4 ms·

I don't have RSI, but it seems to me that rotating your wrists to press Ctrl with your pinky is one of the larger parts of the problem. I prefer to press Ctrl

I don't have RSI, but it seems to me that rotating your wrists to press Ctrl with your pinky is one of the larger parts of the problem. I prefer to press Ctrl with the side of my palm, but that doesn't work on some Lenovo and Apple laptops which Fn is at the edge of the keyboard.

knome 7y ago
You may want to check the BIOS for your laptop. It often has the ability to swap the `ctrl` and `fn` keys, which is nice for those of us that find their choice to put them on backwards from how they ought to have annoying.
- GrayShade 7y ago
  That's a fair point, but I avoid on principle laptops with stupid keyboard layouts (which seem to be more and more common these days). On the other hand, my current laptop (which I haven't bought) has no End key, but rather Home, PgUp, PgDn, Power.
dsego 7y ago
Yeah, one good thing about apple computers is that the Cmd button is under your thumb, much easier than Ctrl.
boring_twenties 7y ago
How is this still a thing in 2019. Just remap Caps Lock to Ctrl, problem solved. If using Linux, simply add `ctrl:nocaps` to the XKBOPTIONS= line in /etc/default/keyboard, e.g.: XKBOPTIONS='other:options,ctrl:nocaps'
- GrayShade 7y ago
  I did that, but never used it. I still find pressing Ctrl to be more comfortable because it requires less movement.
  - boring_twenties 7y ago
    How does it require less movement? It's directly adjacent to the A key -- only the pinky needs to move, and only one key over. To hit the key in the lower-left corner you basically have to twist your whole hand at the wrist -- not only is that more movement, it probably raises the risk of RSI to the wrist. What am I missing?
    - GrayShade 7y ago
      I usually press Ctrl with the pad under my pinky finger (and sometimes the part of my palm below it). The way I hold my hand, this is just a tiny flick of my wrist. To press Caps Lock I would have to move and curl my pinky instead.

knome 7y ago

You may want to check the BIOS for your laptop. It often has the ability to swap the `ctrl` and `fn` keys, which is nice for those of us that find their choice to put them on backwards from how they ought to have annoying.

GrayShade 7y ago
That's a fair point, but I avoid on principle laptops with stupid keyboard layouts (which seem to be more and more common these days). On the other hand, my current laptop (which I haven't bought) has no End key, but rather Home, PgUp, PgDn, Power.

dsego 7y ago

Yeah, one good thing about apple computers is that the Cmd button is under your thumb, much easier than Ctrl.

boring_twenties 7y ago

How is this still a thing in 2019. Just remap Caps Lock to Ctrl, problem solved. If using Linux, simply add `ctrl:nocaps` to the XKBOPTIONS= line in /etc/default/keyboard, e.g.: XKBOPTIONS='other:options,ctrl:nocaps'

GrayShade 7y ago
I did that, but never used it. I still find pressing Ctrl to be more comfortable because it requires less movement.
- boring_twenties 7y ago
  How does it require less movement? It's directly adjacent to the A key -- only the pinky needs to move, and only one key over. To hit the key in the lower-left corner you basically have to twist your whole hand at the wrist -- not only is that more movement, it probably raises the risk of RSI to the wrist. What am I missing?
  - GrayShade 7y ago
    I usually press Ctrl with the pad under my pinky finger (and sometimes the part of my palm below it). The way I hold my hand, this is just a tiny flick of my wrist. To press Caps Lock I would have to move and curl my pinky instead.