19 ms·

Kinto: Mac-style shortcut keys for Linux and Windows

237 points by yankcrime 6y ago

stu2b50 6y ago
Wow, I'll have to try that out. For reference, I really like how shortcuts work in MacOS. This won't solve the lack of a standard that developers try to adhere to on other platforms. But it's immensely annoying to have to shift between ctrl+c and ctrl+shift+c depending on whether or not you're on a terminal versus another application. As a bonus, I press command with my thumb which is both stronger than my pinkie and has very little to do other than press space normally.
- symlinkk 6y ago
  I don’t get the fascination with macOS keyboard shortcuts, people always mention the copy thing that you did and it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.
  - ucosty 6y ago
    It feels a lot more ergonomic, especially if you switch between cli and gui applications a lot. It's one thing I really miss when going from my work Mac to my home Linux machine.
  - stu2b50 6y ago
    There's two parts to it. One, that macOS has a proscribed way for apps to compose command, ctrl, and option for shortcuts, whereas it's basically the Wild West on the other platforms. So it's just generally nice on macOS. The terminal thing is, in the grand scheme of things, minor, but a very nice QoL. It's annoying to mode shift from ctrl as a desktop environment modifier to ctrl as a unix modifier. Especially when ctrl+c can be quite a bit more destructive than "copy". It's not like it's impossible to adjust, but it's very nice to have command+c do the same thing, everywhere.
    - kitsunesoba 6y ago
      > It's not like it's impossible to adjust, but it's very nice to have command+c do the same thing, everywhere. Yeah, I would sum it up as reducing the number of discrete shortcut sets to remember to the bare minimum, instead lumping as much as possible into the global set.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > One, that macOS has a proscribed way for apps Presumably, “prescribed”; “proscribed” is essentially the opposite.
  - GongOfFour 6y ago
    Take your pinky and touch it to the tip of every other finger on the same hand, now take your thumb and do the same. Which is easier? This is the difference between a command based shortcuts and ctrl based shortcuts (unless you are using a non-standard ctrl key). There is a reason why people get "emacs pinky" but no-one gets "mac thumb".
  - rtpg 6y ago
    Here's why it's, objectively, the best thing: - Super key isn't wasted on window management (a thing you basically are doing a handful of time per sessions). A nicely-placed key is used for things that you do a lot! - No "oh wow the start menu showed up randomly" BS when you fat finger. - Control commands "just work" everywhere! Terminal usage is of course easy, but ctrl-a/ctrl-e also work for cursor movement. You get great text maninpulation! Seriously, being able to move the cursor around in any text field is a game changer. - Isolation of most system-level operations to that key mean that you are unlikely to hit weird conflicts. And if you fat-finger you can Super-Z out of your issue most of the time.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- paulryanrogers 6y ago
  With Karabiner Elements, AutoHotkey, and AutoKey you can get your favorite shortcuts on all three
CGamesPlay 6y ago
Who puts the table of contents in the middle of the content? Below that is where you'll find the "What does this do exactly?" section, which really should be the first thing on the page. Why does the opening section say "Seamless copy and paste with all apps and terminals"? Seems to have nothing to do with the project. https://github.com/rbreaves/kinto/#table-of-contents https://github.com/rbreaves/kinto/#table-of-contents
- rlyshw 6y ago
  I read the “what exactly does this do?” section and still don’t know what it does. Maybe I’m just dumb, but there doesn’t seem to be any “user story” to succinctly describe what the heck this accomplishes... I just use ctrl-c on windows and cmd-c on Mac, it’s not that hard. But maybe this is way bigger than just... remapping win-c to ctrl-c? Idk? There’s no story about this utility directly in the Readme...
  - rbreaves 6y ago
    As a general user or a developer, I want Linux and Windows to type and work like a Mac. As a developer I want terminals, code editors and any other commonly used dev related applications to have the same keymaps as macOS out of the box. As a user I want to seamlessly use and/or easily switch between official Apple keyboards, 3rd party Apple keyboards, Windows keyboards, chromebook keyboards, or IBM style keyboard (w/o a Win key).
- rbreaves 6y ago
  There's a link to the Table of Contents near the very top of the Readme right after the basic and short description. I prioritized the info to make it a little faster to get up and running versus the need to scroll past an ever increasingly long ToC. For the most part people shouldn't really need to read something a mile long to get it up and running. I really need to get Kinto packaged officially into the repos for various distributions.
  - CGamesPlay 6y ago
    I'm actually pretty interested in the project and will definitely take a look into it when I next set up a Linux desktop for whatever reason. That said, I'm only interested in it because I had to spend a lot of effort to figure out exactly what it would be useful for. > I prioritized the info to make it a little faster to get up and running versus the need to scroll past an ever increasingly long ToC. For the most part people shouldn't really need to read something a mile long to get it up and running. This is fair! But I don't want to "get set up and running" on something I've never heard of and don't know what it's going to do. I still don't understand why it says "copy and paste with all apps and terminals"... is it because you can copy and paste with a keyboard shortcut?
clairity 6y ago
i've always lamented the incompleteness of mac keyboard shortcuts compared to windows, but it's been a long time since i've used windows, so it's hard for me to remember specifics. but i do remember that multi-key shortcuts generally made more sense in windows. and you could alt-tab easily between windows of different applications, not just applications or just tabs/windows of the same application.
- SloopJon 6y ago
  Although I too have lost my muscle memory, not having used Windows as my primary O/S in a while, one thing I miss is the ability to traverse through menus with a series of keystrokes; e.g., Alt-F, then p to print, as opposed to Ctrl-P. This came in handy for menu items with an obscure shortcut, or no shortcut at all. Similarly, I would preface some programs in the Start menu with a unique number; e.g., Win, P, 1 opened File Explorer; Win, P, 2 opened the Command Prompt, etc. With the Windows 10 start menu, I just start typing, but it sometimes exhibits weird behavior, where it finds what I want after one or two characters, then changes to the wrong thing after I type another (correct) character. I generally prefer the Cmd-Tab / Cmd-Tilde split on macOS to the Alt-Tab on Windows. However, after all these years, I still can't always predict which window is next--will I go back to the window I was just on, or keep going forward to another one?
  - saurik 6y ago
    You can access the menu by keyboard with Ctrl-F2, but it isn't exactly what you want; that said, a nifty property of macOS is that you can modify the keyboard shortcuts if any app--including adding shortcuts for things that don't have one--in the Keyboard Shortcuts settings panel under App Shortcuts (it works by doing a string match on the menu item name).
chrischen 6y ago
Every few years I try linux and hit this problem and each time the “solution” is to modify my behavior to ctrl+shift+c.
- rbreaves 6y ago
  lol - or to do a kiss remapping that involves xmodmap or setxkbmap that still doesn't solve the problem either and then you are expected to individually remap whatever terminal you use per the terminal app preference settings or dot files that you ought to keep with you everywhere you go.
beloch 6y ago
The difference between Mac and PC keyboards is a real usability problem. If you're used to PC's or Linux, moving to a Mac and dealing with their shortcuts is painful, and vice-versa. The worst is using a mixture of both Mac's and PC's on a daily basis. Moving back and forth between platforms daily means you either have to get used to hitting the wrong shortcuts or use a hack to swap keys around on one platform so you can have standard shortcut key positions across platforms. Different people will have a preference for one layout vs the other but, in reality, the layout that feels good is what you're used to. The PC and Linux worlds are not going to adopt Mac keyboard layouts. As the one oddball computer manufacturer that uses their own layout, perhaps it's time for Apple to offer PC keyboard layouts as an option on their machines out of consideration for people who have to use multiple platforms.
- datavirtue 6y ago
  Welcome to my world
- breakfastduck 6y ago
  My main computer is a mac but I have to remote into windows machines often and switching between is horrible. I've remapped my gaming pc to mirror the mac layout because the instinct is so much stronger than whats written on the keys.
  - rbreaves 6y ago
    I have done pretty extensive testing, but I can confirm that my Kinto app does work with your type of configuration. The RDP applications that work is mentioned in the readme.
    - breakfastduck 6y ago
      Amazing. I can install applications (thankfully) on the RDP instance I connect to, so I shall definitely give it a whirl.
- floydnoel 6y ago
cardamomo 6y ago
What I really want, though, is Mac-style character-entry in Linux. It's so much easier to type accented characters in Mac.
- ziftface 6y ago
  Same, I was hoping this did that but judging by your comment I guess it doesn't
  - rbreaves 6y ago
    Out of scope for Kinto - although this topic has been brought up a number of times in the issue tickets and I did do some early research into the topic. I found at least 1 or 2 existing projects out there that could be a nice jumping off point to create something along these lines - but it isn't something I have the bandwidth to work on or include with Kinto. I think it's a possible thing to do however from what I have seen for anyone that wants to put in the effort.
- ictebres 6y ago
  This exists on linux (PopOS). I think it’s called compose key under GNOME settings.
- 3np 6y ago
