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Your comment assumes everybody is using a "normal" keyboard. Since then a great many have come up with actually ergonomic keyboards and they virtually all have

Your comment assumes everybody is using a "normal" keyboard. Since then a great many have come up with actually ergonomic keyboards and they virtually all have something in common: modifiers easily reached with the thumbs while the hands are in their home position. No crazy "moving the entire left hand to not hit ctrl with the pinky". That's not ergonomic. At all. If the layout is QWERTY, left hand on asdf, right and on jkl; and the thumbs on modifiers/spacebar. Hitting modifiers do not require hand movement and do not require stretching the finger underneath your other fingers. If anyone's serious about this, consider an actual ergonomic keyboard (Ergodox, Keyboardio, Kinesis, etc.). I picked Japanese keyboards --even though I don't speak japanese-- for several reasons: they're ubiquitous, they can be had with Topre switches (I much prefer Topre than Cherry), the spacebar is tiny so I don't need to distort my thumbs to reach the modifiers, they have lots of modifiers (due to the various input methods japanese has) and, well, the killer... Laptops with japanese keyboards are a thing. Laptops with, say, a Keyboardio keyboard: not so much a thing (unless you carry your keyboard and your laptop of course). I remap the entire keyboard to be basically QWERTY with Hyper and Super in addition to Ctrl/Alt/Meta/Shift. Super is dedicated only* to the window manager and nothing else. Modifier+ijkl sends the actual arrows key code. Works in every single app. Life is good.

BeetleB 4y ago
> No crazy "moving the entire left hand to not hit ctrl with the pinky". That's not ergonomic. At all. Sorry, but ergonomists disagree. Moving your whole hand + arm, as long as you are not twisting your wrist, is in general recommended. I've asked them about keeping the fingers on the home row, and the response has always been: "No good research to support it, nor any to disrecommend it."
- mandw 4y ago
  I think your reply is still based on a standard keyboard. When you get to more ergonomic keyboards you can stay on the homerow and also reach modifiers without moving. While most people do not have an ergonomic keyboard then what you say is likely true and most ergonomists would agree but I think they would also agree that even better is not have to move and use an ergonomic keyboard. That comes with cost and time which is why most still dont use them.
- Izkata 4y ago
  > Sorry, but ergonomists disagree. Moving your whole hand + arm, as long as you are not twisting your wrist, is in general recommended. That's actually kind of nice to hear - I'm self-taught when it comes to typing (having to get chat messages out fast in StarCraft online multiplayer waaaay back), and naturally fell into a style that kind-of hovers my hands on the edges of the keyboard, using my shoulders and elbows to push my hands inwards when the center keys are needed. Relevant to the topic: Pinky on ctrl requires no twisting, just bending the finger down. Whenever people (mostly co-workers) realize how I type, they almost always think it's kinda crazy, since I can hit keys without feeling from the home row..
philsnow 4y ago
> Super is dedicated only to the window manager and nothing else. This is the thing I miss most from X vs MacOS. On Mac, the command key is the primary shortcut modifier both for apps and for the OS / "window manager".
alexgrover 4y ago
Take it a step further and use home row mods and thumbs for layer keys. And consider switching away from qwerty ;)
lawn 4y ago
> Since then a great many have come up with actually ergonomic keyboards and they virtually all have something in common: modifiers easily reached with the thumbs while the hands are in their home position. There's also home-row mods that's very popular with tiny keyboards, and is arguably even more ergonomic.
rrgok 4y ago
Mhm interested in knowing about Japanese Keyboard. Do you mind sharing what keyboard and setup are you using?
- TacticalCoder 4y ago
  Of course... I'm using a japanese Happy Hacking Keyboard Pro JP (HHKB Pro JP). The HHKB is kinda famous for its Topre switches: I'm just using the japanese variant. They're kinda pricey as far as keyboards but the price is okay'ish if you buy them directly in Japan. Before using a japanese HHKB Pro JP I was using a reqular US QWERTY HHKB Pro 2. But then I figured out a narrower spacebar and more modifiers would suit me best. The big enter key on the HHKB Pro JP may not be for everyone that said. As for the setup, I don't have a public Github page with my config (I use Git but with bare git repos on my own servers) and it's actually going to depend on how you did configure the DIP switches on the HHKB Pro JP (it's got 6 dip switches IIRC) but it's nothing out of the ordinary. I'll just throw random infos that may get you started if you go this route... I'm on Linux so it's just one .xkb file which is mostly a modified QWERTY layout to add Hyper and Super modifiers. I had to mess up a bit with the japanese Henkan and Muhenkan modifiers keycodes IIRC. As a sidenote I'll say that you probably can do everything from the .xkb file but xkb and xmodmap (to set up modifiers) aren't mutually exclusive. In the .xbk file a "regular" key like, say, 'x' stays of the type ALPHABETIC but I modified i j k and l to be FOUR_ALPHA and they're then (example for 'i'): key <AD08> { type= "FOUR_ALPHA", symbols[Group1]= [ i, I, osfUp, osfUp ] }; where FOUR_ALPHA has "Hyper" in its short modifiers list. I use Hyper for a lot of shortcuts (I configured Hyper to be the key at the left of the spacebar) but not for ijkl: Hyper+ijkl is used to send arrow keys code, always. As for Super I use it only for my WM: so I configured one key to be Super in .xkb and then my WM (Awesome WM) only requires one line to be modified to tell it which modifier you want to use for shortcuts. It's not complicated but it took me some time to set up everything: mostly because I had no idea how the .xkb file format was working and it certainly looks a bit alien. I versioned my .xkb keymap files in Git and I experimented. I'm still under X so an xev window open to see the event (not sure how that works under Wayland) / keycodes sent, an editor to edit the .xkb file, commit changes as soon as good progress were made: xkbcomp mykeymappings.xkb $DISPLAY To test the new settings. Rinse and repeat. Once it's set up, it's set up for good.
comfypotato 4y ago
Quick shout out to dual function keys on the home row via QMK or other. The concept changed my life. Modifier on hold, letter on tap. 3-modifier strokes are trivial, and this takes Emacs in a friendly direction.

