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Kinto: Mac-style shortcut keys for Linux and Windows

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Re: Kinto: Mac-style shortcut keys for Linux and Windows

#61

Post by sidpatil »

chrisseaton wrote: post #39
beloch wrote: post #12

The difference between Mac and PC keyboards is a real usability problem. If you're used to PC's or Linux, moving to a Mac and dealing with their shortcuts is painful, and vice-versa. The worst is using a mixture of both Mac's and PC's on a daily basis. Moving back and forth between platforms daily means you either have to get used to hitting the wrong shortcuts or use a hack to swap keys around on one platform so you…

This is why I don't bother investing too much time learning 'shortcuts' in the first place - it's a false economy.

If you constantly have to switch between the two, I can see your point. But if you're going to be on one platform for the majority of your time, it wouldn't hurt to save a few minutes here and there by learning some shortcuts.

Re: Kinto: Mac-style shortcut keys for Linux and Windows

#62

Post by asperous »

Although I do prefer the cmd setup, one thing to note is that the physical button on a Mac keyboard is 1.2-1.5x bigger. This makes it easier to press and less likely to miss.

On windows with a windows keyboard, the lcontrol button is easier to press because it is in the corner.

Re: Kinto: Mac-style shortcut keys for Linux and Windows

#63

Post by rbreaves »

CGamesPlay wrote: post #4

Who puts the table of contents in the middle of the content? Below that is where you'll find the "What does this do exactly?" section, which really should be the first thing on the page. Why does the opening section say "Seamless copy and paste with all apps and terminals"? Seems to have nothing to do with the project. https://github.com/rbreaves/kinto/#table-of-contents

There's a link to the Table of Contents near the very top of the Readme right after the basic and short description. I prioritized the info to make it a little faster to get up and running versus the need to scroll past an ever increasingly long ToC. For the most part people shouldn't really need to read something a mile long to get it up and running.

I really need to get Kinto packaged officially into the repos for various distributions.

Re: Kinto: Mac-style shortcut keys for Linux and Windows

#64

Post by rajeshr »

newobj wrote: post #23

I just switched back to Windows at work for the first time in like... almost 20 years. I'm dying without readline-style controls. If this can offer those, I'm going to jump for joy. I already have the Magic Keyboard Utilities to let me use my mac keyboard as a Windows keyboard and put things in sensical places. (Left Fn & Ctrl -> Ctrl, Left Option -> Meta, Left Command -> Alt, Right Command -> Function modifier, Righ…

I got ^a and ^e with PowerToys' Keyboard Manager with the remap setup as https://imgur.com/a/HXTxPSU. Works well with Windows Terminal + WSL.

Re: Kinto: Mac-style shortcut keys for Linux and Windows

#65

Post by quesera »

rubyn00bie wrote: post #55

This is great, btw. Kinto is 100% a sanity saver. Please note the following rant is mostly tongue-in-cheek. 'cuz it turns out, I personally hate how Windows and Linux do things with `ctrl`. Coming from a Mac, my biggest and most consistent annoyance is that the `ctrl` key is fucking useless at best... One of the most common use cases for the `ctrl` key is COPYING shit and followed by PASTING shit and it DOES NOT WORK…

I'm having difficulty parsing your rant. I can't tell if we agree or not. :)

Ctrl+C is a method of generating a standard ASCII character which has meant "ETX" (end of text, sometimes "interrupt") for many decades.

Other control chars are useful too. In addition to C, I use S, Q, D, Z, V, O, N, I, G, H, M, L, J, Y, A, E, K, W ... probably others ... fairly regularly.

So in the early 1980s, along comes MacOS which needs keyboard shortcuts for GUI actions. What does Apple do? They add a key to the keyboard, an Alt or Meta equivalent called "Command". OK, awesome.

Then Windows comes along. Microsoft says "eh, who cares let's break it all", (or more charitably "we don't control the hardware and can't add a key, so let's break it all") and reuses Ctrl+C for copy. Et cetera.

Then Linux desktop environments come along and say "well people really like Windows...we don't, but most people who might try our DE probably do, so let's borrow the bad ideas from Windows instead of the good ideas from Unix or MacOS. Let's use Ctrl+C for copy! But also the command line is kind of important on Linux, so let's screw everything up and use Ctrl+Shift+C for copy in the terminal only because who cares about usability and UX consistency? Not us!"

That was 25 years ago. Nothing has improved since then. Alas.

