32 ms·
The "back to top" functionality is so useful in web pages. I wish they would make a dedicated button on keyboards that just takes you to the top of the page. Be
by cool-RR 6y ago
The "back to top" functionality is so useful in web pages. I wish they would make a dedicated button on keyboards that just takes you to the top of the page. Better yet, it can work in other apps too! It could, for example, take you to the beginning of a line when you're writing text.
Edit: Wow, I thought I was going the extra mile to make the joke obvious by saying the key should also take you to the beginning of a text line, but I guess it wasn't obvious enough for the first 3 commentators.
- supermatt 6y agoCant tell if this is sarcasm or not, but "Home" key does this...
- jspash 6y agoThe Home key is fine if you're on a PC. On a Mac the only time you'll see one is on some extended external keyboards. It's rare, if nonexistent on Mac laptops. So you need to press Cmd+Up. Yes, it's two keys instead of one but I would argue it's actually quicker since they are both usually located on the bottom row, meaning there is less distance for your hand to travel.
- itskwanyall 6y agoI’m normally a macOS guy but I’m currently using windows full time to give WSL a proper chance. The thing I miss most is CMD+Arrow to go to the start/end of something. I think it’s a beautiful system, alt+arrow to jump a word, cmd+arrow to jump to the start/end. The home/end keys are always so hard to find especially when they could be anywhere depending on your keyboard
- deadbunny 6y agoI'm not a Mac user so I may be missing something but can't you do that with Ctrl+left/right?
- itskwanyall 6y agoCtrl+left/right is equivalent to alt+left/right on mac, which jumps to the start/end of the word rather than the start/end of the line
- innocenat 6y agoAlt+Arrow on OSX is Ctrl+Arrow on Windows. I just switched to OS X recently and I am definitely having the reverse trouble getting used to the Cmd/Alt+Arrow I almost never have problem finding Home/End on any keyboards (been using Windows/Linux for 15+ years). Nowadays for laptop it's almost always fn+Arrow for Home/End.
- itskwanyall 6y agoOnce you get into mechanical keyboards, there are many custom layouts for anything outside the typewriter keys ;)
- innocenat 6y agoHow many percentage are there? I am not from English speaking countries, and I have never met anyone using non-standard layout before. So, like, do I need to care if I am not targeting software developer?
- Phrodo_00 6y ago> On a Mac the only time you'll see one is on some extended external keyboards. It's rare, if nonexistent on Mac laptops. What do you mean some keyboards? Any PC keyboard you connect to the mac will support home, end, page up, etc. (Unlike buttons 4 and up on mice)
- Tiksi 6y agoThe mouse button thing drove me mad at first, but https://sensible-side-buttons.archagon.net/ https://sensible-side-buttons.archagon.net/ can fix it and give you the expected functionality.
- eyelidlessness 6y agoCmd + Up is similar in behavior to the macOS Home key behavior, but slightly different. On laptops (or any desktop keyboard with a Fn key), Home is Fn + Up. The differences are: - Home (and Fn + Up) don't move your caret if you're in an editing context, except... - Some apps have different behavior for Home than go-to-top. Typically these exceptions use the Windows behavior of go-to-start-of-line (obviously this does move your cursor).
- lolftw 6y agoOr shift+space if you want to take steps until the top (maybe you just want to navigate up faster, and not to the top)
- warp 6y agoWow, thanks! I use space all the time to scroll down on a web page, didn't know you could reverse direction, awesome :)
- remix2000 6y agoIf I understand correctly you are talking about a button that already exists on most keebs and is called HOME.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- mrunkel 6y agoSarcasm is nearly impossible to detect in writing. A tip: If it seems the whole world is a problem, it's probably not the world that is the problem.
- ithkuil 6y agoYeah, I wish somebody invented a sarcasm punctuation mark /s
- leipert 6y agoThey did https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_punctuation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_punctuation
- speps 6y agoHow ironic ؟
- Kuraj 6y agoI always felt that this diluted the sarcasm and was a bit like explaining a joke
- cecilpl2 6y agoWell it's not like the entire point of sarcasm is to mean something other than what you say.
- ithkuil 6y agoLeonard: Hey, Penny. How's work? Penny: Great! I hope I'm a waitress at the Cheesecake Factory for my whole life! Sheldon: Was that sarcasm? Penny: No. Sheldon: Was that sarcasm? Penny: Yes.
- xboxnolifes 6y agoIt's very easy to detect if you knew the button existed.