  Have you tried altgr-intl layout? us-altgr-intl is a variety that exposes accented characters through AltGr-combinations. I have to type in Scandinavian, Germanic, French and Latin languages and they're all covered. As a bonus it's consistent between platforms, included by default on all distros I know of, and except the Altgr-combinations it's just like the vanilla layout. If you're on X11 you can try out the en-us variant by setxkbmap -layout "us" -variant altgr-intl
  - kergonath 6y ago
    It’s a good step, yes! A life saver if you often need to type accented letters or weird letters. What bugs me is the difference between Alt and AltGr, which is very annoying. Alt is much better located for this.
ashton314 6y ago
Maybe a n00b question, but will this give me Emacs keybindings in text fields on KDE? If so, I might be able to tolerate switching to Linux now.
- rbreaves 6y ago
  Yes, but if you find any hotkey not working just let me know in an issue ticket and I will get it added. I also accept PRs.
forgotmypw17 6y ago
I used to get annoyed by the differences between platforms and apps. I had my Windows desktop tweaked out just so, and I knew how to set it up that way on a new install in a matter of hours. It kept me tied to Windows for longer than it should've. Then I went switched to Apple and stuck with it for many years, learning a new way. Then, just like with Windows, the rug was pulled out and I had little say in it, and I finally went to GNU, where I have some choice. Over the years, I've been through so many platforms and apps, back and forth, so many times, all with their own conflicting shortcuts and different input modes day-to-day, that I've just accepted it as part of my "mindfulness practice" to always be aware of where and how I am before I press or click anything. Reminds me of Altered Carbon, just a much more geeky version.
- dataflow 6y ago
  What made you switch from Windows to Mac? Was it the Metro UI everyone hates? Because you can get rid of that in 5 minutes and forget it ever existed after that.
  - swader999 6y ago
    Probably employment, that was my case.
  - forgotmypw17 6y ago
    I switched from Windows to Apple around 2010, after using Windows 7 for a year, and away from Apple a year or two ago, after Mountain Lion. With Windows and Mac both, it wasn't any one thing in particular, just a "death by a thousand cuts", so to speak, of a general feeling of the platform changing shape without me having any say in it, without any bi-directional feedback, just changing at someone else's whim, and having little power over it. Not only was it changing, but it was continuously disempowering me, with more and more things becoming controlled by the OS system, also without me having any say in it. In the beginning, with Windows there was the seemingly additional friction of the whole drive letters and backslashes thing, and my doing most of my development in GNU-land... But then I realized that Mac GNU is almost as far away from what I develop on anyway, and I found it more comfortable to use a GNU/Linux VM to write code on anyway. I only used Mac for stuff like media playback and low-risk web browsing. After that, it was only a matter of time. Stallman was right, and I'm so grateful to have this wonderful platform which works reasonably the way I want it to, doesn't upgrade without my consent, and is infinitely configurable and meldable to my liking. Sure, there's a whole slew of crap being grafted onto it like systemd, Wayland, Chromium, etc... But it's all optional, and I don't have to use it. Thank you, GNU, thank you rms, thank you all the devs! I'm forever grateful to you for all your hard work.
newobj 6y ago
I just switched back to Windows at work for the first time in like... almost 20 years. I'm dying without readline-style controls. If this can offer those, I'm going to jump for joy. I already have the Magic Keyboard Utilities to let me use my mac keyboard as a Windows keyboard and put things in sensical places. (Left Fn & Ctrl -> Ctrl, Left Option -> Meta, Left Command -> Alt, Right Command -> Function modifier, Right Option -> Windows Key) But my god no readline (^a / ^e etc) and I'm just losing my mind.
- newobj 6y ago
  Nope, guess not.
  - ziftface 6y ago
    Can you elaborate what you mean by readline style controls? Looked it up but that didn't help.
    - momothereal 6y ago
      On macOS, Ctrl+a (^a) goes to the beginning of the line, Ctrl-e (^e) goes to the end. On Windows you can do [Home] and [End] respectively iirc. I think "readline-style controls" refers to a more letter-based approach, instead of special keys? i.e. ^a, ^e, ^w...
      - ziftface 6y ago
        Ah I see. I didn't know that. Usually I use option arrow keys or command arrow keys for that. Hopefully this supports those.
    - neolog 6y ago
      "GNU readline" is the name of the library that handles interactive shell. It has support for emacs and vim keyboard shortcuts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Readline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Readline
- 6y ago
NalNezumi 6y ago
Everyone is talking about keyboard shortcut but just 2 months old mac user (due work) the biggest "fuck you" feature I encountered in Mac was key-repetition. In PC and Linux, if you push down any letter key and keep it pushed, it repeat the key with a certain speed. In mac you can't by default do this. You have to use the terminal and go to a system file, change a variable and reboot the mac. You can, in system preferences change "speed" and "delay" of this behavior but by default this only applies to the space/backspace/arrow key. As a vim user this was probably the most annoying thing I encountered in years. Something so fundamental being different was like being told "yea, at mac land gravity is going upward. Better get used to it!". I sent a request to change my laptop to dual boot PC/Linux the next day
- notretarded 6y ago
  When have you ever needed to repeat a key by holding it apart from typing aaaaaaaagh?
- saurik 6y ago
  Huh. I am also a "vim user", and I somehow never noticed this after using macOS for now over a decade. I guess I am confused by your comment, though, as the reason I seem to have never noticed is directly because I am a "vim user"... Terminal and iTerm both do key repeat (and in fact when I first tested just now I was like "I mean, seems to work?" and then I decided "oh, I guess I should check apps other than vim"... but why would anyone use software other than vim ;P).
  - rbreaves 6y ago
    I would have done the same thing these days. Although when I first transitioned to Macs I was not a heavy terminal user like I am now - always been into dev work, mostly web development back then. And I do recall changing that setting via the terminal, but I was never annoyed by it though as I tended to do far less customization to the OS than Windows or Linux. And this is awesome to be replying to Saurik! Thank you so much for the work you've done in the iOS jailbreaking community.
  - NalNezumi 6y ago
lewispb 6y ago
I was pleased to discover recently that Microsoft PowerToys are a thing again and include a Keyboard Manager utility. It's really simple to use and works flawlessly. It's nice to use an "official" product to remap the ctrl / cmd keys on my Apple keyboard while using my Windows PC. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/keyboard-manager https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/keyboard-...
- rbreaves 6y ago
  Powertoys is pretty powerful and I have offered a few suggestions to them that I hope they will implement with their own remapping solution and last I heard they may very well be working on allowing for groups of applications to share similar key remaps. I don't think Kinto will be switching over to leveraging PowerToys though because AutoHotKey has been able to accomplish everything it needs to do so far and frankly much more complicated remaps than what Powertoys can currently do. I did have some doubts about whether AutoHotKey would be better in all cases - as I initially ran into issues with RDP sessions, but have since worked those problems out for the most part. The problems that remain appear to be isolated to chromebooks RDPing into Windows & probably wouldn't impact 99% of the people that would use Kinto over RDP still. It's a very specific combo & most of the time it executes normally and I am the author and I dog food this project daily. Additionally the remaps are non-permanent so there's no need to log off or back on like you would if were to use sharpkeys to do the remapping. Also it is by design - if you want to pair program with a co-worker and they don't share you're affinity for mac style hotkeys then toggling Kinto off is a couple of simple clicks of the mouse.
stevencorona 6y ago
I use this daily with linux/i3 and it has been very pleasant! Installed it and it basically does exactly what you expect. Only issue was some conflicting default i3 shortcuts that conflicted, but were easy enough to remap
technolo-g 6y ago
I do like the project, however after mapping caps-lock to ctrl (or command on MacOS) the cognitive load from switching platforms has been decreased significantly.
ComputerGuru 6y ago
Shameless plug: wincycle makes win/cmd+backtick to cycle between Windows of the same app work. This and iMessage were the two things I missed leaving macOS for Windows and so I solved them both for myself :) https://neosmart.net/blog/2017/easy-window-switcher/ https://neosmart.net/blog/2017/easy-window-switcher/
- pseudalopex 6y ago
  How did you solve iMessage?
  - ComputerGuru 6y ago
    I didn't link to that because it's unfortunately not something that I can share a download to like I could with wincycle: https://neosmart.net/blog/2018/imessage-for-windows/ https://neosmart.net/blog/2018/imessage-for-windows/
  - rbreaves 6y ago
    I solved it with AirMessage by SparkDev - runs directly on my iPhone. There air similarly named apps and macOS based implementations as well that would work, but I prefer keeping it on my phone instead. As far as the Alt- switching goes.. that was honestly one of the more difficult things to solve for both Linux and Windows. For Linux because of the sheer number of DEs (a few absolutely hated it to allow certain remapping, had to send in patches for one of the DEs too!) and Windows because it initially appeared that the most simple remapping methods would clobber each other - but after working with Autohotkey enough it was apparent that it was indeed up to the task & I also kicked Sharpkeys registry hacking off to the side and no longer needed users to log off and back on. (Also makes pair programming a bit easier too.)