Re: Kinto: Mac-style shortcut keys for Linux and Windows

#66

Post by sidpatil »

bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #52
jimbob45 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple’s MO all along has been lock-in to their ecosystem any way they can make it happen, whether it be through their usability, their OS, their App Store, or iTunes. They don’t want to be interoperable because then you might realize you’re paying a huge premium for an inferior product.

Providing an extra key for shortcuts is hardly lock-in. “Doing it better” is not lock-in.

I wish someone was making Symbolics/Space Cadet-layout keyboards that worked with modern computers. I'd put all those modifier keys to good use!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-cadet_keyboard

Re: Kinto: Mac-style shortcut keys for Linux and Windows

#67

Post by jfb »

sidpatil wrote: post #66
bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Providing an extra key for shortcuts is hardly lock-in. “Doing it better” is not lock-in.

I wish someone was making Symbolics/Space Cadet-layout keyboards that worked with modern computers. I'd put all those modifier keys to good use! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-cadet_keyboard

The real tragedy is the USB HID spec, which is weirdly extravagant (including dedicated space for golf simulators) while also being totally parsimonious with the modifier keys.

Re: Kinto: Mac-style shortcut keys for Linux and Windows

#68

Post by thomastjeffery »

chmln wrote: post #57
rubyn00bie wrote: post #55

This is great, btw. Kinto is 100% a sanity saver. Please note the following rant is mostly tongue-in-cheek. 'cuz it turns out, I personally hate how Windows and Linux do things with `ctrl`. Coming from a Mac, my biggest and most consistent annoyance is that the `ctrl` key is fucking useless at best... One of the most common use cases for the `ctrl` key is COPYING shit and followed by PASTING shit and it DOES NOT WORK…

> One of the most common use cases for the `ctrl` key is COPYING shit and followed by PASTING shit and it DOES NOT WORK in a fucking TERMINAL... Because `ctrl-c` sends an interrupt Most terminals today have a copy-on-select feature, which means you don't need to ctrl-c at all. Just select and ctrl-v.

Usually in Linux (specifically in Xorg) it's select to copy and middle click to paste; which uses a separate buffer from the C-c/C-v clipboard.

Personally I find this method much more usable than the traditional windows-style clipboard.

Either way, you want to generally avoid C-c for copy in terminals because it's already bound to the all important "send sigterm signal to foreground process". This is on a long list of ancient cruft that exists in terminal emulators and shells.

Re: Kinto: Mac-style shortcut keys for Linux and Windows

#69

Post by rbreaves »

rlyshw wrote: post #17
CGamesPlay wrote: post #4

Who puts the table of contents in the middle of the content? Below that is where you'll find the "What does this do exactly?" section, which really should be the first thing on the page. Why does the opening section say "Seamless copy and paste with all apps and terminals"? Seems to have nothing to do with the project. https://github.com/rbreaves/kinto/#table-of-contents

I read the “what exactly does this do?” section and still don’t know what it does. Maybe I’m just dumb, but there doesn’t seem to be any “user story” to succinctly describe what the heck this accomplishes... I just use ctrl-c on windows and cmd-c on Mac, it’s not that hard. But maybe this is way bigger than just... remapping win-c to ctrl-c? Idk? There’s no story about this utility directly in the Readme...

As a general user or a developer, I want Linux and Windows to type and work like a Mac.

As a developer I want terminals, code editors and any other commonly used dev related applications to have the same keymaps as macOS out of the box.

As a user I want to seamlessly use and/or easily switch between official Apple keyboards, 3rd party Apple keyboards, Windows keyboards, chromebook keyboards, or IBM style keyboard (w/o a Win key).

Re: Kinto: Mac-style shortcut keys for Linux and Windows

#70

Post by vulcan01 »

NalNezumi wrote: post #24

Everyone is talking about keyboard shortcut but just 2 months old mac user (due work) the biggest "fuck you" feature I encountered in Mac was key-repetition. In PC and Linux, if you push down any letter key and keep it pushed, it repeat the key with a certain speed. In mac you can't by default do this. You have to use the terminal and go to a system file, change a variable and reboot the mac. You can, in system prefe…

Look, every OS has to choose its defaults. They give you the option to change it through the defaults command:

defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false

and you don't need to restart your computer. Every OS is going to do things their own way — but as long as you can easily change it, I don't see the point in complaining.

Command taken from https://osxdaily.com/2011/08/04/enable-key-repeat-mac-os-x-l... after about a minute of searching.

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