- colmvp 6y agoHacker News attracts a lot of smart readers, so I'm kind of surprised that your comment actually 'fooled' people. It was very obvious sarcasm.
- GoodJokes 6y agoHacker News attracts a lot of readers who THINK they are smart or whatever that means.
- fluential 6y agoBoom egos shaken
- wojcikstefan 6y agoPlenty of Mac users out there without a “Home” button.
- jakear 6y agoFn+LeftArrow. RightArrow for End.
- FractalParadigm 6y agoIf I'm not mistaken, Fn + Left Arrow is Home on a Mac. Similar to Fn + up/down is Page Up/Down, and IIRC Fn + Right is End.
- crooked-v 6y agoAnd, of course, you can always mess with key bindings for a user by creating a file at ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict with custom overrides for whatever.
- jasonkester 6y agoIt still amazes me that people tolerate that as a substitute. It's a key combo that requires two hands, for what on a regular keyboard is one finger. Perhaps Mac people never hold a cup of coffee in their hand while using a computer?
- bbx 6y agoThe first half of your comment could have been sarcasm. But the second part, with the exclamation point, definitely sold it. Sarcasm is definitely not impossible to detect in writing. You just to have to trust people and give them the benefit of the doubt.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- waltpad 6y agoSeriously though, the Opera web browser has this functionality built in, but it's a "toggle" back to top, by just clicking on the tab title. It's very useful on web sites like HN, when you don't want to lose where you are in the thread, yet need to go back to the top to have a second look at the topic for instance.
- fphilipe 6y agoI was quite amazed when I found out that not all developer colleagues of mine knew the "Home" button.
- cm2187 6y agoMy laptop doesn't have this button (you have to use a weird combination of keys). The days of everyone using a full keyboard are long gone...
- dorgo 6y agoI just found out that Home button ( without Ctrl ) works in browsers. I knew the Ctrl + Home combination ( which also works in other programs ).
- majkinetor 6y agoVimum plugin gg - go to top G - go to bottom You can also go anywhere on page (litterary) with single key (homework). Much better then home/end as you usually need to hunt for those keys, or even use them with Fn modifier.
- TekMol 6y agoThe problem with plugins is that they give full control over your browsing to whoever controls the plugin. I sometimes install plugins myself if the code is open source and it is small enough for me to vet it. I would love vimium, but the code is way too big to vet it myself. I wish there was some party that is trustworthy, vets codebases like these and publish hashes of trusted versions. An alternative would be more modular codebases. So instead of publishing a giant box of code with all kinds of vim-like behavior, publish lots of small ones. Like the code to make gg work.
- IggleSniggle 6y agoHonestly I'd rather have one big unified collection if I was going to review.
- majkinetor 6y agoI think you are being overly paranoid. If you want to fight for security on that level, your computer life must be miserable. You are also missing out a lot of great tools and are way less effective then folks that use them (and thus less competitive). I am all up for great security in OS, emails, browsers, messangers etc, but it has to stop somewhere. Also, this kind of stuff like vimium is so widely used that somebody would probably notice if something funky is going on (everything leaves some traces, you dont really need to look at the code to notice it most of the time). Your proposed way to solve this issue is way worse - now, instead of having one monolitic but still simple and well rounded app you have thousands of little scripts that combined are also hessle to review, belong to way more humans with different agendas (instead of single or couple) and would be horror to initialize (really sounds like nodejs ecosystem). Just get the damn thing and relax a bit. Anything malicious that could be done by some developer is already done by big evil corps anyway (and more) and you cant really escape those.
- imdsm 6y agoHa. Now imagine one which did the opposite? You could even call them Home and End, or use arrow icons.
- globular-toast 6y agoOver the years I've tried to teach people about the Home key but to no avail. Similarly I've tried to teach people about using middle-click to open a link in a new tab, or some basic readline functionality like Ctrl-a, Ctrl-e for beginning end of line. But I've not seen a single other person use these features. Strange. Thinking about it some more, I was being driven in a friend's BMW one day and there was some bad smell coming from outside so I asked if I should press the air recirculation button. It turns out he'd had that car for more than five years and had never pressed that button. In fact, he'd never pressed, nor seemingly even wondered about, most of the buttons in the car. Strange.
- uppe 6y agoUse the keyboard? Do I look like some sort of hacker? I just mastered double clicking so I’ll just keep clicking thank you very much.
- artsyca 6y agoI predicted every comment before I read it down to the one about the right cmd button I too have used the Mac while eating a taco.