- raindropm 6y ago
  Great! I just search for a way to do this in Autohotkey a couple of months ago(not going very well, of course) Thanks for shameless plug! :)
biryani_chicken 6y ago
How are Mac shortcuts different from Linux and Windows?
- rbreaves 6y ago
  Let me write you a story thousands of lines long. I'll call it Kinto :P. Windows/Linux - Primary, Tertiary, Secondary, Spacebar Mac - Tertiary, Secondary, Primary, Spacebar A thumb driven Primary modifier is nice, but beyond that hotkeys trip over each other less during terminal usage. The arrow keys w/ modifiers and emac style binding are highly useful for programmers and terminal users as well.
cpcat 6y ago
I'm glad to see this here. I recently switched from mac to linux and Kinto makes it almost seamless.
rubyn00bie 6y ago
This is great, btw. Kinto is 100% a sanity saver. Please note the following rant is mostly tongue-in-cheek. 'cuz it turns out, I personally hate how Windows and Linux do things with `ctrl`. Coming from a Mac, my biggest and most consistent annoyance is that the `ctrl` key is fucking useless at best... One of the most common use cases for the `ctrl` key is COPYING shit and followed by PASTING shit and it DOES NOT WORK in a fucking TERMINAL... Because `ctrl-c` sends an interrupt, I don't know what `ctrl-v` sends and I don't give a shit as long as it is not pasting my fucking buffer. Seriously... on Linux this has got to be the worst default ever made. Sure `ctrl+shift-c` will copy things but it's fighting decades of fucking muscle memory... and if I miss the shift, "boom" repl killed. Great experience for someone totally new to the OS, just follow this tutorial, start by copying this from your spooky new black box: "[^C program exited." I'm willing to bet I ran into that exact thing years ago in highschool and just attributed it to me being a dumbass and gave up: "damn, I can't even copy paste shit in this, I'll never figure it out" instead of that being the worst most absurd default on a *nix system ever. And the "Windows/Hyper" key? Ah yes, here's a key that was created to globally disrupt whatever you are doing. So where is the obvious location? In-between two keys that are ONLY used as modifiers; so, when you accidentally hit the wrong one you always lose focus. Even better is when you accidentally do so on both characters; enabling some obscure setting or window you can't correctly undo because you don't know what you pressed! I'm glad to know there are at least some other sane people out there who have realized 1992 may not have been the pinnacle of desktop computing...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- chmln 6y ago
  > One of the most common use cases for the `ctrl` key is COPYING shit and followed by PASTING shit and it DOES NOT WORK in a fucking TERMINAL... Because `ctrl-c` sends an interrupt Most terminals today have a copy-on-select feature, which means you don't need to ctrl-c at all. Just select and ctrl-v.
  - jacobolus 6y ago
    A large number of keyboard shortcuts are in conflict. "One specific keyboard shortcut has a mouse-based workaround" is not really a good answer. The Windows GUI copied the Mac’s keyboard shortcuts (originally from Lisa?) but didn't have a dedicated key for them so re-used the existing Ctrl key, which already had a meaning on text-based operating systems. (This happened because Microsoft had no input into hardware keyboard layouts, and wanted to make software compatible with the plethora of IBM-Model-M-layout keyboards available in 1985–1990.) Then Linux GUIs wholesale copied every feature of Windows they could including the keyboard shortcuts, in a context where this was even worse, because now existing Ctrl-based shortcuts from terminal software were directly in conflict with new Ctrl-based shortcuts from Windows.
MadWombat 6y ago
I am very confused. I am using a Mac for work and I am using Windows at home. And after reading the readme, I am still not sure what this thing does. Can someone explain?
- rbreaves 6y ago
  How do hotkeys work on a mac? That's how they will work on everything else with Kinto. If you haven't used a mac then it will be more difficult to understand and explain because it does a lot more than just swapping a few keys around - but that is part of it.
asperous 6y ago
Although I do prefer the cmd setup, one thing to note is that the physical button on a Mac keyboard is 1.2-1.5x bigger. This makes it easier to press and less likely to miss. On windows with a windows keyboard, the lcontrol button is easier to press because it is in the corner.
rcthompson 6y ago
Can someone comment on how this works with GNOME, which uses the super key to show the window overview/launcher? Does that just get remapped to control, or does it do something special to keep it on the super key while remapping super+other key combos?
- rbreaves 6y ago
  Super key mapping is removed during the install, if it is bound to anything, and ought to be the only system level key that is undone to prevent triggering of any menus. If you uninstall Kinto then it restores the keybinding, beyond that all remappings are non-permanent to the system level OS/distro.
graywh 6y ago
I might need this when we finally go back to the office and I have to switch from the MBP w/ Magic Keyboard at home to my Ubuntu Dell workstation now if I could only override some of the application shortcuts that can't be changed (like ctrl-w closing a tab or window)
stevenguh 6y ago
This seems like a collection of shortcut remappings instead of a general window key to ctrl remap. That means that for example if Ctrl+p is not remapped, you can't use the win key. I have an ahk script that's have a more general approach which maps window key to ctrl. It also remap the text navigation and mac style window switching. https://github.com/stevenguh/autohotkey-windows-mac-keyboard https://github.com/stevenguh/autohotkey-windows-mac-keyboard
- rbreaves 6y ago
  It’s not a “collection” of remappings, it is in fact a general modifier key swap w/ dynamic modifier key swapping for a variety of Terminal apps, layered w/ an additional set or collection of remaps for code editors geared towards developers as well. I’m sure your project is good but I think Kinto is better fleshed out than you’d assume. Also your Windows key, in Kinto, tends to land on the physical Ctrl key during a normal GUI app or non-terminal. Ctrl+P is otherwise on your Cmd key location.. as are all primary modifier combos tend to be. It does not interfere with or lack any particular remapping that I am aware of.
Cyph0n 6y ago
On a slightly related note: does anyone else map caps lock to control (and vice-versa)? I’ve never really understood why caps lock gets a huge key in the middle of the keyboard, while control gets a regular-sized key at the bottom. Generally speaking, caps lock is used much less than control.
- mcpherrinm 6y ago
  It's sufficiently common that one of my keyboards has a built-in DIP switch to enable that
- maddyboo 6y ago
  I map it to escape. I find using the caps lock key as a modifier to be too awkward, I prefer the position of the control key for that. Escape being all the way up at the top left is much more of an inconvenience. I don’t remap the original escape key to caps lock, though, I have xkb set to trigger caps lock by pressing both shift keys.
  - desmap 6y ago
    or just put both esc and ctrl to caps lock, which got common in the kb community for a few years
  - Cyph0n 6y ago
    As a Vim user, Esc is quite common, but I still end up straining my hand more when reaching for control. Remapping control has helped me a lot with that. If strain wasn’t an issue, Esc would be my next choice.
- rbreaves 6y ago
  Kinto supports remapping Capslock to Ctrl or Esc, it is in the Tweaks menu, at least on Linux. I have not implemented the Tweaks menu for Windows just yet, besides that the 2 versions are pretty much at parity with each other.
- raindropm 6y ago
  I map it to alt+tab. One press and it call most recent window, another press and it switch back. I mean, you can press alt+tab quickly. But I like the simplicity of one button.
glsdfgkjsklfj 6y ago
I will only respect this project if it completely breaks alt+tab on windows and linux to make it useless like OSX, where you cannot go to a specific terminal window. ha! sarcasm aside, I wish there was something that was the exact opposite. I tried to map cltr+c/v on OSX but it doesn't work on some applications, like firefox. And using Switch application that fixes alt+tab to all windows (not programs) for some reason the default shortcut (Option-tab) is stolen on iterm2 which is exactly where I wanted it to work. man, having to use OSX at the office is like having to use Windows with Outlook in the past. So silly.
- alisonatwork 6y ago
  Hear, hear. Alt-Tab is abysmal on Mac. I have no idea why people keep going on about Ctrl-C in the terminal, as if we haven't had terminals on both Windows and UNIX that copy-on-select for 20+ years. Broken Alt-Tab is far bigger impediment to my workflow. I guess you have tried Karabiner-Elements[0] to help remap the keyboard? It's infuriating that it doesn't work properly in all the apps. Especially the browsers all seem to map their own keyboard shortcuts or hijack keys. If you use IntelliJ then that's a whole nother level of pain to try to map properly. I don't think I have ever succeeded in making arrow key movement inside text fields work consistently across all applications on a Mac. Another app I think is a must is the BetterSnapTool[1]. It's the only app I've found that does a reasonable job of snapping like Windows. There are dozens of other ones, but none of them work quite properly. BetterSnapTool doesn't either, for example you can't snap a window from a half to a quarter and back up to a half again, then restore it back to the original size before you snapped. But you can snap it to half, full and original size. Most of the other tools on Mac don't remember the original size. I also like uBar[2] to get rid of the dock and replace it with a more useful task bar. It's not as good as the one on Windows 10, but if you're forced to use a Mac for work then pretty much anything helps. [0] https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/ https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/ [1] https://www.folivora.ai/bettersnaptool/ https://www.folivora.ai/bettersnaptool/ [2] https://brawersoftware.com/products/ubar https://brawersoftware.com/products/ubar
  - kristofferR 6y ago
    https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/ https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/
