Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Vim Clutch – A hardware pedal for improved text editing (2012)

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 171 posts

Re: Vim Clutch – A hardware pedal for improved text editing (2012)

#131

Post by newcup »

tesseract wrote: post #29
samatman wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No joke, a piano style set of three footpedals with Meta, Ctrl, and Hyper, is something I would actually use. Tricky though, because it would have to talk to the keyboard, not the computer.

3 pedals? I think emacs needs a full pipe-organ console.

I've plugged an accordion into emacs. Gives 120 buttons on left hand, 64 on right, plus chording and velocity sensitivity (hit a key harder to get upper case).

But you could easily use a midi pedalboard instead, or even in addition.

Accordion in use: https://twitter.com/ykarikos/status/1038145486618861573

Re: Vim Clutch – A hardware pedal for improved text editing (2012)

#132

Post by emptyparadise »

pindab0ter wrote: post #110
01100011 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider remapping ';' to ':' if you use vim a lot. Something like: " Use ; rather than : for commands nore ; : nore , ;

See, I never understood these tips. If I use Vim a lot I will build muscle memory. If I build the muscle memory with these adjustments I’ll just keep tripping over myself whenever I edit a file on a station without those adjustments. And simply foregoing the shift key isn’t even that much of a time or effort save.

I personally spend a lot more time at my own machine than at anybody else's, so the rare muscle memory fault while deep in SSH bothers me a lot less than uncomfortable defaults.

Re: Vim Clutch – A hardware pedal for improved text editing (2012)

#133

Post by Lio »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #118
susam wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the image post in your comment exaggerates the Emacs input sequence for humorous effect but I got curious and decided to count the actual keystrokes for a real world common use case. Say, we want to replace one string with another, e.g., "foo" with "bar" as it appears in your image post. So assuming that we need simple string replacement, not regex-based replacement, and also assuming that we have vanilla Vim,…

This subthread is now keyboard-based editor golf, :p

Well if you like it you'll love http://www.vimgolf.com/

Re: Vim Clutch – A hardware pedal for improved text editing (2012)

#134

Post by Lio »

pindab0ter wrote: post #110
01100011 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider remapping ';' to ':' if you use vim a lot. Something like: " Use ; rather than : for commands nore ; : nore , ;

See, I never understood these tips. If I use Vim a lot I will build muscle memory. If I build the muscle memory with these adjustments I’ll just keep tripping over myself whenever I edit a file on a station without those adjustments. And simply foregoing the shift key isn’t even that much of a time or effort save.

Totally agree with this.

For me, editing is like using a musical instrument; you want to get to the point where you're not using much conscious thought to do things quickly. How you do that doesn't really mater to much.

Many years ago (10 maybe?) I switched to the Colemak layout to help with an RSI. That messes up the vi home row navigation keys.

For a while I tried remapping jkl but since that's not very portable to other vi-like software on my own machine.

I gave up and just used muscle memory for new locations of those keys. That works surprisingly well for me.

I like Vim but I'm pretty sure that a competent emacs user would have very similar relationship with its keyboard interface.

Re: Vim Clutch – A hardware pedal for improved text editing (2012)

#135

Post by jl6 »

I sometimes wish my workstation had a few more single-purpose hardware controls for system-level settings - a physical slider for volume, status LEDs for critical system services, a zoom dial, a big red magic-sysrq button with a safety cap, some nice solid on-off switches for wifi, networking, background Dropbox syncing...

Re: Vim Clutch – A hardware pedal for improved text editing (2012)

#137

Post by lars512 »

melling wrote: post #111
susam wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding further to my previous comment: What if we really need to do regex, say replace "f.." with "bar"? The input sequences then look like this: On Vim: +; (:) +5 (%) s/f../bar/g (16 key strokes) On Emacs: + +, (M- bar +1 (!) (17 key strokes) Although, the number of key strokes are close to each other for both Vim and Emacs, I am pretty sure most beginners would feel there is a slightly increased cognitive overhead…

When you spend hours in your editor, day after day, you aren’t a beginner for long

That’s unfortunately not my experience from observing other engineers. Many get stuck at a “good enough” level with their tools and never seem to learn the shortcuts which would allow them to code and edit faster.

Re: Vim Clutch – A hardware pedal for improved text editing (2012)

#138

Post by susam »

lone-commenter wrote: post #129
susam wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the image post in your comment exaggerates the Emacs input sequence for humorous effect but I got curious and decided to count the actual keystrokes for a real world common use case. Say, we want to replace one string with another, e.g., "foo" with "bar" as it appears in your image post. So assuming that we need simple string replacement, not regex-based replacement, and also assuming that we have vanilla Vim,…

Except the emacs sequence will get you tendinitis in the long run, won't it?

It depends on the usage, I guess. I have been using Emacs with its stock key-bindings for more than 10 years. I don't even remap my Caps Lock to behave like Ctrl like many others do. Yet I have never felt any issues due to repetitive strain yet. I do touch-type though which means I use the left Ctrl/Alt/Shift key while typing a key on the right side of the keyboard and I use the right Ctrl/Alt/Shift for typing a key on the left side of the keyboard. Maybe that distributes the repetitive strain evenly to both hands.

In the Emacs world, while remapping Caps Lock to Ctrl helps in reducing strain for many people, it also causes strain for some people. Every time, this discussion comes up in the Freenode #emacs channel, I have always noticed someone mentioning that remapping Caps Lock to behave like Ctrl caused them RSI.

Surprisingly, I did suffer from pain due to repetitive strain under the base of my forefinger once which seemed to be linked to overuse of mouse. The repetitive clicking, dragging and dropping in the Windows world nearly 10 years ago had taken a toll on my right hand forefinger. Taking inspiration from how we use keyboard with both hands, I then taught myself to use mouse with both hands (alternating between left hand and right hand every hour or so) and the pain gradually disappeared.

Re: Vim Clutch – A hardware pedal for improved text editing (2012)

#139

Post by Lio »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #128
visviva wrote: post #70

Thank you for posting this and giving me a reason to reread my all time favorite greentext: https://i.imgur.com/WLzeQMj.png

Hence the EMACS name: Escape Meta Alt Control Shift .

When I w' lad everyone knew it stood for Eight Megs And Constantly Swapping. ;)

I'm pretty sure though that Emacs is actually short for Editor MACroS.

A nod to the fact that Emacs is really an extensible Lisp system rather than just an editor or IDE.

Re: Vim Clutch – A hardware pedal for improved text editing (2012)

#140

Post by steerablesafe »

susam wrote: post #107
susam wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the image post in your comment exaggerates the Emacs input sequence for humorous effect but I got curious and decided to count the actual keystrokes for a real world common use case. Say, we want to replace one string with another, e.g., "foo" with "bar" as it appears in your image post. So assuming that we need simple string replacement, not regex-based replacement, and also assuming that we have vanilla Vim,…

Adding further to my previous comment: What if we really need to do regex, say replace "f.." with "bar"? The input sequences then look like this: On Vim: +; (:) +5 (%) s/f../bar/g (16 key strokes) On Emacs: + +, (M- bar +1 (!) (17 key strokes) Although, the number of key strokes are close to each other for both Vim and Emacs, I am pretty sure most beginners would feel there is a slightly increased cognitive overhead…

> Ctrl+Alt+Shift+5

My fingers just broke reading that. Having said that I don't have a right alt key, as it's altgr . I suppose it's advisable to have two alt keys to use emacs.

Post reply on HN