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Is it really that hard to remember keys for different applications that you need expensive displays on every key? Learning to touchtype has been the most effic

Is it really that hard to remember keys for different applications that you need expensive displays on every key? Learning to touchtype has been the most efficient use of my time ever. As a mechanical keyboard user, chiclet non-mechanical keys just feel like garbage to me now. Like my laptop which I hate using only because of the keyboard. Absolutely no tactile feel at all. Just mushy little islands that my fingers can never find the center of. Absolutely horrible, it's ridiculous to me that all laptops seem to be going in that direction now. I'm blaming Apple and it's victims for another form-over-function mess just as bad as the one-button mouse they also championed. And after using the Ergodox fulltime now, I'm totally ruined for staggered layout standard keyboards. They feel so silly having to do ridiculous contortions with your fingers. I'm not the target market I guess... Ergodox FTW!

the_duke 10y ago
Sure it's easy, for the two or three applications you use each and every day, and for the shortcuts you use all the time. Want to use a shortcut you only need every once in a while, which is non the less buried in 3 levels of confusing menus? Want to use shortcuts in a program you only use from time to time? Want to learn how to efficiently use a new program, without popping over to the (potentially long and confusing) shortcut list all the time? Do you have to write in different languages from time to time, and aren't that familiar with the keyboard layouts? (Think spanish, german, japa/chinese/...) This can be a big benefit, if applications support it!
- brokenmachine 10y ago
  I don't see how they'll have a obvious icon for something very complicated that I can't remember the hotkey for, that also fits in an icon 5mm x 5mm. For example, I'm looking for the shortcut in Photoshop for "Send layer to bottom of stack". How will this keyboard be able to tell me that the shortcut for this is "Ctrl+Shift+["?? It's much easier to google or look through the "confusing menus" than to hunt for some bound-to-be cryptic icon on a tiny keyboard. Basically you have to spend the effort to learn if you actually want to use a program, or indeed, a computer, efficiently. I'm not a luddite, I'm all for useful efficiency improvements, but sacrificing actual keyboard tactile feel for useless displays on every key is not a tradeoff that I would make. I agree with the languages thing though. Could be useful for that, but not nearly useful enough for me to offset the horrible mushy chiclet keys and in my opinion substandard layout.
blisse 10y ago
Absolutely it's hard to remember keys. Trying to remember hotkeys when I switch between Visual Studio, Android Studio, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe InDesign is actually quite annoying. More so with Photoshop and InDesign. Anyways it's still nice to have.
- wallacoloo 10y ago
  Also a big thing is undocumented shortcuts (or shortcuts for functions that I didn't even know the program was capable of). Gnome's push for standardizing Ctrl+? to display a shortcut window is a good start - hitting that in Nautilus shows me a bunch of stuff I had no idea about - but that's not likely to see much adoption outside of Gnome. Additionally, plenty of 'legacy' applications (MATLAB's linux version, the Cadence Design Suite, etc) don't use standard shortcuts at all. I don't even know how to copy/paste in MATLAB off the top of my head - just that it sure as hell isn't Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V. Keyboard icons would be a boon for that. In any case, if you don't look at your keyboard, you're hardly inconvenienced - you could even just disable the feature altogether. If these see widespread adoption/lower cost, it will aid some people while actually inconveniencing very few, so I see it as net positive.
- riprowan 10y ago
  But how will the Sonder keyboard help you to remember hotkeys? Maybe I'm missing something. I can understand how it can show me that option-shift-2 is the Euro symbol but how can it show me that command-G is "Paste Only MIDI Notes"?
  - brokenmachine 10y ago
    I don't even see how it will show you that option-shift-2 is the Euro symbol. You'd have to already be holding down option-shift for it to show up, wouldn't you? So you'd have to already know most of the shortcut. This product seems like a solution in search of a problem.

the_duke 10y ago

Sure it's easy, for the two or three applications you use each and every day, and for the shortcuts you use all the time. Want to use a shortcut you only need every once in a while, which is non the less buried in 3 levels of confusing menus? Want to use shortcuts in a program you only use from time to time? Want to learn how to efficiently use a new program, without popping over to the (potentially long and confusing) shortcut list all the time? Do you have to write in different languages from time to time, and aren't that familiar with the keyboard layouts? (Think spanish, german, japa/chinese/...) This can be a big benefit, if applications support it!

brokenmachine 10y ago
I don't see how they'll have a obvious icon for something very complicated that I can't remember the hotkey for, that also fits in an icon 5mm x 5mm. For example, I'm looking for the shortcut in Photoshop for "Send layer to bottom of stack". How will this keyboard be able to tell me that the shortcut for this is "Ctrl+Shift+["?? It's much easier to google or look through the "confusing menus" than to hunt for some bound-to-be cryptic icon on a tiny keyboard. Basically you have to spend the effort to learn if you actually want to use a program, or indeed, a computer, efficiently. I'm not a luddite, I'm all for useful efficiency improvements, but sacrificing actual keyboard tactile feel for useless displays on every key is not a tradeoff that I would make. I agree with the languages thing though. Could be useful for that, but not nearly useful enough for me to offset the horrible mushy chiclet keys and in my opinion substandard layout.

blisse 10y ago

Absolutely it's hard to remember keys. Trying to remember hotkeys when I switch between Visual Studio, Android Studio, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe InDesign is actually quite annoying. More so with Photoshop and InDesign. Anyways it's still nice to have.

wallacoloo 10y ago
Also a big thing is undocumented shortcuts (or shortcuts for functions that I didn't even know the program was capable of). Gnome's push for standardizing Ctrl+? to display a shortcut window is a good start - hitting that in Nautilus shows me a bunch of stuff I had no idea about - but that's not likely to see much adoption outside of Gnome. Additionally, plenty of 'legacy' applications (MATLAB's linux version, the Cadence Design Suite, etc) don't use standard shortcuts at all. I don't even know how to copy/paste in MATLAB off the top of my head - just that it sure as hell isn't Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V. Keyboard icons would be a boon for that. In any case, if you don't look at your keyboard, you're hardly inconvenienced - you could even just disable the feature altogether. If these see widespread adoption/lower cost, it will aid some people while actually inconveniencing very few, so I see it as net positive.
riprowan 10y ago
But how will the Sonder keyboard help you to remember hotkeys? Maybe I'm missing something. I can understand how it can show me that option-shift-2 is the Euro symbol but how can it show me that command-G is "Paste Only MIDI Notes"?
- brokenmachine 10y ago
  I don't even see how it will show you that option-shift-2 is the Euro symbol. You'd have to already be holding down option-shift for it to show up, wouldn't you? So you'd have to already know most of the shortcut. This product seems like a solution in search of a problem.