ofrzeta 6y ago
Kinto is also a "minimalist JSON storage service with synchronisation and sharing abilities" made by Mozilla https://docs.kinto-storage.org/en/stable/overview.html https://docs.kinto-storage.org/en/stable/overview.html
ornornor 6y ago
I’m hijacking the thread, but does anyone know if a Linux utility that replicates OS X’s ability to enter special characters with option? For instance on a QWERTY keyboard, you can type option-backtick followed by `e` and it will combine it into `è`. There are several other combinations I forget to enter other Unicode chars that don’t have a key and that feature works systemwide. It’s the one thing I miss on Linux from OS X.
- chronogram 6y ago
  You're probably looking for the compose key: https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/tips-specialchars.html.en https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/tips-specialc...
- kps 6y ago
  You need to set your keyboard layout. Assuming you have some desktop environment, look in its keyboard settings for “English (Macintosh)”. You may also have to configure an AltGraph key (== Option); the default is likely right Alt, since that's what Windows does.
Hamuko 6y ago
What a great timing. I just built a gaming PC this week to go along with my Hackintosh and you wouldn't believe the amount of times I've locked Windows since Cmd+L in macOS selects the address bar but using the same key combination on the Windows machine does Win+L for lock.
jibbit 6y ago
I have to use a Mac, a Linux, and a windows laptop. Three different keyboards. Then I have a couple of different external keyboards at the office, a couple at home, and a couple at my partners where I’m spending weekends. I basically have three modifier keys, A,B,C (that I don’t understand the rational behind - but thanks, I learnt a few things from this thread) that I have to try -in turn - whenever I want to use a shortcut (not exactly a shortcut any more). There isn’t a day goes by that I don’t want to burn it all down and start from scratch building a new keyboard/OS. Or run vim on the metal and use that as the OS, or switch to voice control, or mind control, or anything!
corytheboyd 6y ago
Does this do more than remap copy/paste keys? Nothing wrong with just doing that, but I was a bit confused from the leading examples. Needless addition that nobody asked for: Having recently switched to Ubuntu from MacOS as my primary development environment, I very much felt the pain of losing many keyboard shortcuts I had grown accustomed to (amongst other subtle things, like the really good default PDF viewer in MacOS, and yeah yeah yeah I know there are Linux alternatives). I ended up installing a jetbrains marketplace plugin that as-best-as-possible mimics the MacOS bindings and then just re-learned the rest and.. it wasn't TOO bad, probably a week or so of feeling like a limb was missing.
- rbreaves 6y ago
  Jetbrains is supported by Kinto & the remap is better than their macOS remap layout. Leave it on their default layout & Kinto will remap it 100% to what you’d expect. The hotkeys in the drop downs will not always line up - but that’s the price for this implementation.
interactivecode 6y ago
My biggest annoyance with linux is that for an OS where you supposedly can adjust and modify everything. Changing the keyboard shortcuts (even with kinto) is absolutely impossible. Not all programs work... things like CMD+arrow to move the cursor to end/start of line needs custom scripts. Its a mess. Surly this could be better?
- rbreaves 6y ago
  Custom scripts? No it doesn’t, it takes 1 Python script (Kinto) & it ought to cover pretty much every scenario you throw at it. I’m the author of Kinto & I feel pretty certain that you haven’t actually tried it based on what you just wrote because the Cmd+arrow stuff you mention is completely covered.
ossusermivami 6y ago
I use a osx keyboard on my linux laptop that act as desktop, the only thing annoying is the switch between tabs (Super key on OSX, alt key on Linux) The copy and paste in terminal was annoying at first, and used to remap it to super-c super-v but then I embraced it and doesn't seem to bother the context switch when I am back on OSX. The only difference for me between linux and osx is the fonts.. not sure why but alas i start to get use to to the linux fonts, i used to really be bugged about it before.
fhunt 6y ago
Moved to Win after a decade on a Mac, this doesn't make sense, most Mac keys are not much better and you are just used to it, rather install AHK, something which no other platform has, and remap keys in a sane way.
- ByteWelder 6y ago
  Using control for the most common operations is much more straining for the hand. It is especially noticeable by heavy keyboard users such as software developers. Using your thumb to hit CMD (or Alt on a Win keyboard), is much less straining.
  - fhunt 6y ago
    i haven't used the original ctrl keys for a decade, nowadays everyone puts control on caps, even on a mac haha. then your left pinky is closer to ctrl + faster than your left thumb to command and if you want you beloved spotlight just install ms powertoys which has powerrun, it's the same, bind to alt-space
    - ByteWelder 6y ago
      Interesting use case. I have ESC bound to Caps Lock. (for Vim/Emacs keybinds)
- rbreaves 6y ago
  Kinto uses AHK on Windows already - it just does an insane level of remapping for you out of the box. The Author
deleted 6y ago
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maxxk 6y ago
Consistent cmd+x/c/v is great. I've tried replicating this experience in Linux in many different ways over the years, but the best approach was to add `altwin(ctrl_alt_win)` to xkeyboard preferences together with custom `ctrl_space_toggle` for layout toggle. It achieves almost the same effect as Kinto without an additional daemon: physical Alt maps to Ctrl (Cmd in terms of Mac layout), Ctrl works as Super and Super/Win works as Alt — the closest, I think, to Apple keyboard layout. It event works fine in Wayland (sway). Considering the terminal, remap your favorite terminal emulator to send control codes via Super+A..Z (physical Ctrl+A..Z), and unmap/remap to the required action Ctrl+A..Z (physical "Cmd"+A..Z). It works fine in Konsole and great in Alacritty. (unfortunately, I also have to add a second set of mappings for my native non-latin keyboard layout, because at toolkit-level keys are translated to latin layout, but remapping works only for a single layout). Of course, it's only a half of the equation. Another part is Option/Compose. On Mac I used MathUnicode.keylayout. It was great, and it was a pleasure to tweak it for my needs. Xkeyboard with .XCompose (e.g. [1]) has two disadvantages: you can't use a key as both Multi key and e.g. Alt modifier simultaneously, and you don't see the composition preview. On Lenovo at least you can use `compose(prsc)` to make your left Win key an «Option-modifier» and its right PrtSc counterpart an «Option-compose». [1]: https://github.com/kragen/xcompose https://github.com/kragen/xcompose Maybe one day I will buy another Mac... but shall we prefer comfort to freedom?
qwerty456127 6y ago
Is it useful for anything besides copy-pasting in the terminal? Do I need it if I'm okay with Ctrl+Shift+C?
prionassembly 6y ago
I'm a fan of standup comics and love when comics in podcasts (like Rogan and whatnot) start ranting about "clean comedy", which means "not using the bad words". But: every comment in this thread that uses a bad word is at best misguided, while comments without bad words are informative and keep the general mood in check. I know people tend to bypass word filters by occluding letters ("B*rcelona") while retaining meaning; but maybe a word filter would cut dang's work by $A_LOT %.
bipson 6y ago
This also frustrated me when I was using OS X and Linux in parallel when I was using an identical Apple keyboard on both - really messes with your muscle memory. As long as I did not use an external keyboard on my MacBook I was fine. It seems my muscle memory is application dependent, i.e. I never hit ^C when I intend to copy in a terminal. On the other hand I might hit Ctrl+Shift+C on browsers once in a while if I am switching context a lot... ;) Unfortunately this requires X11 anyway :(
tticvs 6y ago
I use this on my Manjaro KDE work machine and it has been a life saver since switching from Mac after 10+ years. It works shockingly well. Only annoyance is that applications are not necessarily aware of the new mac layout so if you're using an unfamiliar application looking up the keyboard shortcuts won't map exactly to what you need to press.
legacynl 6y ago
My theory is that Apple purposefully switched alt and control around to create a sort of usability trap; everytime a mac-user ever touches a different brand pc, their experience is filled with frustrations, making sure they'll never switch away. Of course the fact that every mac since needs an apple-certified keyboard is 'just a happy (very profitable) coincidence' for apple. Disguising this move under the banner of 'be different'™, mac-lackeys immediately went to work spreading the gospel of 'it's better because it's closer together'. Ultimately there already was an international standard, there is value in keeping practices standard, and Apple was the one who broke the standard. It should not be celebrated, it should be ridiculed as the shameless cash-grab trap that it is. Instead of making an app for every platform out there that makes that platform more 'mac-like', there should be an app for mac, that makes that platform behave like the established standards. OFC Apple don't allow such modifications, because what they say goes, and what they do, apple-fanboys will like anyway.
- compscistd 6y ago
  If you think OSX is user hostile because of intentional vendor-specific keyboard keys, note that Windows computers have a “Windows” key. Is that an international standard? I think most commercial keyboards (just about all laptops) are terrible and If there really are international keyboard standards, they’re not great design. I personally think all keyboard layouts are ultimately wrong because the underused caps lock is in prime real estate and should be replaced by the CTRL key (check out the ADM-3). As for Macs requiring a certified keyboard, that’s just plain wrong. The ultimate gripes come down to key placement and window manager shortcuts, both of which can be modified on either OS.
qwerty456127 6y ago
BTW how do you use keyboard to select terminal text in the first place? Also, is there a way to use clipboard in text mode consoles (without X)?

