4 ms·
Besides sticking with Dvorak's keyboard layout, the best thing I ever did for my comfort and productivity was to write a text editor that laid its commands out
by pklausler 10y ago
Besides sticking with Dvorak's keyboard layout, the best thing I ever did for my comfort and productivity was to write a text editor that laid its commands out on the keyboard sensibly. Both vi and emacs use designs chosen for ease of recall, based on associations between letters and verbs, not for physical ease of use (apart from vi's HJKL). My editor, aoeui, uses right-hand home and upper rows for navigation by various units; the FDB central column of Dvorak for copy, delete, and paste/swap; and a key on the bottom right-hand row for selection. The left hand's job is basically to hold down the control key and do rare things like file operations.
- mhd 10y agoThe Wordstar diamond was quite common at a time, and definitely not mnemonic.
- pklausler 10y agoNever used it, but it sure had its fans. Too bad that it lies beneath the left hand.
- mhd 10y agoI doubt that handedness really matters for these kind of tasks, but of course everyone has their preferences.
- pklausler 10y agoMy left hand is clumsy, at least in comparison to my right hand. If commonly-used functions have to all be under one hand, left is bad for me.
- Todd 10y agoMany games use WASD under the left hand for motion, but that's to leave the right hand free to use the mouse. I've never tried mousing and cursoring in an editor before. Hmm.
- mhd 10y agoIt certainly wasn't a factor when WordStar arrived, but otherwise combining mousing and keyboard commands is quite common (i.e. selecting text and then using the CUA cut/copy/paste commands).