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“I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft” (2004)

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Re: “I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft” (2004)

#191

Post by hatmatrix »

waych wrote: post #159
sjackso wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternative to escape in vi and vi-alikes: control-[ I recommend committing this to muscle memory. It takes two fingers, but is more comfortable than reaching for escape on most keyboards. I prefer mapping caps lock to control rather than to escape, but that's another good alternative. But in any case it's nice to have another option for quitting vim in case something terrible has happened to your escape key, as it s…

Also the Alt key + letter keys produces a series of key codes prefixed by escape, so one can use any single letter normal-mode command with the Alt key, resulting in "Escape"+ . This is convenient to quickly switch to e.g. moving the cursor with e.g. `Alt+j` to both escape from insert mode back to normal mode _and_ move down a line.

I knew about the Ctrl+[ but this might be a game changer... I have tried vim several times but have never gotten used to the idea of staying in one mode or another (emacs chords is more intuitive to me). This seems promising.

Re: “I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft” (2004)

#192

Post by Ashanmaril »

arn wrote: post #157
Ashanmaril wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was mostly based off the base-model 13" MacBook Pro from before which didn't have a touchbar.

There are legit rumors that Apple is specifically killing the Touch Bar as well.

I know, I'm just saying the M1 MBP isn't an indicator because it's not a new design.

Re: “I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft” (2004)

#193

Post by Jedd »

LTL_FTC wrote: post #148
Jedd wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is one-handed in precisely the same way that ctrl-[ is one-handed.

Not on a Mac, unfortunately. I mean, I can place my thumb on the left control and pinky on the [ so maybe you’re correct

My point was that if there's a CTRL key on each side of the keyboard, then anything involving a ctrl+something is one-handed-able.

Whether it's good typing practice to use one hand for both the ctrl and the C, say, in a ctrl-c construct - I can't say.

I know that I rarely if ever use the right-hand control or alt keys (on a standard US-mode PC keyboard that has alt and control keys on both sides). I suspect this is poor form.

Re: “I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft” (2004)

#194

Post by hatmatrix »

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #180
robertoandred wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To open unsigned software, right click, click Open, and click Open on the dialog that pops up. That’s for High Sierra and newer releases.

It's still annoying. Apple needs to realize, it's my machine, and I'll take whatever risks I want. Stop trying to police me as though I'm incompetent. I know full well at this point if some random executable is going to be sketchy and it's wholly on me if I run it. It's just a push to go to the app store, while convenient, it most certainly is not for developers who don't want to deal with their BS to maintain a pres…

=Apple needs to realize, it's my machine, and I'll take whatever risks I want

...that's where you and Apple have a difference in opinion

Re: “I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft” (2004)

#195

Post by follower »

Verdex wrote: post #158
Imnimo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes my work-issued Macbook decides that it no longer wants to display an escape key on the touch bar (and there is no physical escape key). People joke about not knowing how to exit vi, but it turns out the game is even harder when your machine takes away your escape key!

I'm curious, with a macbook do the right thing if you plug in a USB keyboard? I'm not suggesting you just use a USB keyboard instead (although, now that I say it, that does seem like a solution). What I'm actually wondering is how much work it would be just to create a single button that's an escape key on a USB stick that implements the USB keyboard protocol (but only ever reports that the escape key was hit).

> What I'm actually wondering is how much work it would be just to create a single button that's an escape key on a USB stick

If you have a suitable Arduino (or compatible) lying around probably not a lot of work: https://www.arduino.cc/reference/en/language/functions/usb/k...

It would depend if "Escape" requires a specific non-standardized scan code or not. (Even if it did you could also try sending the Ctrl-[ variety instead.)

(It's even possible to get away with not using USB-specific hardware, like I did in the "old days": http://code.rancidbacon.com/ProjectLogArduinoUSB :D )

Random piece of keyboard trivia: On Mac OS X (and I assume current variants) each keyboard is a separate "entity" with e.g. separate state which includes caps lock state. This means that the USB "Capslocker" gag USB dongles that randomly toggled Caps Lock state didn't actually affect Macs.)

Re: “I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft” (2004)

#196

Post by rgoulter »

Fnoord wrote: post #151
stavros wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Map Caps Lock to both! Tap is Esc, hold is Ctrl.

I got that working with Karabiner Elements but how do people get this to work on Windows and Linux?

KMonad supports customisations like that. It's cross platform (macOS, Linux, Windows).

Though I use a fancy keyboard with QMK firmware, which allows customising this without needing to change settings on the computer.

Re: “I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft” (2004)

#197

Post by rgoulter »

follower wrote: post #195
Verdex wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, with a macbook do the right thing if you plug in a USB keyboard? I'm not suggesting you just use a USB keyboard instead (although, now that I say it, that does seem like a solution). What I'm actually wondering is how much work it would be just to create a single button that's an escape key on a USB stick that implements the USB keyboard protocol (but only ever reports that the escape key was hit).

> What I'm actually wondering is how much work it would be just to create a single button that's an escape key on a USB stick If you have a suitable Arduino (or compatible) lying around probably not a lot of work: https://www.arduino.cc/reference/en/language/functions/usb/k... It would depend if "Escape" requires a specific non-standardized scan code or not. (Even if it did you could also try sending the Ctrl-[ varie…

If anyone is really looking for a single-key macropad... the Seeeduino Xiao is a small microcontroller development board which would suit the purpose. e.g. https://www.40percent.club/2020/08/wonky.html

Re: “I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft” (2004)

#198

Post by pjmlp »

blackoil wrote: post #177
hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, what I liked about the 90s you basically got MFC and it was basically it, you could create any desktop app and only waited for incremental upgrades. MFC was supported by Borland and Symantec, so basically whatever you choose you could quickly create a Windows GUI app. What I dislike about the current situation is the lack of certainty as to which toolkit I should invest my time in as I'm sure someone at Microso…

Practical reasons why Electron is winning. A universal base framework and language. Choice of popular development framework, UI and other libraries and million of developers.

Electron is winning because people are lazy, really.

I do Web development alongside native, and would never pick Electron unless obliged by customer requirements to act accordingly.

What to just use HTML/CSS/JS instead of the native OS capabilities?

Use Web widgets, PWAs, daemons/services with local browser UI.

No need to install hundreds of Chrome instances, and have them run in parallel.

If you go with daemons/services with local browser UI, you can even use microservices and a distributed cluster for your app, what about that?

Maybe it is worth of an HN blog post.

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