237 points by yankcrime 6y ago

Wow, I'll have to try that out. For reference, I really like how shortcuts work in MacOS. This won't solve the lack of a standard that developers try to adhere to on other platforms. But it's immensely annoying to have to shift between ctrl+c and ctrl+shift+c depending on whether or not you're on a terminal versus another application. As a bonus, I press command with my thumb which is both stronger than my pinkie and has very little to do other than press space normally.

symlinkk 6y ago
I don’t get the fascination with macOS keyboard shortcuts, people always mention the copy thing that you did and it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.
- ucosty 6y ago
  It feels a lot more ergonomic, especially if you switch between cli and gui applications a lot. It's one thing I really miss when going from my work Mac to my home Linux machine.
- stu2b50 6y ago
  There's two parts to it. One, that macOS has a proscribed way for apps to compose command, ctrl, and option for shortcuts, whereas it's basically the Wild West on the other platforms. So it's just generally nice on macOS. The terminal thing is, in the grand scheme of things, minor, but a very nice QoL. It's annoying to mode shift from ctrl as a desktop environment modifier to ctrl as a unix modifier. Especially when ctrl+c can be quite a bit more destructive than "copy". It's not like it's impossible to adjust, but it's very nice to have command+c do the same thing, everywhere.
  - kitsunesoba 6y ago
    > It's not like it's impossible to adjust, but it's very nice to have command+c do the same thing, everywhere. Yeah, I would sum it up as reducing the number of discrete shortcut sets to remember to the bare minimum, instead lumping as much as possible into the global set.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > One, that macOS has a proscribed way for apps Presumably, “prescribed”; “proscribed” is essentially the opposite.
- GongOfFour 6y ago
  Take your pinky and touch it to the tip of every other finger on the same hand, now take your thumb and do the same. Which is easier? This is the difference between a command based shortcuts and ctrl based shortcuts (unless you are using a non-standard ctrl key). There is a reason why people get "emacs pinky" but no-one gets "mac thumb".
- rtpg 6y ago
  Here's why it's, objectively, the best thing: - Super key isn't wasted on window management (a thing you basically are doing a handful of time per sessions). A nicely-placed key is used for things that you do a lot! - No "oh wow the start menu showed up randomly" BS when you fat finger. - Control commands "just work" everywhere! Terminal usage is of course easy, but ctrl-a/ctrl-e also work for cursor movement. You get great text maninpulation! Seriously, being able to move the cursor around in any text field is a game changer. - Isolation of most system-level operations to that key mean that you are unlikely to hit weird conflicts. And if you fat-finger you can Super-Z out of your issue most of the time.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
paulryanrogers 6y ago
With Karabiner Elements, AutoHotkey, and AutoKey you can get your favorite shortcuts on all three

CGamesPlay 6y ago

Who puts the table of contents in the middle of the content? Below that is where you'll find the "What does this do exactly?" section, which really should be the first thing on the page. Why does the opening section say "Seamless copy and paste with all apps and terminals"? Seems to have nothing to do with the project. https://github.com/rbreaves/kinto/#table-of-contents https://github.com/rbreaves/kinto/#table-of-contents

rlyshw 6y ago
I read the “what exactly does this do?” section and still don’t know what it does. Maybe I’m just dumb, but there doesn’t seem to be any “user story” to succinctly describe what the heck this accomplishes... I just use ctrl-c on windows and cmd-c on Mac, it’s not that hard. But maybe this is way bigger than just... remapping win-c to ctrl-c? Idk? There’s no story about this utility directly in the Readme...
- rbreaves 6y ago
  As a general user or a developer, I want Linux and Windows to type and work like a Mac. As a developer I want terminals, code editors and any other commonly used dev related applications to have the same keymaps as macOS out of the box. As a user I want to seamlessly use and/or easily switch between official Apple keyboards, 3rd party Apple keyboards, Windows keyboards, chromebook keyboards, or IBM style keyboard (w/o a Win key).
rbreaves 6y ago
There's a link to the Table of Contents near the very top of the Readme right after the basic and short description. I prioritized the info to make it a little faster to get up and running versus the need to scroll past an ever increasingly long ToC. For the most part people shouldn't really need to read something a mile long to get it up and running. I really need to get Kinto packaged officially into the repos for various distributions.
- CGamesPlay 6y ago
  I'm actually pretty interested in the project and will definitely take a look into it when I next set up a Linux desktop for whatever reason. That said, I'm only interested in it because I had to spend a lot of effort to figure out exactly what it would be useful for. > I prioritized the info to make it a little faster to get up and running versus the need to scroll past an ever increasingly long ToC. For the most part people shouldn't really need to read something a mile long to get it up and running. This is fair! But I don't want to "get set up and running" on something I've never heard of and don't know what it's going to do. I still don't understand why it says "copy and paste with all apps and terminals"... is it because you can copy and paste with a keyboard shortcut?

clairity 6y ago

i've always lamented the incompleteness of mac keyboard shortcuts compared to windows, but it's been a long time since i've used windows, so it's hard for me to remember specifics. but i do remember that multi-key shortcuts generally made more sense in windows. and you could alt-tab easily between windows of different applications, not just applications or just tabs/windows of the same application.

SloopJon 6y ago
Although I too have lost my muscle memory, not having used Windows as my primary O/S in a while, one thing I miss is the ability to traverse through menus with a series of keystrokes; e.g., Alt-F, then p to print, as opposed to Ctrl-P. This came in handy for menu items with an obscure shortcut, or no shortcut at all. Similarly, I would preface some programs in the Start menu with a unique number; e.g., Win, P, 1 opened File Explorer; Win, P, 2 opened the Command Prompt, etc. With the Windows 10 start menu, I just start typing, but it sometimes exhibits weird behavior, where it finds what I want after one or two characters, then changes to the wrong thing after I type another (correct) character. I generally prefer the Cmd-Tab / Cmd-Tilde split on macOS to the Alt-Tab on Windows. However, after all these years, I still can't always predict which window is next--will I go back to the window I was just on, or keep going forward to another one?
- saurik 6y ago
  You can access the menu by keyboard with Ctrl-F2, but it isn't exactly what you want; that said, a nifty property of macOS is that you can modify the keyboard shortcuts if any app--including adding shortcuts for things that don't have one--in the Keyboard Shortcuts settings panel under App Shortcuts (it works by doing a string match on the menu item name).

chrischen 6y ago

Every few years I try linux and hit this problem and each time the “solution” is to modify my behavior to ctrl+shift+c.

rbreaves 6y ago
lol - or to do a kiss remapping that involves xmodmap or setxkbmap that still doesn't solve the problem either and then you are expected to individually remap whatever terminal you use per the terminal app preference settings or dot files that you ought to keep with you everywhere you go.

beloch 6y ago

The difference between Mac and PC keyboards is a real usability problem. If you're used to PC's or Linux, moving to a Mac and dealing with their shortcuts is painful, and vice-versa. The worst is using a mixture of both Mac's and PC's on a daily basis. Moving back and forth between platforms daily means you either have to get used to hitting the wrong shortcuts or use a hack to swap keys around on one platform so you can have standard shortcut key positions across platforms. Different people will have a preference for one layout vs the other but, in reality, the layout that feels good is what you're used to. The PC and Linux worlds are not going to adopt Mac keyboard layouts. As the one oddball computer manufacturer that uses their own layout, perhaps it's time for Apple to offer PC keyboard layouts as an option on their machines out of consideration for people who have to use multiple platforms.

datavirtue 6y ago
Welcome to my world
breakfastduck 6y ago
My main computer is a mac but I have to remote into windows machines often and switching between is horrible. I've remapped my gaming pc to mirror the mac layout because the instinct is so much stronger than whats written on the keys.
- rbreaves 6y ago
  I have done pretty extensive testing, but I can confirm that my Kinto app does work with your type of configuration. The RDP applications that work is mentioned in the readme.
  - breakfastduck 6y ago
    Amazing. I can install applications (thankfully) on the RDP instance I connect to, so I shall definitely give it a whirl.
floydnoel 6y ago

cardamomo 6y ago

What I really want, though, is Mac-style character-entry in Linux. It's so much easier to type accented characters in Mac.

ziftface 6y ago
Same, I was hoping this did that but judging by your comment I guess it doesn't
- rbreaves 6y ago
  Out of scope for Kinto - although this topic has been brought up a number of times in the issue tickets and I did do some early research into the topic. I found at least 1 or 2 existing projects out there that could be a nice jumping off point to create something along these lines - but it isn't something I have the bandwidth to work on or include with Kinto. I think it's a possible thing to do however from what I have seen for anyone that wants to put in the effort.
ictebres 6y ago
This exists on linux (PopOS). I think it’s called compose key under GNOME settings.
3np 6y ago
Have you tried altgr-intl layout? us-altgr-intl is a variety that exposes accented characters through AltGr-combinations. I have to type in Scandinavian, Germanic, French and Latin languages and they're all covered. As a bonus it's consistent between platforms, included by default on all distros I know of, and except the Altgr-combinations it's just like the vanilla layout. If you're on X11 you can try out the en-us variant by setxkbmap -layout "us" -variant altgr-intl
- kergonath 6y ago
  It’s a good step, yes! A life saver if you often need to type accented letters or weird letters. What bugs me is the difference between Alt and AltGr, which is very annoying. Alt is much better located for this.

