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This article would be a lot more interesting if it also mentioned any of the downsides of switching to a non-default keyboard layout. They just mention switchin
by TheAceOfHearts 3y ago
This article would be a lot more interesting if it also mentioned any of the downsides of switching to a non-default keyboard layout. They just mention switching to Colemark as if it's the obviously superior option and you'd be a fool for not switching. Depending on what you're doing, I hope you enjoy a lifetime of fighting with keyboard shortcuts, or having to constantly remap keyboard shortcuts for every single new program. And hopefully you're not interacting with other people's devices or having other people interact with yours, because nobody else is going to be sharing your non-default keyboard layout.
It would be cool if web browsers provided better tools for handling diverse keyboard layouts. You can implement customizable shortcuts if your app merits that level of complexity, but if you just wanna implement a few default shortcuts they can end up in really awkward positions for non-default layouts. Unfortunately for most developers supporting multiple keyboard layouts is probably really low in their priority list.
- ArchieMaclean 3y agoI use Colemak-DH (modified version of Colemak that has less lateral hand motion - found I was getting slight wrist strain with normal Colemak). I find it more comfortable than Qwerty. I have not had any issue with keyboard shortcuts - Ctrl-Z/X/C are in exactly the same spot and Ctrl-V is shifted over by one key. Most shortcuts are placed to be memorable (e.g. Ctrl-F for Find), not to be ergonomic, so the keyboard layout doesn't really matter. The only place I've really had to customise is Vim, where I've remapped the motion keys back to where they are in Qwerty (actually shifted over by one to j/k/l/;). On Gnome, switching keyboard layout is very quick and easy - there's an icon in the top bar by default - so I can use that when other people want to use my computer. When I use others' computers, I have to look at the keyboard but it is not too much hassle for me as I don't do this very often. The main issue I've actually had is remapping Caps Lock to Back Space - not trivial to do in Gnome (required creating my own layout in XDG).
- dillydogg 3y agoYou can rebind caps to backspace in GNOME. I think you use GNOME tweaks. I've done it on all of my computers.
- ArchieMaclean 3y agoI did this initially, but I believe it didn't work for all applications - some were still registering it as Caps Lock (e.g. VS Code IIRC).
- dillydogg 3y agoOh shucks, I should have known you would have tried it. Sorry, I was hoping I had a silver bullet for you.
- ArchieMaclean 3y agoNo worries, worth a try!
- 2023throwawayy 3y ago[flagged]
- mmvora 3y agoWouldn't it be easier if you could just have one software that by default maps certain actions to existing keyboard shortcuts...something like a one to one conversion?