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Moving the Ctrl Key

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Re: Moving the Ctrl Key

#61

Post by rgoulter »

CmdrKrool wrote: post #37
pwiecz wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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:…

> Perhaps the Enter key could be in the middle, ... Yes, such keyboards exist.

As well as enter/backspace/delete, it's also useful to have esc/tab near spacebar. https://github.com/manna-harbour/miryoku

e.g. A popular off-the-shelf keyboard which supports this layout https://www.zsa.io/moonlander/

> ...below the space bar

Well. Then you'd need to move your hands, or stretch your fingers a bit. It's better to have a smaller spacebar key, to allow for extra keys.

Re: Moving the Ctrl Key

#62

Post by rgoulter »

The most comfortable for typing is "home row modifiers".

With tap-hold functionality, the key behaves the same when tapped, but as the modifier key when held.

So, you can put Shift/Ctrl/Gui/Alt as tap-hold underneath asdf and jkl; on the home row.

This can be achieved on a fancy keyboard, or with cross-platform software like kmonad.

Re: Moving the Ctrl Key

#63

Post by ahmedalsudani »

Ferret7446 wrote: post #39
ahmedalsudani wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm describing my experience. Feel free to live according to yours if it differs.

Also, in jest: citation needed on the RMS claim. We can all play that game ad absurdium :)

Re: Moving the Ctrl Key

#64

Post by fsckboy »

BeetleB wrote: 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…

> In fact, insisting on using the pinky is a sign you are also insisting on using one hand to enter the key combination

no it's not. insisting on using the pinky is an attempt to keep the rest of your touch-typing fingers remaining in place on the home row, which is the main reason using opposite hand shift keys is appealing in the first place.

If you're going to take your fingers off the home row, sure, use opposing index fingers for everything.

Re: Moving the Ctrl Key

#65

Post by rhaway84773 »

chillfox wrote: post #46
rhaway84773 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way to hit the ctrl key ergonomically with either hand is by lifting your hand from the home row. But that makes touch typing ridiculously hard. It is extremely easy to fail to return your hand correctly to the home row and now everything you type will be off.

There are small bumps on the F and J keys so that you can feel when you are correctly on the home row.

Yes, but then you need to bring your hands back to the correct position, and you’re lifting it off the keyboard. Which means you will likely be fumbling till you feel the bumps correctly.

With Vim and Caps Lock mapped to Ctrl & Esc I never have to completely leave the home row.

Re: Moving the Ctrl Key

#66

Post by esrh »

wrs wrote: 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.

i did this on the software side for the longest time, before I DIY'd a keyboard and got this feature hardware-side using q/tmk: https://qmk.fm/. Some prebuilt keyboards also support QMK, like the DROP CTRL.

I also use dvorak, and the keyboard setup every time i used different keyboard was getting a bit annoying.

Re: Moving the Ctrl Key

#67

Post by Jensson »

ajross wrote: post #59
BeetleB wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's the awkward contortion your hand has to make to hit the key, pinky or otherwise. Then don't contort. As I mentioned in another comment, insisting on keeping your fingers on the home keys is a bad idea. You should never bend the wrist while typing. When I want to hit the Ctrl key, I move my whole arm down and to the left so that my pinky (or any other finger) is over the Ctrl key. Moving your whole arm is what…

"Preventing RSI" isn't the reasoning behind where to put Ctrl, though. People don't like it in the corner because it's (much) faster and less error-prone to put it next to A. Moving your whole arm is going in entirely the wrong direction. FWIW: if you are RSI prone, you to be minimizing time spent on a keyboard in the first place, and heavy editor use is probably just a bad idea in general.

I touch type with my pinkies always on the control keys, not sure why you would have it any other way as a programmer. That might be suboptimal for typing text, but programming has so many special characters, and interacting with editors, browsers and such is usually better done with mouse and shortcut setup, so pinky on ctrl makes switching to mouse seamless.

And before you say I'd be faster with a typical home row setup, I program fast enough to compete with the best in the world in competitions, editor and keyboard enthusiasts talks a lot but they don't really deliver that extra speed in practice. They optimise for one use case and ignore the others, so they don't get faster overall.

Re: Moving the Ctrl Key

#68

Post by ziml77 »

patrec wrote: post #40
spapas82 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)?

I don't know how people put escape there. For me it's a common key to accidentally press. I don't want to accidentally be pressing escape and closing out of dialogs and whatnot. On my desktop keyboard I've actually mapped the caps lock key to F13, which I only ever use for activating push-to-talk since it's easy enough to reach and an accidental tap doesn't really matter since it would only transmit for a fraction of a second.

Re: Moving the Ctrl Key

#69

Post by nine_k »

rgoulter wrote: post #62

The most comfortable for typing is "home row modifiers". With tap-hold functionality, the key behaves the same when tapped, but as the modifier key when held. So, you can put Shift/Ctrl/Gui/Alt as tap-hold underneath asdf and jkl; on the home row. This can be achieved on a fancy keyboard, or with cross-platform software like kmonad.

I wish more people knew about KMonad. It allows you to have many advantages of "fancy keyboards" on regular keyboards, most importantly, on laptops.

Re: Moving the Ctrl Key

#70

Post by nine_k »

convolvatron wrote: post #18
BeetleB wrote: 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…

or, if you're really that much a dedicated emacs user, get a split keyboard with modifiers on the thumb. as you suggest, you can also double-map modifiers, so that C-M-x is just two thumbs and a finger. you can go really fast this way.

Modifiers on the home row are easier.

Thumbs are good for layer switching, keys like Tab and Enter, etc, which are important but not very-very frequent.

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