ashton314 6y ago

Maybe a n00b question, but will this give me Emacs keybindings in text fields on KDE? If so, I might be able to tolerate switching to Linux now.

rbreaves 6y ago
Yes, but if you find any hotkey not working just let me know in an issue ticket and I will get it added. I also accept PRs.

forgotmypw17 6y ago

I used to get annoyed by the differences between platforms and apps. I had my Windows desktop tweaked out just so, and I knew how to set it up that way on a new install in a matter of hours. It kept me tied to Windows for longer than it should've. Then I went switched to Apple and stuck with it for many years, learning a new way. Then, just like with Windows, the rug was pulled out and I had little say in it, and I finally went to GNU, where I have some choice. Over the years, I've been through so many platforms and apps, back and forth, so many times, all with their own conflicting shortcuts and different input modes day-to-day, that I've just accepted it as part of my "mindfulness practice" to always be aware of where and how I am before I press or click anything. Reminds me of Altered Carbon, just a much more geeky version.

dataflow 6y ago
What made you switch from Windows to Mac? Was it the Metro UI everyone hates? Because you can get rid of that in 5 minutes and forget it ever existed after that.
- swader999 6y ago
  Probably employment, that was my case.
- forgotmypw17 6y ago
  I switched from Windows to Apple around 2010, after using Windows 7 for a year, and away from Apple a year or two ago, after Mountain Lion. With Windows and Mac both, it wasn't any one thing in particular, just a "death by a thousand cuts", so to speak, of a general feeling of the platform changing shape without me having any say in it, without any bi-directional feedback, just changing at someone else's whim, and having little power over it. Not only was it changing, but it was continuously disempowering me, with more and more things becoming controlled by the OS system, also without me having any say in it. In the beginning, with Windows there was the seemingly additional friction of the whole drive letters and backslashes thing, and my doing most of my development in GNU-land... But then I realized that Mac GNU is almost as far away from what I develop on anyway, and I found it more comfortable to use a GNU/Linux VM to write code on anyway. I only used Mac for stuff like media playback and low-risk web browsing. After that, it was only a matter of time. Stallman was right, and I'm so grateful to have this wonderful platform which works reasonably the way I want it to, doesn't upgrade without my consent, and is infinitely configurable and meldable to my liking. Sure, there's a whole slew of crap being grafted onto it like systemd, Wayland, Chromium, etc... But it's all optional, and I don't have to use it. Thank you, GNU, thank you rms, thank you all the devs! I'm forever grateful to you for all your hard work.

newobj 6y ago

I just switched back to Windows at work for the first time in like... almost 20 years. I'm dying without readline-style controls. If this can offer those, I'm going to jump for joy. I already have the Magic Keyboard Utilities to let me use my mac keyboard as a Windows keyboard and put things in sensical places. (Left Fn & Ctrl -> Ctrl, Left Option -> Meta, Left Command -> Alt, Right Command -> Function modifier, Right Option -> Windows Key) But my god no readline (^a / ^e etc) and I'm just losing my mind.

newobj 6y ago
Nope, guess not.
- ziftface 6y ago
  Can you elaborate what you mean by readline style controls? Looked it up but that didn't help.
  - momothereal 6y ago
    On macOS, Ctrl+a (^a) goes to the beginning of the line, Ctrl-e (^e) goes to the end. On Windows you can do [Home] and [End] respectively iirc. I think "readline-style controls" refers to a more letter-based approach, instead of special keys? i.e. ^a, ^e, ^w...
    - ziftface 6y ago
      Ah I see. I didn't know that. Usually I use option arrow keys or command arrow keys for that. Hopefully this supports those.
  - neolog 6y ago
    "GNU readline" is the name of the library that handles interactive shell. It has support for emacs and vim keyboard shortcuts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Readline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Readline
6y ago

NalNezumi 6y ago

Everyone is talking about keyboard shortcut but just 2 months old mac user (due work) the biggest "fuck you" feature I encountered in Mac was key-repetition. In PC and Linux, if you push down any letter key and keep it pushed, it repeat the key with a certain speed. In mac you can't by default do this. You have to use the terminal and go to a system file, change a variable and reboot the mac. You can, in system preferences change "speed" and "delay" of this behavior but by default this only applies to the space/backspace/arrow key. As a vim user this was probably the most annoying thing I encountered in years. Something so fundamental being different was like being told "yea, at mac land gravity is going upward. Better get used to it!". I sent a request to change my laptop to dual boot PC/Linux the next day

notretarded 6y ago
When have you ever needed to repeat a key by holding it apart from typing aaaaaaaagh?
saurik 6y ago
Huh. I am also a "vim user", and I somehow never noticed this after using macOS for now over a decade. I guess I am confused by your comment, though, as the reason I seem to have never noticed is directly because I am a "vim user"... Terminal and iTerm both do key repeat (and in fact when I first tested just now I was like "I mean, seems to work?" and then I decided "oh, I guess I should check apps other than vim"... but why would anyone use software other than vim ;P).
- rbreaves 6y ago
  I would have done the same thing these days. Although when I first transitioned to Macs I was not a heavy terminal user like I am now - always been into dev work, mostly web development back then. And I do recall changing that setting via the terminal, but I was never annoyed by it though as I tended to do far less customization to the OS than Windows or Linux. And this is awesome to be replying to Saurik! Thank you so much for the work you've done in the iOS jailbreaking community.
- NalNezumi 6y ago

lewispb 6y ago

I was pleased to discover recently that Microsoft PowerToys are a thing again and include a Keyboard Manager utility. It's really simple to use and works flawlessly. It's nice to use an "official" product to remap the ctrl / cmd keys on my Apple keyboard while using my Windows PC. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/keyboard-manager https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/keyboard-...

rbreaves 6y ago
Powertoys is pretty powerful and I have offered a few suggestions to them that I hope they will implement with their own remapping solution and last I heard they may very well be working on allowing for groups of applications to share similar key remaps. I don't think Kinto will be switching over to leveraging PowerToys though because AutoHotKey has been able to accomplish everything it needs to do so far and frankly much more complicated remaps than what Powertoys can currently do. I did have some doubts about whether AutoHotKey would be better in all cases - as I initially ran into issues with RDP sessions, but have since worked those problems out for the most part. The problems that remain appear to be isolated to chromebooks RDPing into Windows & probably wouldn't impact 99% of the people that would use Kinto over RDP still. It's a very specific combo & most of the time it executes normally and I am the author and I dog food this project daily. Additionally the remaps are non-permanent so there's no need to log off or back on like you would if were to use sharpkeys to do the remapping. Also it is by design - if you want to pair program with a co-worker and they don't share you're affinity for mac style hotkeys then toggling Kinto off is a couple of simple clicks of the mouse.

stevencorona 6y ago

I use this daily with linux/i3 and it has been very pleasant! Installed it and it basically does exactly what you expect. Only issue was some conflicting default i3 shortcuts that conflicted, but were easy enough to remap

technolo-g 6y ago

I do like the project, however after mapping caps-lock to ctrl (or command on MacOS) the cognitive load from switching platforms has been decreased significantly.

ComputerGuru 6y ago

Shameless plug: wincycle makes win/cmd+backtick to cycle between Windows of the same app work. This and iMessage were the two things I missed leaving macOS for Windows and so I solved them both for myself :) https://neosmart.net/blog/2017/easy-window-switcher/ https://neosmart.net/blog/2017/easy-window-switcher/

pseudalopex 6y ago
How did you solve iMessage?
- ComputerGuru 6y ago
  I didn't link to that because it's unfortunately not something that I can share a download to like I could with wincycle: https://neosmart.net/blog/2018/imessage-for-windows/ https://neosmart.net/blog/2018/imessage-for-windows/
- rbreaves 6y ago
  I solved it with AirMessage by SparkDev - runs directly on my iPhone. There air similarly named apps and macOS based implementations as well that would work, but I prefer keeping it on my phone instead. As far as the Alt- switching goes.. that was honestly one of the more difficult things to solve for both Linux and Windows. For Linux because of the sheer number of DEs (a few absolutely hated it to allow certain remapping, had to send in patches for one of the DEs too!) and Windows because it initially appeared that the most simple remapping methods would clobber each other - but after working with Autohotkey enough it was apparent that it was indeed up to the task & I also kicked Sharpkeys registry hacking off to the side and no longer needed users to log off and back on. (Also makes pair programming a bit easier too.)
raindropm 6y ago
Great! I just search for a way to do this in Autohotkey a couple of months ago(not going very well, of course) Thanks for shameless plug! :)

biryani_chicken 6y ago

How are Mac shortcuts different from Linux and Windows?

