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Moving the Ctrl Key

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31–40 of 121 posts

Re: Moving the Ctrl Key

#32
post #17

I've had a lot of ergo issues from typing, and I'm always disappointed that Emacs users focus on remapping the Caps Lock key while ignoring the advice most ergonomists give: There are two Alt and Ctrl keys on the keyboard. Use both, and use both halves of the keyboard If you're doing a combination like Ctrl F, use the right control key. If you're doing Ctrl-l, use the left control key. In general, when using these mo…

The MacBook doesn't have ctrl on the right! But I've done my best to follow this advice by making right-opt into ctrl and right-cmd into meta.

Re: Moving the Ctrl Key

#33
I never use Caps Lock. I'd move it to the area of the Pause/Break/Scroll-lock/SysReq keys if I were a keyboard designer (I wouldn't mind if these keys were removed even).

However, give me some easily accessible Copy/Paste and Undo/Redo buttons.

Re: Moving the Ctrl Key

#34
post #17

I've had a lot of ergo issues from typing, and I'm always disappointed that Emacs users focus on remapping the Caps Lock key while ignoring the advice most ergonomists give: There are two Alt and Ctrl keys on the keyboard. Use both, and use both halves of the keyboard If you're doing a combination like Ctrl F, use the right control key. If you're doing Ctrl-l, use the left control key. In general, when using these mo…

I don't think focusing on hitting Ctrl on one side or the other is the problem -- it's the awkward contortion your hand has to make to hit the key, pinky or otherwise. It's in the same bad position on either side on a standard IBM PC 101 and later keyboard layouts. You'll just end up hurting both your hands if you alternate.

Caps Lock as Ctrl will serve most Emacs users for quite a long time, and it's traditionally where the key was before IBM in their infinite wisdom moved it in 1986.

Re: Moving the Ctrl Key

#35
post #34
post #17

I've had a lot of ergo issues from typing, and I'm always disappointed that Emacs users focus on remapping the Caps Lock key while ignoring the advice most ergonomists give: There are two Alt and Ctrl keys on the keyboard. Use both, and use both halves of the keyboard If you're doing a combination like Ctrl F, use the right control key. If you're doing Ctrl-l, use the left control key. In general, when using these mo…

I don't think focusing on hitting Ctrl on one side or the other is the problem -- it's the awkward contortion your hand has to make to hit the key, pinky or otherwise. It's in the same bad position on either side on a standard IBM PC 101 and later keyboard layouts. You'll just end up hurting both your hands if you alternate. Caps Lock as Ctrl will serve most Emacs users for quite a long time, and it's traditionally w…

OP already said that you dont have to use the pinky to hit the keys. I find the palm of my hand is nice for the right control key and the last knuckle of my pinky is nice for the left one (respectively on the appropriate hands). And my hands aren’t ruined yet.

Re: Moving the Ctrl Key

#36
post #17

I've had a lot of ergo issues from typing, and I'm always disappointed that Emacs users focus on remapping the Caps Lock key while ignoring the advice most ergonomists give: There are two Alt and Ctrl keys on the keyboard. Use both, and use both halves of the keyboard If you're doing a combination like Ctrl F, use the right control key. If you're doing Ctrl-l, use the left control key. In general, when using these mo…

Yep. Proper touch typing, in other words.

Re: Moving the Ctrl Key

#37
post #26
post #17

I've had a lot of ergo issues from typing, and I'm always disappointed that Emacs users focus on remapping the Caps Lock key while ignoring the advice most ergonomists give: There are two Alt and Ctrl keys on the keyboard. Use both, and use both halves of the keyboard If you're doing a combination like Ctrl F, use the right control key. If you're doing Ctrl-l, use the left control key. In general, when using these mo…

Unfortunately both Alts are not equivalent. The right one, the AltGr is uaef in many languages to type letters with diacritics. E.g. in Polish AltGr+Z is Ż, while AltGr+X is Ź. Still using both Ctrls itself helps a lot, and one may have a right Windows to remap as Meta.

It might be good if keyboards were more symmetrical in general. Perhaps the Enter key could be in the middle, below the space bar, instead of on the right which might come from a vestigial bias towards left-to-right languages.

This is the closest thing I found just now by googling, though by similarly 'directional' reasoning I think Del and Backspace don't belong in the central column and should be on opposite sides: https://www.keyboardco.com/keyboard/truly-ergonomic-227-mech...

Re: Moving the Ctrl Key

#38
post #9

Tip for vi users on Mac: get Karabiner-Elements and use the “complex modifier” that makes the Caps Lock key into ESC when you just press it, but Control when you use it with another key.

This is the best piece of advice there is. I use Emacs with vim bindings. I also have a Moonlander and I absolutely love it. I've got my QMK set up so that the key just below my left thumb (I press space with my right hand, so left is best for this—you might switch it depending on how you hit the space bar) is ESC on tap and Control on hold. This is the single-biggest improvement to ergonomics from a software side. S…

Massive overstatement but okay. Hitting the escape key isn’t that much of a chore.

Re: Moving the Ctrl Key

#39
post #17

I've had a lot of ergo issues from typing, and I'm always disappointed that Emacs users focus on remapping the Caps Lock key while ignoring the advice most ergonomists give: There are two Alt and Ctrl keys on the keyboard. Use both, and use both halves of the keyboard If you're doing a combination like Ctrl F, use the right control key. If you're doing Ctrl-l, use the left control key. In general, when using these mo…

Emacs is a great platform, but the default key mappings make it an RSI machine. If I recommend Emacs to anybody today, the first thing I would tell them is to: - enable evil mode and prefer its interface to vanilla Emacs - install doom-emacs and learn to love the leader key instead of the C-[...] combinations And of course what you said about moving your whole hand and using both hands still applies, including when y…

> the default key mappings make it an RSI machine.

Citation needed. Even the poster child for that rumor, RMS, fixed his problem by switching to a better keyboard.

Re: Moving the Ctrl Key

#40
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. And you can do the same thing with AutoHotKey on Windows and xcape or interception-tools on linux. Interception-tools has the big advantage that it doesn't just work under X (but also the console and wayland).

For windows i recommend uncap https://github.com/susam/uncap

Does this allow overloading capslocks to both control (as modifier) and esc (when pressed in isolation)?
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