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Vim clutch

github.com

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Re: Vim clutch

#21

Post by grayrest »

> Has anyone thought of this before?

The 1992 paper "The Prevention of Mode Errors Through Sensory Feedback" [1] uses this exact mechanism.

[1] http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/asellen/public...

I've argued for years that vim is one of the few good examples of modal design since it allows for quick entry of the command grammar without modifiers and the command grammar is an excellent fit for the domain. Whenever I bring this up with an interaction designer, I'm told there is no such thing as a good mode. The citation chain has always wound up at this paper and while I generally agree with the paper's conclusion, I'm frustrated that the editor is used in the most inspid way possible to generate mode errors (at the rate of 3-6 in 10 minutes of editing...). The problem given in the paper is solved by `:%s/\\zs/errorerror/g` and I could probably do it a half dozen other ways.

Every time I read the paper I tell myself I should make/acquire a pedal and try it out but I've always been too lazy.

Re: Vim clutch

#22

Post by mpapi »

Glad to see other people experimenting with this kind of setup. I've known a few people to use one of these [1] for Emacs (for Ctrl & Meta), and I finally picked one up a while back.

My setup has one pedal bound to Escape for Vim, and the other two switchable using F keys and some xbindkeys magic. By default, they're "switch WM workspace" (sort of like Alt-Tab) and "switch window focus within a workspace" in Awesome WM, but I can change them to e.g. j and k for reading my email, or have them run various scripts, or whatever.

It's a lot of fun to use, but I haven't been on it much lately having switched to a standing desk and I haven't yet figured out a way to make the two play together nicely. And, as always, I've been meaning to throw the scripts & dotfiles on GitHub, but I'm a slacker.

[1] http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/fs-savant-elite.htm

Re: Vim clutch

#24

Post by mmahemoff »

If OP puts it on Kickstarter (no pun intended), I'll be your first pledge. Would really want pedal-up event too and customisable for other apps (ie you can switch the key mapping).

If pedal-up worked, it would be neat to be inserting only while the pedal is depressed.

Re: Vim clutch

#25

Post by samet »

Congrats. I've been thinking for a while to make a clutch for switching hosts file. (I need to switch from testing to production environments for a while) But your idea is much better.

Re: Vim clutch

#26

Post by CrazedGeek »

Another option would be to break apart a wired Rock Band drum kit so it's just the center controller and the drum pad the USB cable comes out of, connect that to a computer and use Joy2Key (or an equivalent) to map the bass pedal to Esc/i. Not nearly as nice, mind you, but if you're sitting on a half-broken kit like I am, it is cheaper.

Re: Vim clutch

#28

Post by berkut »

methodin wrote: post #17
dfischer wrote: post #10

I don't understand this. I can't see how this is faster than simply hitting `i`.

Because you don't have to hit escape or jj to exit out. You just let your foot off the pedal. No chance of accidentally being in edit mode or not.

You can use Ctrl + [ instead which is easier...

Re: Vim clutch

#30

Post by JonnieCache »

I've been planning to stick an MSP430 inside an old guitar pedal unit for window switching duties. The pedal I have has four switches, I was thinking one for the editor, one for the terminal, one for the browser and one perhaps for firebug or something.

However, maybe these car style pedals would be more ergonomically suited than the little metal studs of guitar pedals, which are designed to be aggressively stamped on.

Thoughts?

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