rbreaves 6y ago
Let me write you a story thousands of lines long. I'll call it Kinto :P. Windows/Linux - Primary, Tertiary, Secondary, Spacebar Mac - Tertiary, Secondary, Primary, Spacebar A thumb driven Primary modifier is nice, but beyond that hotkeys trip over each other less during terminal usage. The arrow keys w/ modifiers and emac style binding are highly useful for programmers and terminal users as well.

cpcat 6y ago

I'm glad to see this here. I recently switched from mac to linux and Kinto makes it almost seamless.

rubyn00bie 6y ago

This is great, btw. Kinto is 100% a sanity saver. Please note the following rant is mostly tongue-in-cheek. 'cuz it turns out, I personally hate how Windows and Linux do things with `ctrl`. Coming from a Mac, my biggest and most consistent annoyance is that the `ctrl` key is fucking useless at best... One of the most common use cases for the `ctrl` key is COPYING shit and followed by PASTING shit and it DOES NOT WORK in a fucking TERMINAL... Because `ctrl-c` sends an interrupt, I don't know what `ctrl-v` sends and I don't give a shit as long as it is not pasting my fucking buffer. Seriously... on Linux this has got to be the worst default ever made. Sure `ctrl+shift-c` will copy things but it's fighting decades of fucking muscle memory... and if I miss the shift, "boom" repl killed. Great experience for someone totally new to the OS, just follow this tutorial, start by copying this from your spooky new black box: "[^C program exited." I'm willing to bet I ran into that exact thing years ago in highschool and just attributed it to me being a dumbass and gave up: "damn, I can't even copy paste shit in this, I'll never figure it out" instead of that being the worst most absurd default on a *nix system ever. And the "Windows/Hyper" key? Ah yes, here's a key that was created to globally disrupt whatever you are doing. So where is the obvious location? In-between two keys that are ONLY used as modifiers; so, when you accidentally hit the wrong one you always lose focus. Even better is when you accidentally do so on both characters; enabling some obscure setting or window you can't correctly undo because you don't know what you pressed! I'm glad to know there are at least some other sane people out there who have realized 1992 may not have been the pinnacle of desktop computing...

deleted 6y ago
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chmln 6y ago
> One of the most common use cases for the `ctrl` key is COPYING shit and followed by PASTING shit and it DOES NOT WORK in a fucking TERMINAL... Because `ctrl-c` sends an interrupt Most terminals today have a copy-on-select feature, which means you don't need to ctrl-c at all. Just select and ctrl-v.
- jacobolus 6y ago
  A large number of keyboard shortcuts are in conflict. "One specific keyboard shortcut has a mouse-based workaround" is not really a good answer. The Windows GUI copied the Mac’s keyboard shortcuts (originally from Lisa?) but didn't have a dedicated key for them so re-used the existing Ctrl key, which already had a meaning on text-based operating systems. (This happened because Microsoft had no input into hardware keyboard layouts, and wanted to make software compatible with the plethora of IBM-Model-M-layout keyboards available in 1985–1990.) Then Linux GUIs wholesale copied every feature of Windows they could including the keyboard shortcuts, in a context where this was even worse, because now existing Ctrl-based shortcuts from terminal software were directly in conflict with new Ctrl-based shortcuts from Windows.

MadWombat 6y ago

I am very confused. I am using a Mac for work and I am using Windows at home. And after reading the readme, I am still not sure what this thing does. Can someone explain?

rbreaves 6y ago
How do hotkeys work on a mac? That's how they will work on everything else with Kinto. If you haven't used a mac then it will be more difficult to understand and explain because it does a lot more than just swapping a few keys around - but that is part of it.

asperous 6y ago

Although I do prefer the cmd setup, one thing to note is that the physical button on a Mac keyboard is 1.2-1.5x bigger. This makes it easier to press and less likely to miss. On windows with a windows keyboard, the lcontrol button is easier to press because it is in the corner.

rcthompson 6y ago

Can someone comment on how this works with GNOME, which uses the super key to show the window overview/launcher? Does that just get remapped to control, or does it do something special to keep it on the super key while remapping super+other key combos?

rbreaves 6y ago
Super key mapping is removed during the install, if it is bound to anything, and ought to be the only system level key that is undone to prevent triggering of any menus. If you uninstall Kinto then it restores the keybinding, beyond that all remappings are non-permanent to the system level OS/distro.

graywh 6y ago

I might need this when we finally go back to the office and I have to switch from the MBP w/ Magic Keyboard at home to my Ubuntu Dell workstation now if I could only override some of the application shortcuts that can't be changed (like ctrl-w closing a tab or window)

stevenguh 6y ago

This seems like a collection of shortcut remappings instead of a general window key to ctrl remap. That means that for example if Ctrl+p is not remapped, you can't use the win key. I have an ahk script that's have a more general approach which maps window key to ctrl. It also remap the text navigation and mac style window switching. https://github.com/stevenguh/autohotkey-windows-mac-keyboard https://github.com/stevenguh/autohotkey-windows-mac-keyboard

rbreaves 6y ago
It’s not a “collection” of remappings, it is in fact a general modifier key swap w/ dynamic modifier key swapping for a variety of Terminal apps, layered w/ an additional set or collection of remaps for code editors geared towards developers as well. I’m sure your project is good but I think Kinto is better fleshed out than you’d assume. Also your Windows key, in Kinto, tends to land on the physical Ctrl key during a normal GUI app or non-terminal. Ctrl+P is otherwise on your Cmd key location.. as are all primary modifier combos tend to be. It does not interfere with or lack any particular remapping that I am aware of.

Cyph0n 6y ago

On a slightly related note: does anyone else map caps lock to control (and vice-versa)? I’ve never really understood why caps lock gets a huge key in the middle of the keyboard, while control gets a regular-sized key at the bottom. Generally speaking, caps lock is used much less than control.

mcpherrinm 6y ago
It's sufficiently common that one of my keyboards has a built-in DIP switch to enable that
maddyboo 6y ago
I map it to escape. I find using the caps lock key as a modifier to be too awkward, I prefer the position of the control key for that. Escape being all the way up at the top left is much more of an inconvenience. I don’t remap the original escape key to caps lock, though, I have xkb set to trigger caps lock by pressing both shift keys.
- desmap 6y ago
  or just put both esc and ctrl to caps lock, which got common in the kb community for a few years
- Cyph0n 6y ago
  As a Vim user, Esc is quite common, but I still end up straining my hand more when reaching for control. Remapping control has helped me a lot with that. If strain wasn’t an issue, Esc would be my next choice.
rbreaves 6y ago
Kinto supports remapping Capslock to Ctrl or Esc, it is in the Tweaks menu, at least on Linux. I have not implemented the Tweaks menu for Windows just yet, besides that the 2 versions are pretty much at parity with each other.
raindropm 6y ago
I map it to alt+tab. One press and it call most recent window, another press and it switch back. I mean, you can press alt+tab quickly. But I like the simplicity of one button.

glsdfgkjsklfj 6y ago

I will only respect this project if it completely breaks alt+tab on windows and linux to make it useless like OSX, where you cannot go to a specific terminal window. ha! sarcasm aside, I wish there was something that was the exact opposite. I tried to map cltr+c/v on OSX but it doesn't work on some applications, like firefox. And using Switch application that fixes alt+tab to all windows (not programs) for some reason the default shortcut (Option-tab) is stolen on iterm2 which is exactly where I wanted it to work. man, having to use OSX at the office is like having to use Windows with Outlook in the past. So silly.

alisonatwork 6y ago
Hear, hear. Alt-Tab is abysmal on Mac. I have no idea why people keep going on about Ctrl-C in the terminal, as if we haven't had terminals on both Windows and UNIX that copy-on-select for 20+ years. Broken Alt-Tab is far bigger impediment to my workflow. I guess you have tried Karabiner-Elements[0] to help remap the keyboard? It's infuriating that it doesn't work properly in all the apps. Especially the browsers all seem to map their own keyboard shortcuts or hijack keys. If you use IntelliJ then that's a whole nother level of pain to try to map properly. I don't think I have ever succeeded in making arrow key movement inside text fields work consistently across all applications on a Mac. Another app I think is a must is the BetterSnapTool[1]. It's the only app I've found that does a reasonable job of snapping like Windows. There are dozens of other ones, but none of them work quite properly. BetterSnapTool doesn't either, for example you can't snap a window from a half to a quarter and back up to a half again, then restore it back to the original size before you snapped. But you can snap it to half, full and original size. Most of the other tools on Mac don't remember the original size. I also like uBar[2] to get rid of the dock and replace it with a more useful task bar. It's not as good as the one on Windows 10, but if you're forced to use a Mac for work then pretty much anything helps. [0] https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/ https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/ [1] https://www.folivora.ai/bettersnaptool/ https://www.folivora.ai/bettersnaptool/ [2] https://brawersoftware.com/products/ubar https://brawersoftware.com/products/ubar
- kristofferR 6y ago
  https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/ https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/

ofrzeta 6y ago

Kinto is also a "minimalist JSON storage service with synchronisation and sharing abilities" made by Mozilla https://docs.kinto-storage.org/en/stable/overview.html https://docs.kinto-storage.org/en/stable/overview.html

ornornor 6y ago

I’m hijacking the thread, but does anyone know if a Linux utility that replicates OS X’s ability to enter special characters with option? For instance on a QWERTY keyboard, you can type option-backtick followed by `e` and it will combine it into `è`. There are several other combinations I forget to enter other Unicode chars that don’t have a key and that feature works systemwide. It’s the one thing I miss on Linux from OS X.

chronogram 6y ago
You're probably looking for the compose key: https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/tips-specialchars.html.en https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/tips-specialc...
kps 6y ago
You need to set your keyboard layout. Assuming you have some desktop environment, look in its keyboard settings for “English (Macintosh)”. You may also have to configure an AltGraph key (== Option); the default is likely right Alt, since that's what Windows does.

