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Vim Foot Pedal

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Re: Vim Foot Pedal

#51

Post by polyamid23 »

gwn7 wrote: post #41
Beltalowda wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most vim users swap esc with caps lock anyway "Some", sure, but "most"? Not so sure about that. Besides, everyone knows what Ctrl is the One True Key™ in place of the Caps Lock and that only degenerate infidels map it to anything else.

> Besides, everyone knows what Ctrl is the One True Key™ in place of the Caps Lock and that only degenerate infidels map it to anything else. Haha yeah I've heard about that and I like the joke =) But I was never interested in adopting it. Because I configure my alt keys to act as ctrl keys which imo results in a much more ergonomic setup. Ctrl is the most pressed control key for people like me who live in the termin…

> Ctrl is the most pressed control key for people like me who live in the terminal. But the default placement of the ctrl keys in modern layouts is so wrong. I have never understood it. I guess there has to be a historical reason but I've yet to find out. (Help me, greybeards)

I've seen this talk here and the speaker mentioned the ADM-3A (that is also mentioned in the article itself) terminals at about the 17/18 minute mark. Mind the keyboard layout :)

https://jackrusher.com/strange-loop-2022/ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADM-3A

Re: Vim Foot Pedal

#52

Post by RileyJames »

I recently took on pedal steel guitar. Which has both foot pedals and knee levers. Along with both hands (plucking and barring chords).

It’s really changed the way I think about input methods. Pedals have always been a thing, but primarily for effects, not part of inputting notes. Those lazy knees weren’t doing anything!!

Re: Vim Foot Pedal

#53

Post by djha-skin »

I would love to use something like this to get back on emacs, but it doesn't travel well. I'm on the bus, I'm at a friend's house or my mother-in-law's house or my brother's house all the time with my computer open. I don't want to be tied down to a specific device or get out a foot pedal on the bus every time I want to program.

Re: Vim Foot Pedal

#54

Post by jack_the_dev »

Sirened wrote: post #44
teeray wrote: post #22

I resolved this pain by making the Caps Lock key work as it should: tap for “Esc” and hold for “Control”. Then I took the Escape key and made it Caps Lock—it’s occasionally useful, but not nearly enough to warrant a home row position. You can do this with Karaniner Elements on macOS. There’s a way to do it on Windows too, but how escapes me at the moment.

On macOS you can do this using just the stock OS. It's under keyboard settings. You can also do this on iOS, it's awesome if you have a physical keyboard and like to use vim on your iPad

I don’t know what’s cooler. This setting in MacOS / iOS or having a dedicated foot pedal to press “i” or “esc”

Re: Vim Foot Pedal

#55

Post by Beltalowda »

gwn7 wrote: post #41
Beltalowda wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most vim users swap esc with caps lock anyway "Some", sure, but "most"? Not so sure about that. Besides, everyone knows what Ctrl is the One True Key™ in place of the Caps Lock and that only degenerate infidels map it to anything else.

> Besides, everyone knows what Ctrl is the One True Key™ in place of the Caps Lock and that only degenerate infidels map it to anything else. Haha yeah I've heard about that and I like the joke =) But I was never interested in adopting it. Because I configure my alt keys to act as ctrl keys which imo results in a much more ergonomic setup. Ctrl is the most pressed control key for people like me who live in the termin…

I actually don't really care, although trying the "regular" Ctrl on my laptop feels odd, but I'm also not used to using it.

It's just what I'm used to. I grew up on the MSX which, like many keyboards of its day, had Ctrl where we now have Caps Lock. When we upgraded (well, "upgraded") to Windows 95 I found some hack to make CapsLock behave like Ctrl because I was so used to it. Later I started using Linux and BSD and of course carried over the mapping with xmodmap. I've never really known anything else than Caps Lock being Ctrl.

Another oddity from my MSX days that took me years to get rid of was that a line would only be saved if you pressed "enter" at the end of it. That is, if you were editing some file, went up a line, edited it, and then just went down a line (without pressing enter) it wouldn't actually get saved. It took me quite a long time to get rid of the habit of "End + Enter" to make sure the line got saved (which wasn't needed on any other system I've used).

Re: Vim Foot Pedal

#56

Post by baumschubser »

I love the creativity in the comments to address this „problem“ if you want to call it that. A couple of years ago I made a software-only thing to trigger two alternating key sequences (e.g. Esc and i) by pressing down one of those cheap USB pedals. A little bit hacky but it works. https://github.com/baumschubser/footswitcher

Re: Vim Foot Pedal

#57

Post by easygenes »

FTA: “Plus, there’s some ergonomic benefits to not having to strain one’s hand over to reach the ESC key.”

Honest question: Is it that uncommon knowledge that Ctrl+[ is equivalent to ESC in vim default keybinds?

Re: Vim Foot Pedal

#58

Post by pkkm »

My preferred solution is to map Caps Lock to Control, then map Control-Space to exiting insert mode in Vim. That way, I get improved convenience both in Vim and in other programs, such as the shell and web browsers.

Re: Vim Foot Pedal

#59

Post by bornfreddy »

easygenes wrote: post #57

FTA: “Plus, there’s some ergonomic benefits to not having to strain one’s hand over to reach the ESC key.” Honest question: Is it that uncommon knowledge that Ctrl+[ is equivalent to ESC in vim default keybinds?

This person here didn't know. Thank you, need to try it out.
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