Seems rather pointless. If a command is useful, you'll get muscle memory from actually using it.
Build muscle memory with your favorite editor
81–90 of 122 posts
Re: Build muscle memory with your favorite editor
#82If you want better shortcut muscle memory, just unplug your mouse for a couple days. Do this once a year or so. You can thank me later.
No need to be so drastic! - just put it on the other side of your desk.
I've done this a few times when I've needed the space for taking notes. I'm now pretty good at mousing with either hand - but the key part is not making mousing more annoying, like it was the first time I swapped, but rather just making you realise when you're reaching for it. That gives you a chance to consciously think about what you're about to do. And then you have a chance to decide that you're going to figure out how to do it with the keyboard.
Re: Build muscle memory with your favorite editor
#83This is neat and promising. I agree with other commenters that the weakness is in telling the user what to do in the form of text like "Move cursor to beginning of line". Routing the muscle signals through text processing in the brain is slow and isn't what goes on when you actually use an editor. i.e., there's no text in a marquee in one's head telling one what one needs to do next. Since keyboard shortcuts are all…
have you seen vim-adventures.com ? it's only for vim, but it might be what you are looking for
I took a look and yes, I didn't have to think much about what to do, and nearly all my effort was spent actually toying with h-j-k-l. I don't know vim at all so I'm good for a newbie test there.
Edit: I just realized what bothered me, though: it doesn't look anything like vim. So there's a context loss, which feels like it might degrade the value of the learning.
Re: Build muscle memory with your favorite editor
#84This is a fun project. But I'm not sure about the 5 bucks. Seems like it's begging to be rich too soon. This app is just revealing information you already have on a cheat-sheet.
Re: Build muscle memory with your favorite editor
#85Neat. But I have Emacs configured to use the command key as Meta, so this needs to be configurable in the drills.
I've also used too many terminals that didn't pass through Meta that I often use Escape instead. That didn't work.
Re: Build muscle memory with your favorite editor
#86This really didn't work for me. I found needing to parse the command ("Move backward a word") broke the memory that I have built up over 15 years of using Emacs. Instead of naturally moving backwards with a flick of the fingers, I had to concentrate on where each finger was and on the key I was pressing. I think the goal of this is great, but as it stands, I'm not convinced it is going to help. Given it aborted my na…
It could show a typo where it wants you to move, like:
Hood news, everyone!_ [Ctrl-A]
Re: Build muscle memory with your favorite editor
#87This is neat and promising. I agree with other commenters that the weakness is in telling the user what to do in the form of text like "Move cursor to beginning of line". Routing the muscle signals through text processing in the brain is slow and isn't what goes on when you actually use an editor. i.e., there's no text in a marquee in one's head telling one what one needs to do next. Since keyboard shortcuts are all…
See http://vimgolf.com/ One for Emacs would be fun
It would be, which is why Tim Visher has been doing VimGolf in Emacs for a while. :)
Re: Build muscle memory with your favorite editor
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Step 2: undefine the arrow keys.
In vim you can do that by putting these lines into ~/.vimrc: map map map map imap imap imap imap This will disable the arrow keys in normal and insert mode.
I'm not trying to be difficult here, just genuinely curious: why disable the arrow keys? Is it simply the speed boost you get from using hjkl on the home row vs moving your hand to the arrows?
I use Colemak, so hjkl is very counter-intuitive for me, whereas the arrow keys make sense and aren't /that/ far away.
EDIT: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3684515 has some good explanations. So does anyone have suggestions for non-QWERTY users? remap the keys that are in the HJKL space, leading to a cascade of keys moved around? Deal with the counter-intuitiveness of actually using HJKL?
Re: Build muscle memory with your favorite editor
#89This really didn't work for me. I found needing to parse the command ("Move backward a word") broke the memory that I have built up over 15 years of using Emacs. Instead of naturally moving backwards with a flick of the fingers, I had to concentrate on where each finger was and on the key I was pressing. I think the goal of this is great, but as it stands, I'm not convinced it is going to help. Given it aborted my na…
I agree. When I use vim, I just know the key to press to move around. I don't think "move to the next word -> w". I know I want to move the cursor and my fingers know where to be but not really what key I am pressing.
Re: Build muscle memory with your favorite editor
#90Neat.. kinda fun.
One thing is you might want to allow people to configure the META key. I have Emacs set up so that the Command key is META, so all my muscle memory is ruined when trying to run through the drills.
But I like the concept and might use it to increase my shortcut kung-fu.