Hamuko 6y ago

What a great timing. I just built a gaming PC this week to go along with my Hackintosh and you wouldn't believe the amount of times I've locked Windows since Cmd+L in macOS selects the address bar but using the same key combination on the Windows machine does Win+L for lock.

jibbit 6y ago

I have to use a Mac, a Linux, and a windows laptop. Three different keyboards. Then I have a couple of different external keyboards at the office, a couple at home, and a couple at my partners where I’m spending weekends. I basically have three modifier keys, A,B,C (that I don’t understand the rational behind - but thanks, I learnt a few things from this thread) that I have to try -in turn - whenever I want to use a shortcut (not exactly a shortcut any more). There isn’t a day goes by that I don’t want to burn it all down and start from scratch building a new keyboard/OS. Or run vim on the metal and use that as the OS, or switch to voice control, or mind control, or anything!

corytheboyd 6y ago

Does this do more than remap copy/paste keys? Nothing wrong with just doing that, but I was a bit confused from the leading examples. Needless addition that nobody asked for: Having recently switched to Ubuntu from MacOS as my primary development environment, I very much felt the pain of losing many keyboard shortcuts I had grown accustomed to (amongst other subtle things, like the really good default PDF viewer in MacOS, and yeah yeah yeah I know there are Linux alternatives). I ended up installing a jetbrains marketplace plugin that as-best-as-possible mimics the MacOS bindings and then just re-learned the rest and.. it wasn't TOO bad, probably a week or so of feeling like a limb was missing.

rbreaves 6y ago
Jetbrains is supported by Kinto & the remap is better than their macOS remap layout. Leave it on their default layout & Kinto will remap it 100% to what you’d expect. The hotkeys in the drop downs will not always line up - but that’s the price for this implementation.

interactivecode 6y ago

My biggest annoyance with linux is that for an OS where you supposedly can adjust and modify everything. Changing the keyboard shortcuts (even with kinto) is absolutely impossible. Not all programs work... things like CMD+arrow to move the cursor to end/start of line needs custom scripts. Its a mess. Surly this could be better?

rbreaves 6y ago
Custom scripts? No it doesn’t, it takes 1 Python script (Kinto) & it ought to cover pretty much every scenario you throw at it. I’m the author of Kinto & I feel pretty certain that you haven’t actually tried it based on what you just wrote because the Cmd+arrow stuff you mention is completely covered.

ossusermivami 6y ago

I use a osx keyboard on my linux laptop that act as desktop, the only thing annoying is the switch between tabs (Super key on OSX, alt key on Linux) The copy and paste in terminal was annoying at first, and used to remap it to super-c super-v but then I embraced it and doesn't seem to bother the context switch when I am back on OSX. The only difference for me between linux and osx is the fonts.. not sure why but alas i start to get use to to the linux fonts, i used to really be bugged about it before.

fhunt 6y ago

Moved to Win after a decade on a Mac, this doesn't make sense, most Mac keys are not much better and you are just used to it, rather install AHK, something which no other platform has, and remap keys in a sane way.

ByteWelder 6y ago
Using control for the most common operations is much more straining for the hand. It is especially noticeable by heavy keyboard users such as software developers. Using your thumb to hit CMD (or Alt on a Win keyboard), is much less straining.
- fhunt 6y ago
  i haven't used the original ctrl keys for a decade, nowadays everyone puts control on caps, even on a mac haha. then your left pinky is closer to ctrl + faster than your left thumb to command and if you want you beloved spotlight just install ms powertoys which has powerrun, it's the same, bind to alt-space
  - ByteWelder 6y ago
    Interesting use case. I have ESC bound to Caps Lock. (for Vim/Emacs keybinds)
rbreaves 6y ago
Kinto uses AHK on Windows already - it just does an insane level of remapping for you out of the box. The Author

deleted 6y ago

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maxxk 6y ago

Consistent cmd+x/c/v is great. I've tried replicating this experience in Linux in many different ways over the years, but the best approach was to add `altwin(ctrl_alt_win)` to xkeyboard preferences together with custom `ctrl_space_toggle` for layout toggle. It achieves almost the same effect as Kinto without an additional daemon: physical Alt maps to Ctrl (Cmd in terms of Mac layout), Ctrl works as Super and Super/Win works as Alt — the closest, I think, to Apple keyboard layout. It event works fine in Wayland (sway). Considering the terminal, remap your favorite terminal emulator to send control codes via Super+A..Z (physical Ctrl+A..Z), and unmap/remap to the required action Ctrl+A..Z (physical "Cmd"+A..Z). It works fine in Konsole and great in Alacritty. (unfortunately, I also have to add a second set of mappings for my native non-latin keyboard layout, because at toolkit-level keys are translated to latin layout, but remapping works only for a single layout). Of course, it's only a half of the equation. Another part is Option/Compose. On Mac I used MathUnicode.keylayout. It was great, and it was a pleasure to tweak it for my needs. Xkeyboard with .XCompose (e.g. [1]) has two disadvantages: you can't use a key as both Multi key and e.g. Alt modifier simultaneously, and you don't see the composition preview. On Lenovo at least you can use `compose(prsc)` to make your left Win key an «Option-modifier» and its right PrtSc counterpart an «Option-compose». [1]: https://github.com/kragen/xcompose https://github.com/kragen/xcompose Maybe one day I will buy another Mac... but shall we prefer comfort to freedom?

qwerty456127 6y ago

Is it useful for anything besides copy-pasting in the terminal? Do I need it if I'm okay with Ctrl+Shift+C?

prionassembly 6y ago

I'm a fan of standup comics and love when comics in podcasts (like Rogan and whatnot) start ranting about "clean comedy", which means "not using the bad words". But: every comment in this thread that uses a bad word is at best misguided, while comments without bad words are informative and keep the general mood in check. I know people tend to bypass word filters by occluding letters ("B*rcelona") while retaining meaning; but maybe a word filter would cut dang's work by $A_LOT %.

bipson 6y ago

This also frustrated me when I was using OS X and Linux in parallel when I was using an identical Apple keyboard on both - really messes with your muscle memory. As long as I did not use an external keyboard on my MacBook I was fine. It seems my muscle memory is application dependent, i.e. I never hit ^C when I intend to copy in a terminal. On the other hand I might hit Ctrl+Shift+C on browsers once in a while if I am switching context a lot... ;) Unfortunately this requires X11 anyway :(

tticvs 6y ago

I use this on my Manjaro KDE work machine and it has been a life saver since switching from Mac after 10+ years. It works shockingly well. Only annoyance is that applications are not necessarily aware of the new mac layout so if you're using an unfamiliar application looking up the keyboard shortcuts won't map exactly to what you need to press.

legacynl 6y ago

My theory is that Apple purposefully switched alt and control around to create a sort of usability trap; everytime a mac-user ever touches a different brand pc, their experience is filled with frustrations, making sure they'll never switch away. Of course the fact that every mac since needs an apple-certified keyboard is 'just a happy (very profitable) coincidence' for apple. Disguising this move under the banner of 'be different'™, mac-lackeys immediately went to work spreading the gospel of 'it's better because it's closer together'. Ultimately there already was an international standard, there is value in keeping practices standard, and Apple was the one who broke the standard. It should not be celebrated, it should be ridiculed as the shameless cash-grab trap that it is. Instead of making an app for every platform out there that makes that platform more 'mac-like', there should be an app for mac, that makes that platform behave like the established standards. OFC Apple don't allow such modifications, because what they say goes, and what they do, apple-fanboys will like anyway.

compscistd 6y ago
If you think OSX is user hostile because of intentional vendor-specific keyboard keys, note that Windows computers have a “Windows” key. Is that an international standard? I think most commercial keyboards (just about all laptops) are terrible and If there really are international keyboard standards, they’re not great design. I personally think all keyboard layouts are ultimately wrong because the underused caps lock is in prime real estate and should be replaced by the CTRL key (check out the ADM-3). As for Macs requiring a certified keyboard, that’s just plain wrong. The ultimate gripes come down to key placement and window manager shortcuts, both of which can be modified on either OS.

qwerty456127 6y ago

BTW how do you use keyboard to select terminal text in the first place? Also, is there a way to use clipboard in text mode consoles (without X)?