

If this thread is getting restricted you can also PM me on reddit with the same username.

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

#247

Post by limeblack » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 8:47 PM UTC

desmap wrote: post #246

limeblack wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) that was slightly tricky I had to use buyee.jp 2) I have 2 of the 3 Japanese keys mapped to control/modifier and and the third mapped to space. Your picture seems to be off there aren't four modifier keys but three. The switch is quit seamless between a Mac and Windows. Medium Hands. I was analyzing keyboard layouts.

Hey me again, just checking out buyey.jp in order to order some stuff as well, so this is not just a freight-forwarder but an agent, means they do the actual buy of the product on the respective merchant sites such as Yahoo Auction etc. How was your experience, would you use them again? And I assume you did a full managed buy?! If this thread is getting restricted you can also PM me on reddit with the same username.

I had mixed reviews with Japanese auction site - one item arrived with good shipping, the other item did not and had freight shipping I believe. It was not a big deal to me but I would give them a low pass because there are no other options. This may be because of corvid.

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

#248

Post by quesera » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 12:59 AM UTC

thomastjeffery wrote: post #245

quesera wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Control chars are in-band signalling. This is always "bad", but sometimes it's all you have. Certainly back in the early days of wired serial connections, that was the case. So if you have in-band signalling, you need a method to generate those signals. I don't think there was any other viable way to solve this problem, and honestly it has worked almost flawlessly. Of course Microsoft is a big exception, but that cou…

So your entire point is that control characters are still good because they were a good solution to a problem that only existed 20-30 years ago? I'm not convinced. My point here is that we are so steeped into tradition that usability suffers.

I really don't think that's true. It's not tradition, it's practicality -- control characters are good because they are established, standardized, and work perfectly to solve an ongoing need.

In-band signalling is inherently a bit of an architectural challenge. But the problem is solved. The entire internet is run on in-band signalling! We're going on 35 years for TCP/IP, and more like 50 for ASCII control chars. They work very, very well.

Yes, Microsoft broke control character generation for users of their OS, but that's a compartmentalized failure, and easily avoided. The Ctrl+Shift GUI workaround in Windows (and copied in Linux) is not elegant. But any alternative without control chars would be a total loss of functionality.

Ctrl+C being broken by Copy is a trivial example. There's a whole alphabet of control chars (in fact there are 32), and we all use more of them than most people realize[0]. Some have dedicated keys on the keyboard (backspace, return), but obviously not all of them.

I use about a dozen control characters regularly. This is not unusual for someone who works closely with server operating systems.

[0] I'm not sure how to gauge your knowledge of communication signalling or protocols, so I apologize if I'm being pedantic. It sounds like you have ideas about alternatives (and this is interesting to me), so I am curious about any specifics you can share or link to.