BeetleB 4y ago

> No crazy "moving the entire left hand to not hit ctrl with the pinky". That's not ergonomic. At all. Sorry, but ergonomists disagree. Moving your whole hand + arm, as long as you are not twisting your wrist, is in general recommended. I've asked them about keeping the fingers on the home row, and the response has always been: "No good research to support it, nor any to disrecommend it."

mandw 4y ago
I think your reply is still based on a standard keyboard. When you get to more ergonomic keyboards you can stay on the homerow and also reach modifiers without moving. While most people do not have an ergonomic keyboard then what you say is likely true and most ergonomists would agree but I think they would also agree that even better is not have to move and use an ergonomic keyboard. That comes with cost and time which is why most still dont use them.
Izkata 4y ago
> Sorry, but ergonomists disagree. Moving your whole hand + arm, as long as you are not twisting your wrist, is in general recommended. That's actually kind of nice to hear - I'm self-taught when it comes to typing (having to get chat messages out fast in StarCraft online multiplayer waaaay back), and naturally fell into a style that kind-of hovers my hands on the edges of the keyboard, using my shoulders and elbows to push my hands inwards when the center keys are needed. Relevant to the topic: Pinky on ctrl requires no twisting, just bending the finger down. Whenever people (mostly co-workers) realize how I type, they almost always think it's kinda crazy, since I can hit keys without feeling from the home row..

philsnow 4y ago

> Super is dedicated only to the window manager and nothing else. This is the thing I miss most from X vs MacOS. On Mac, the command key is the primary shortcut modifier both for apps and for the OS / "window manager".

alexgrover 4y ago

Take it a step further and use home row mods and thumbs for layer keys. And consider switching away from qwerty ;)

lawn 4y ago

> Since then a great many have come up with actually ergonomic keyboards and they virtually all have something in common: modifiers easily reached with the thumbs while the hands are in their home position. There's also home-row mods that's very popular with tiny keyboards, and is arguably even more ergonomic.

rrgok 4y ago

Mhm interested in knowing about Japanese Keyboard. Do you mind sharing what keyboard and setup are you using?

TacticalCoder 4y ago
Of course... I'm using a japanese Happy Hacking Keyboard Pro JP (HHKB Pro JP). The HHKB is kinda famous for its Topre switches: I'm just using the japanese variant. They're kinda pricey as far as keyboards but the price is okay'ish if you buy them directly in Japan. Before using a japanese HHKB Pro JP I was using a reqular US QWERTY HHKB Pro 2. But then I figured out a narrower spacebar and more modifiers would suit me best. The big enter key on the HHKB Pro JP may not be for everyone that said. As for the setup, I don't have a public Github page with my config (I use Git but with bare git repos on my own servers) and it's actually going to depend on how you did configure the DIP switches on the HHKB Pro JP (it's got 6 dip switches IIRC) but it's nothing out of the ordinary. I'll just throw random infos that may get you started if you go this route... I'm on Linux so it's just one .xkb file which is mostly a modified QWERTY layout to add Hyper and Super modifiers. I had to mess up a bit with the japanese Henkan and Muhenkan modifiers keycodes IIRC. As a sidenote I'll say that you probably can do everything from the .xkb file but xkb and xmodmap (to set up modifiers) aren't mutually exclusive. In the .xbk file a "regular" key like, say, 'x' stays of the type ALPHABETIC but I modified i j k and l to be FOUR_ALPHA and they're then (example for 'i'): key <AD08> { type= "FOUR_ALPHA", symbols[Group1]= [ i, I, osfUp, osfUp ] }; where FOUR_ALPHA has "Hyper" in its short modifiers list. I use Hyper for a lot of shortcuts (I configured Hyper to be the key at the left of the spacebar) but not for ijkl: Hyper+ijkl is used to send arrow keys code, always. As for Super I use it only for my WM: so I configured one key to be Super in .xkb and then my WM (Awesome WM) only requires one line to be modified to tell it which modifier you want to use for shortcuts. It's not complicated but it took me some time to set up everything: mostly because I had no idea how the .xkb file format was working and it certainly looks a bit alien. I versioned my .xkb keymap files in Git and I experimented. I'm still under X so an xev window open to see the event (not sure how that works under Wayland) / keycodes sent, an editor to edit the .xkb file, commit changes as soon as good progress were made: xkbcomp mykeymappings.xkb $DISPLAY To test the new settings. Rinse and repeat. Once it's set up, it's set up for good.

comfypotato 4y ago

Quick shout out to dual function keys on the home row via QMK or other. The concept changed my life. Modifier on hold, letter on tap. 3-modifier strokes are trivial, and this takes Emacs in a friendly direction.