41–50 of 56 posts
On the hardware side, I don't think I've ever seen anything surpassing http://mykeyboard.co.uk/microswitch/ in sheer dedication to the goal of a truly efficient and comfortable/safe keyboard. I wish I had the space, money and time to attempt something similar (also not a laptop as a primary machine, but that's another matter entirely)
I have the happy hacking keyboard professional 2. It's fantastic. The reason the [fn] key is positioned off, and it's hard to get at the arrow keys, is because the HHKB was specifically designed to make it hard to use the arrow keys, as they are a curse. (stay on Home Row). There are alternatives, hjkl for vim and or CONTROL-... for emacs dudes and dudettes.
Any suggestions for a good alternative?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Definitely. I'd just be happy if you could get a mechanical keyboard that uses the layout that MS uses for its ergonomic keyboards, with the split keys and the height gently swelling in the center where the split is. (Look at the Natural Keyboard 4000 to see what I'm talking about: http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/en-us/p/natural-ergonomic-... ) Once you get used to typing on a keyboard that uses this layout, going…
The action on the Natural 4000 is so stiff that I know several people who experienced severe bouts of RSI within hours to days of getting one. Check out Kinesis: great layout, and great switches. One or the other just isn't enough for many.
The inconsistency is a shame, because as a keyboard I really rate it. Good shape, comfy palm rests, standard layout, unintrusive media keys, and the stupid (but seemingly inevitable) F-Lock feature starts out disabled.
The action is not quite as nice as the previous Natural Pro model, but it's a lot quieter...
It is a shame most of the really good keyboards require so much power that it precludes Bluetooth or mobile usage. I'd love to have a HHKB if it worked wirelessly with both my laptop and tablet. http://beastwith.in/2012/05/17/usiung-power-hungry-tactile-k...
For a second I was excited to see a really compact and portable keyboard - but I want/need a wireless one. A shame..
Have anyone implemented any of this on Windows, perhaps with Autohotkey? Is it possible?
Anyway, just use the modifiers to indicate left or right Shift specifically. For example, assuming QWERTY:
+p::Send pCapslock is left control; left control is greek (gets the two sets of alternative characters listed in the file). task button is compose.
I have the happy hacking keyboard professional 2. It's fantastic. The reason the [fn] key is positioned off, and it's hard to get at the arrow keys, is because the HHKB was specifically designed to make it hard to use the arrow keys, as they are a curse. (stay on Home Row). There are alternatives, hjkl for vim and or CONTROL-... for emacs dudes and dudettes.
And for those of you without lots of money, the low-priced HHKB-lite models are also very nice (they have the same great layout and design, but more pedestrian components).
[I have two HHKB-lites, one from the '90s, another bought a few years ago (the former still working flawlessly).
In the landscape of computing, where most things seem obsolete overnight, it's also rather amazing that the HHKB has managed to stay in production for so long ... although it's clearly a bit of a niche product, it's been around in mostly the same form factor since the mid-90s! They're clearly doing something right!]
Can anyone recommend a more hacker-friendly split-in-two keyboard along the lines of those discussed in the article?
I love the shift click to get brackets trick, any idea on how to get it on vim?
You mean pressing shift to get parens? I doubt it's possible withing Vim. Certainly not within a terminal Vim (the terminal emulator almost certainly wouldn't pass a bare shift through to Vim at all). I'm pretty sure you have to do it at the OS level like this.
This is from memory, so bear with me if its not perfect, but I setup xmodmap with
keysym 50 = Shift_L parenleft Shift_L keysym 62 = Shift_R parenright Shift_R
Xmodmap allows you to define multiple symbols for a key. The first symbol is what you get with no modifiers; the second is with shift; the third is with Mode_switch (or AltGr, depending) and the fourth is with Shift and AltGr. There's sometimes although a 5-8, but that varies by platform and I haven't done enough experiments to really nail down what those are for linux these days, OR if those are tied to mod1/mod2/etc. instead of shift/altgr/mode_switch or specific modifiers like that.
Anyway, all the keysyms always defined the first three anyway (no modifiers, shift, and Mode_switch) and some defined the fourth. I don't have or use a Mode_switch key (yet) but I may try that out as a 'Greek' key or such, but since 90% of the time I'm programming I'm not sure if I'd ever use it.
My lines above defines parenleft as the symbol to send if key 50 (the left shift key) is pressed while the shift modifier is active. So, I can use the right shift to turn on the shift modifier, and then left shift turns into a left parenthesis key. Similarily, I can use the left shift key to turn the right shift into a right parenthesis.
So, to type a pair of parenthesis back to back "()" I press right shift, press left shift, release right shift, and tap right shift. It's certainly more awkward than what Steve was able to setup, but hey, its where I've got so far.
It is a shame most of the really good keyboards require so much power that it precludes Bluetooth or mobile usage. I'd love to have a HHKB if it worked wirelessly with both my laptop and tablet. http://beastwith.in/2012/05/17/usiung-power-hungry-tactile-k...