Cant remember using a function key.. but i believe there are programs that do.
More curious.. are there people that use the caps lock key? Its great real-estate…
I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys
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Re: I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys
#22Speaking of "natural scrolling" it is horrible because most scrolling is downward and "natural" is an ergonomically inferior pushing action instead of pulling. It's only natural on the actual display itself. Anothe affront to nature by Apple, along with killing the headphone jack.
Reasonable-sounding arguments always come up in these debates, but in reality it all comes down to what you’re used to.
Disabling natural scrolling used to be the first thing I did on a new system. Until I once was too lazy to do it, got used to it, and now I can’t imagine ever going back.
Re: I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys
#23The article doesn't even touch on the fact that on these types of keyboards, the F-keys often have bastardized keycaps rather than the regular profile. For example on the Microsoft keyboard example, they're much smaller and probably have crappier travel.
The fundamental problems here are the product design pushes to make everything smaller and also to add gimmicky features that seem like they'd be useful but with the constraints just end up taking something else away - note that the examples of good keyboards are made from standard full size keycaps. The rise of bespoke keyboard designers that using off the shelf switches/keycaps is a constraint that pushes away the other two trends.
I'd think you can get mechanical keyboards with reasonable wireless functionality these days. If the range isn't long enough, run an active USB extension cord around the room and put the receiver under your couch. Laptops are of course the age-old space where keyboards are scrutinized to death.
Re: I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys
#24I've switched to programmable ergo keyboards where there's a whole slew of options ( https://precondition.github.io/home-row-mods just covers home row mods) I've always hated stateful control. Always ripped out caps lock key from my boards (or later figured out remapping), same for insert mode That's carried over, even with options like one shot mods, & cutting down to under 40 keys (& playing with 28, yesterday rece…
You sound like you would prefer Emacs over Vim.
Re: I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys
#25Speaking of "natural scrolling" it is horrible because most scrolling is downward and "natural" is an ergonomically inferior pushing action instead of pulling. It's only natural on the actual display itself. Anothe affront to nature by Apple, along with killing the headphone jack.
It makes sense on a trackpad too which is what the majority of sold Macs come with. You’re “pushing” the document, not moving the scroll bars. Seems perfectly natural to me. My fingers move up, the document moves up; just like what would happen to a piece of paper being slid up a table.
Yes, it’s less direct than touching the screen, but it makes more sense for the model of UI they’ve been going for over the last 20 years where the content of the window is more meaningful than the window itself, which is to say worrying about where the scroll bars are rather than what part of the document you’re looking at is what’s not natural.
Re: I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys
#26I have a bin full of pristine keyboards that never see the light of day because of Fn, arrows, Home, and/or End placement. I used to work on 3 different laptops, so I kind of got used to thinking about every stroke using those keys, but I never want to go back there, it's so mentally taxing.
I find the "wrong" FN keyboards annoying like OP, but the Home/End to Pgup/Dn grouping of keys is what really makes or breaks a great keyboard layout for me.
Re: I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys
#27I hate the missing home/end/pgup/pgdn keys more (which is the case on basically all laptops, and you obviously can't just buy a different keyboard for a laptop).
Fn down and up arrows only good fn.
Re: I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys
#28[flagged]
cringe
Re: I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys
#29> It was nice that they gave dedicated keys to volume control/toggling muting. I know it's not an option for certain keyboards (and laptop keyboards) but I appreciated not having to use Fn keys and use physical volume dials like Das Keyboard 4. https://www.daskeyboard.com/daskeyboard-4-professional
The Das keyboard commits the sin of having a sleep button (why is it even on the keyboard??) right next to the media controls. I've accidentally hit that multiple times when trying to change my music.
Re: I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys
#30> I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys (danq.me) > 11 points by speckx 13 minutes ago | flag | hide | 1 comment this is currently #1 on HN gaining 11 points in 13 mins. never seen this before.
I'm pretty sure I'm the first that upvoted it, when it was #2 on the "new" page, like 3 minutes ago. I was very surprised to see it here when I went back to the main page. I'm sure the topic hits a lot of nerves :)
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