I know laptops have a bit of a different standard, but for real keyboards, IBM perfected keyboard design in 1985 and all deviations from that are a mistake.
I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys
91–100 of 212 posts
Re: I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys
#92Thinkpad laptops thankfully have a BIOS option to revert the behaviour to normal, where F1-F12 perform their nominal functions. I'd probably pay an extra €50 for a laptop that didn't come with a stupid Fn button at all. Might want to throw some more money at a few more keyboard modifications: my bottom row is Fn CTRL Win Alt Space AltGr PrtSc Ctrl; that PrtSc button clearly has no business being there. Arrows & PgUp/…
You need Fn anyway because even 16" now come without a navigation block and even if you have it (asus tm420 though they ditched that too) you have no way to make PrtScr, Break, ScrollLock.
The real atrocity is placing it on the left side when 90% of the most used combos are on the right eg Fn+arrows for paging and home/end.
It could be way better if Fn was on the place of ContextMenu - Thinkpad already used it for the stupid PrtScr and now even more stupid Copilot key.
Re: I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys
#93Cant 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…
> there people that use the caps lock key?
Yes, of course. Because I programmed my Keychron for it to be a regular LShift. Works very good for my hands. But when I'm on the regular keyboard I have a real trouble with typing or entering passwords, but it's manageable.
> Cant remember using a function key
I use it for the volume control when I'm in a fullscreen app or with both hands on the keyboard - but only because my Fn is on the right and volume controls on F10-F12.
Re: I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys
#94The F1-F12 keys have always felt like one of those things where… it’s like, people who enjoy oldschool interfaces seem very attached to. And I love the terminal, so I feel like I ought to have strong opinions in their favor. But the only time I need to use them is… what is it, ctrl-alt-F3 to switch to a console if my window manager has fallen apart. This is a very rare event, so I can’t find any strong feeling here.…
Same on a Mac: I've never used a function key in the last … 15 years or so? Where the author uses Alt-F4, I use ⌘W. I didn't even hate the Touch Bar (but not exactly used it either.)
VSCode binds a lot of basic commands to function keys, so I'm always doing Fn-F12. That seems like a weird choice, and if it really bothered me, I could remap it, but so far I haven't.
Re: I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys
#95I'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…
Aren't layers a form of stateful control?
Sort of.
The downside from the 'state' from Caps Lock is you have to keep track of whether it's active or not.
Whereas with layers, typically a layer will only be active if you're holding down some kind of "activate layer" key.
Re: I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys
#96Speaking 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's not just the ergonomics - in my head I'm moving the cursor (and with it my view) down through the document, not moving the document up. Which is mentally different from a touchscreen, though I expect people who grew up with touchscreens never built that mental association that we're moving the cursor. Fortunately Apple allows be to change it.
For me it's completely different with the same result: I imagine the scroll wheel is on the paper (screen), so my finger going down rolls the wheel and the bottom of the wheel pushes the paper (screen) under it upwards.
For whatever reason this persists to touchpads even though they would seem closer to a touchscreen.
Re: I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys
#97I definitely hate the G-keys on a Logitech G915 more though.
It's a perfectly good full size mechanical keyboard with low travel...and a row of keys on the left hand side which obliterates the typing ergonomics of it.
Meanwhile they stopped making the K740 which is basically the perfect keyboard (which I am now typing on after buying a replacement key - the Cherry Stream is good but man....this still just feels better overall - the key layout is just subtly right).
Meanwhile whoever at Lenovo thought to the put the function modifier key on the left outermost side, rather then Ctrl, has commited a serious crime against ergonomics.
Re: I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys
#98The F1-F12 keys have always felt like one of those things where… it’s like, people who enjoy oldschool interfaces seem very attached to. And I love the terminal, so I feel like I ought to have strong opinions in their favor. But the only time I need to use them is… what is it, ctrl-alt-F3 to switch to a console if my window manager has fallen apart. This is a very rare event, so I can’t find any strong feeling here.…
Alt-F4 is the canonical shortcut for closing a window F2 is the canonical key for renaming F5 is refresh F11 is fullscreen F1 is for help but admittedly I don't use that a lot I can't think of a very frequent, standard use for the other keys. So I can't really disagree with having so many F keys being kinda unnecessary. But I'm happy to have them and they never bothered me.
depends on artillery.. i mean canon:
F5 is for save game
F9 is load :)
Re: I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same on a Mac: I've never used a function key in the last … 15 years or so? Where the author uses Alt-F4, I use ⌘W. I didn't even hate the Touch Bar (but not exactly used it either.)
VSCode binds a lot of basic commands to function keys, so I'm always doing Fn-F12. That seems like a weird choice, and if it really bothered me, I could remap it, but so far I haven't.
VSCode is a Microsoft product (as is Excel, mentioned elsewhere) and Microsoft products work best on Microsoft platforms.
Mac is not a Microsoft platform though.
Re: I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys
#100Speaking 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.
On a Macbook, natural scrolling feels right on the touchpad. The real crime is not having a separate setting for a mouse. I had to use applescript tied to a keybind so I can use natural scrolling on the touchpad and toggle to regular scrolling when using a mouse wheel.
Another recommendation is LinearMouse. It lets you fix pretty much every problem that MacOS inflicts on mouse users: pointer acceleration, scroll behavior, click/button behavior. This and Karabiner make the OS much more usable for me.