- buboard 6y agoit's useful in mobile though!
- whiddershins 6y agoI fell for it because although I’ve used a computer constantly for over 20 years I don’t think I’ve ever touched that home button. At least not deliberately. I never use escape or any function keys either. I still can’t figure out how to get in and out of insert mode in sublime text. When it happens I just quit and restart. I’m starting to wonder why I tolerate this level of ignorance in myself. I mean, I use key commands constantly. That’s what is odd about all this.
- recursive 6y ago> I still can’t figure out how to get in and out of insert mode in sublime text. When it happens I just quit and restart. Not sure if joking, but you literally press the button labelled "Insert".
- lienne 6y agoGuess I’m the one who didn’t get the joke as well.
- glaberficken 6y agoNow if only the End key could go back to being usable...
- retube 6y agoAfter 20 years of using keyboards, I have, thanks to this comment, discovered the "Home" button.
- cool-RR 6y agoThis amazes me. Thanks for your honesty, there are probably millions of people who are in the same position. While you're looking down, wouldn't hurt to look at all the different keys and give them a try.
- retube 6y agoThanks. And now I have discovered the "End" button!
- vimslayer 6y ago* tries a "Wi-Fi toggle" button, looses internet and is unable to google for help
- o-__-o 6y agoWe laugh, but I had to troubleshoot my dads laptop once upon a time and had to ask him what lights are on on his keyboard. “The airplane light is on”
- KineticLensman 6y ago> wouldn't hurt to look at all the different keys and give them a try. TIL Enter key toggles comment collapsing.
- graedus 6y agoMore generally Enter acts as a left-click on whatever element has focus in the browser. If you press tab, you cycle the focus to the next link/input/button/whatever. Shift+tab cycles through them in reverse order. If a normal hyperlink has focus, you can do things like CMD+Enter (MacOS) or CTRL+Enter (Windows) to open it in a new tab, etc
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- geniium 6y agohahaha nice thread
- TomJansen 6y agoI know that it a dedicated button for keyboards, but on phone keyboards this is still a missing functionality which I really miss!
- minikites 6y agoTap the status bar on any iPhone?
- notalexma 6y agoTouching the top-most part of the newer iPhones (with the notch) scrolls you back up to the top page.
- AnonC 6y agoAt least on iPhone, tapping the status bar on the top of the screen usually scrolls to the top for all (well developed) applications that have a vertical scrolling view, but just web pages.
- fortran77 6y agoMany Apple keyboards have no "home" button.
- jmiskovic 6y agoOn tangent, it's strange that our keyboards mostly stayed the same while the screens got around x20 better. I often need to make bigger and smaller jumps with keyboard. In Sublime I use a plug-in that can jump 10 lines up and down but I also need that functionality across the rest of OS. For navigating menus, scrolling through content, moving around spreadsheet. Page up/down is too large jump with the amount of content that can fit modern screens.
- kieckerjan 6y agoYeah, 10 line jumps are awesome when coding. In emacs I bind this behaviour to the ctrl-up and ctrl-down like so: (global-set-key [C-down] '(lambda () (interactive) (next-line 10) )) (global-set-key [C-up] '(lambda () (interactive) (previous-line 10) ))
- jmiskovic 6y agoThat's exactly it. Before that I tried AceJump, but it demanded attention while this method becomes like a second nature. I probably need a scriptable keyboard to make it work across all programs. Some keyboards support Lua, but I think it's only for LED patterns which is pretty retarded.
- eyelidlessness 6y agoI definitely got your joke and had a snicker. I wonder if part of the reason the obviousness is missing some people is that many of us use Macs, and the "beginning of a line" behavior is not the default behavior in most native Mac apps.
- stronglikedan 6y agoOkay, but every time I try to hit the Home key with my mouse, I end up hitting the Insert and PageUp keys too, since they're so close together, so it doesn't solve the same problem that a back-to-top button does.
- thedanbob 6y agoI'll be honest, even though I use the home and end keys on a daily basis while programming, I don't think it's ever occurred to me that I could use them to move around a webpage. I feel both dumb and enlightened!
- retpirato 6y agoThere is Vim/gVim for going to the beginning of the line.
- retpirato 6y agoYou can create a bookmarklet with the code javascript:window.scrollTo(0,0); that will scroll back to the top, but it won't have an "elevator" effect.
- nicbou 6y agoOn Mac: Fn + left On iOS: double-tap the top bar On Windows: use the home key On Android: swipe your thumb a dozen times really quickly