Function keys productivity trick • Hacker News Board

Re: Function keys productivity trick

#21

Post by marmetio » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 2:48 PM UTC

indymike wrote: post #19

hbn wrote: post #9

Can people hit their function keys without looking at the keyboard? Sure, hitting F5 to go to your terminal is less keystrokes than e.g. Cmd+tab+tab, but I can't hit anything in the function row without glancing down at my keyboard. And I put a lot of value in looking at my keyboard as little as possible

The function keys can be operated by touch if you use them regularly. Source: Former WordPerfect user. And WordPerfect used function keys. A lot.

Same with LTspice. Works better if you have a keyboard where the function keys are physically separated into groups.

Re: Function keys productivity trick

#22

Post by Springtime » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 2:52 PM UTC

awelxtr wrote: post #2

Windows users can do this by pressing Win+digit with open apps or apps you have pinned on the task bar. Linux Mint, as with many other windows shortcuts, has this also

It's superb for toggling pinned programs moment-to-moment, without needing to pay attention to UIs.

On smaller-than-regular keyboards, such as 60% size, function keys already require one extra key held to activate (Fn+, an upside is being closer to reach while on the home row), so they're already both equivalent in keypresses for such users.

Re: Function keys productivity trick

#23

Post by csdvrx » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 2:52 PM UTC

No. My function keys are used for things I do more often, like change color profiles, toggle a single app into dark mode, etc.

My favorite trick is not the function keys but other "useless" keys: like Caps is remapped to be Esc (when released before another key is pressed) or Control (when used in conjunction with another key: act as a modifier), my 2 shifts and 2 alt do their normal modifier function (when used in conjunction with another key) but when used by themselves act as PageUp/PageDown Home/End

Going up 2 pages up in the browser? Shift Shift. Top of the page? Alt. Bottom? The other Alt.

For the Control keys, as I don't need that many I've experimented with a few remapping, but BackSpace/Delete are very handy.

Going to the previous page in the browser? Alt+Control.

Re: Function keys productivity trick

#24

Post by bvrmn » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 2:52 PM UTC

hprotagonist wrote: post #6

~/.config/i3/config: # emacsclient set $em_daemon ~/.local/bin/em # make a quick launcher for specific things I do all the time bindsym $mod+o mode "spotlight" mode "spotlight" { ## specific files in a new emacs buffer # dired in home bindsym d exec $em_daemon ~/; mode "default" # ibuffer bindsym e exec $em_daemon --eval "(ibuffer)"; mode "default" # # guaranteed new scratch buffer bindsym s exec $em_daemon --eval '(…

This. It makes more sense to bind apps to homerow keys with some chain or modificator to "snipe" often-used applications instead of F-keys.

Re: Function keys productivity trick

#25

Post by hbn » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 2:53 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #16

chii wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why the function keys are seperated into groups of 3, and you can feel which it is by feeling the gaps between them.

Not on a lot of keyboards. (Edit: I mean no groupings at all, not about the size of groupings.)

Including Apple's

Re: Function keys productivity trick

#26

Post by 600frogs » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 2:54 PM UTC

I’ve tried _so_ many different desktop workflows (including writing two custom window managers!), and I’ve finally settled for the exact same workflow - F -keys bound to my most common apps, all fullscreened. It becomes muscle memory within two weeks, and it’s faster than anything else I’ve tried by a mile. I use Thor for MacOS if anyone wants to replicate it, it’s a no-fuss version of the author’s setup.

If I ever do need to see two things side-by-side, I’ve also got Rectangle for window positioning. A single cmd+caps lock+H/J/K/L for left-half/restore/maximise/right-half is all I’ve found is necessary.

Re: Function keys productivity trick

#27

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 2:54 PM UTC

chii wrote: post #11

hbn wrote: post #9

Can people hit their function keys without looking at the keyboard? Sure, hitting F5 to go to your terminal is less keystrokes than e.g. Cmd+tab+tab, but I can't hit anything in the function row without glancing down at my keyboard. And I put a lot of value in looking at my keyboard as little as possible

That's why the function keys are seperated into groups of 3, and you can feel which it is by feeling the gaps between them.

[deleted]

Re: Function keys productivity trick

#28

Post by mtlmtlmtlmtl » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 2:55 PM UTC

trumpeta wrote: post #5

Another way of doing this is assign Hyper key to Caps Lock with Karabiner and then use that to set up hyper+X shortcuts to different or macros using Hammerspoon. So e.g. I have hyper+a for Alacritty, hyper+b for Browser etc.

This is what I did in stumpwm. And I had a nice macro so I could define an app's command, what key to map to, what desktop it lives on, and whether jumping to the window or pulling it to me was the default.

Re: Function keys productivity trick

#29

Post by clord » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 2:55 PM UTC

Would be nice to have a usb keypad and perhaps a little oled screen in each keycap to implement this… my function keys are pretty overloaded with stuff now.

Re: Function keys productivity trick

#30

Post by marcosdumay » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 3:01 PM UTC

You know, the CTRL-Fn combinations are usually mapped to virtual workspaces on Linux, what is much more powerful than applications and give you the same kind of speedup.

Who organizes things around application anyway, instead of windows?

Anyway, no, it's bad to remap the Fn keys. They have been used to fast intra-application navigation since they appeared, and they are still in wide use. (Does the author not use application shortcuts?) Combining them with another key is just obvious.