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Why are the parentheses in such an awkward place (Shift+8, Shift+9, or Shift+0)? I don't program Lisp, but why don't Lisp keyboards put parentheses in a more co
by rudiger 16y ago
Why are the parentheses in such an awkward place (Shift+8, Shift+9, or Shift+0)? I don't program Lisp, but why don't Lisp keyboards put parentheses in a more convenient place?
Also, there are quite a few modifier keys ("Function", "Super", "Hyper", "Rub Out", etc)? Anyone know the purpose of all of them?
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- daniel-cussen 16y agoI took on online file of the Dvorak keyboard layout and modded it so the parens would be where the tags in Dvorak are (shift-W and shift-E on Qwerty). I made other mods too. It's really comfy.
- leoc 16y agoNote that all of these keyboards except the Knight have a second pair of parens: the unshifted characters on the keys just right of P, where the PC/Windows layouts have square brackets. (In turn forcing square brackets into the shifted position, and curly braces onto other keys.) This helps to balance the wear on the keys. ;)
- Semiapies 16y agoAh, I was wondering the same thing, but I hadn't caught that those two weren't the PC brackets-and-braces keys. Thanks.
- stevelosh 16y agoIt looks like the Racal-Norsk KPS-10 Lisp Prototype has them in a more convenient place, as well as on 9 and 0: http://webwit.nl/input/kps/1.jpg http://webwit.nl/input/kps/1.jpg I like that idea, even though I don't do much Lisp. Parentheses are still used everywhere in programming and are always awkward. Maybe I'll experiment with remapping some keys if I can figure out which ones to sacrifice.
- sedachv 16y agoSuper and Hyper are modifier keys for Emacs and to let you type things like Greek letters and math/logic symbols easily (you can see math symbols on the Space Cadet and Knight keyboards). Rubout is just backspace. IMO having it next to the 'a' is a really good position; I rebind my Caps Lock key to Backspace on my machines. It's more convenient than the Sun-style "Control as Caps Lock" layout.
- rbanffy 16y agoWhat's the hyper key? Here there are Control, Super (Windows) and Meta (Alt) but nothing like Hyper. I can only imagine the huge powers having a hyper key would give me ;-)
- jjs 16y agoYou can have a Hyper key (in X11, at least!) http://computing.fnal.gov/docs/products/xemacs/v21_1/xemacs.info,.SuperandHyperKeys.html http://computing.fnal.gov/docs/products/xemacs/v21_1/xemacs.... Depending on your keyboard layout, the "Menu" key makes a good Hyper, and if you've set up Caps Lock as an extra Ctrl key, you can remap your left Ctrl key to something useful. You can also separate Alt and Meta to different keys. A quick emacs session will show you whether your new modifier keys are working as intended. IIRC you can do similar for the (text-mode) Linux console as well.
- sedachv 16y agoAlso works on Windows and Mac: http://xahlee.org/emacs/emacs_hyper_super_keys.html http://xahlee.org/emacs/emacs_hyper_super_keys.html
- Natsu 16y ago> Rubout is just backspace. IMO having it next to the 'a' is a really good position; I rebind my Caps Lock key to Backspace on my machines. It's more convenient than the Sun-style "Control as Caps Lock" layout. One of my favorite keyboards of all time had the spacebar split in two. Because I learned typing such that I always use the right thumb to press the spacebar, the left half of the spacebar made a very good backspace. I've often wished I could find more good keyboards like that.
- leoc 16y agoSee http://catb.org/jargon/html/B/bucky-bits.html http://catb.org/jargon/html/B/bucky-bits.html and related.
- makmanalp 16y agoMy CS professor used to joke that they used foot pedals for open / close paren.
- naner 16y agoThis is not entirely a joke for some very serious emacs users.