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I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys

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Re: I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys

#131

Post by chuckadams »

zapzupnz wrote: post #25
CarVac wrote: post #8

Speaking 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…

What I did when I introduced my very non-technical partner to a mac was leave it at "natural" scrolling, show her the two-finger scroll gesture, let her try it out, then I turned off natural scrolling and asked her which she liked better. She picked the latter hands down. I knew there's a reason I'm with her :)

It's totally a matter of personal taste, both are objectively right depending on what one thinks the thing being manipulated is.

Re: I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys

#132

Post by SoftTalker »

acheron wrote: post #91

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.

Are you talking about the dual rows of 12 function keys across the top, as in the old mainframe 3270 terminals?

Or the "Model F" keyboard with the two vertical rows of 5 keys on the left edge of the keyboard?

For me, full-size function keys are the minimum. Granted that real-estate is at a premium on laptops but this isn't an impossible ask IMO.

Re: I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys

#133

Post by stronglikedan »

zapzupnz wrote: post #25
CarVac wrote: post #8

Speaking 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…

> It makes sense on a trackpad too

No, it doesn't. Trackpads always worked fine until "they" reversed the motion. Now it's always a guessing game for the initial scroll. It's terrible, unintuitive, and doesn't make sense. "Natural" is unnatural.

Re: I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys

#135

Post by stronglikedan »

elric wrote: post #18

Thinkpad 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/…

My Dell has it too, thank goodness.

Re: I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys

#136

Post by herpdyderp »

CarVac wrote: post #8

Speaking 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.

I go out of my way to enable "natural scrolling" on every device I use (it is possible on Windows!) because I've never been able to stand the opposite.

Re: I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys

#137

Post by projektfu »

bee_rider wrote: post #85
projektfu wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess you never use Excel, or never learned to use it effectively.

Your guess is right. My patience for spreadsheets runs out (and I switch to Python or something) before I hit a problem complex enough that effectiveness matters.

No shade! But it's still amazingly effective to know to use F2, F4, F11, F12, etc. Works in LibreOffice as well. F2 to switch to cell edit mode is very useful.

Re: I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys

#138

Post by mtVessel »

jonhohle wrote: post #130
CarVac wrote: post #8

Speaking 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.

Apple, to my knowledge, never sold a mouse with a wheel. Their first mouse with scrolling was the Mighty Mouse, which used a small trackball to simulate a touch surface. It was spring mounted and would fall flush when scrolling oven a sensation similar to the Magic Mouse (this is my favortite mouse and the one I still use today). The Magic Mouse extended on this idea by replacing the ball with a multitouch trackpad.…

All mice supported scrolling. In the before times, you use the mouse to drag the scroll thumb, which was located on the scrollbar. And you'd drag it down to see information further "down" in the document.

Re: I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys

#139

Post by jaywcarman »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #42
kanemcgrath wrote: post #13

One of my favorite things about my custom mechanical keyboard, is being able to remap the entire key set in the firmware with VIA. I have fn+arrow keys for media, fn+space for play/pause fn+end for calculator, and a bunch of random others. It is so useful I could never get another keyboard that doesn’t have a similar functionality.

> It is so useful I could never get another keyboard that doesn’t have a similar functionality. I do it at the software level (Linux / Xorg): complete remapping, with an "hyper" key modifier etc. The reason I do it at the software level is that you can pry my Topre switches from my cold dead hands and the HHKB Pro JP I'm using doesn't have, by default, a programmable controller. Now I know some people mod their Topre…

I put a Hasu controller[1] in my Leopold F660C (Topre switches) and couldn't be happier. Though it voids the warranty, installation was very easy and it allows total control of the keymap via TMK. Looks like there are similar controllers by Hasu for HHKB[2]. If you can manage to order one I highly recommend it!

[1]: https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=88720.0

[2]: https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=71517.0

Re: I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys

#140

Post by elric »

justsomehnguy wrote: post #92
elric wrote: post #18

Thinkpad 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 th…

I wouldn't buy a laptop that requires the use of Fn for any key I commonly use. I don't particularly care about PrtScr, Break or ScrollLock. Can't remember the last time I used either of those. But Home/End/PgUp/PgDown are requirements.
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