3 ms·

I wanted to dive into steno, but it seems to be at least a factor more effort to learn than even a custom layout which is already pretty high. I have no doubt i

by lawn 3y ago

I wanted to dive into steno, but it seems to be at least a factor more effort to learn than even a custom layout which is already pretty high. I have no doubt it's more efficient, but it was just a step too far for me. I still envy people who use it though, particularly for coding. One thing I'm skeptical about is how efficient would it be with Vim? I spend a lot of time navigation around in Vim and I don't think steno would be helpful here, and maybe even a detriment as you now have to use more keys for basic commands?

spit2wind 3y ago
Thanks for letting me know what questions you have. Steno is at least as efficient with Vim as Vim is with a keyboard. Vim works by pressing a single key and mapping it to a command. Steno still allows you to send single letters. hjkl lose their benefit because each has a different shaped stroke. But then you could use arrow key equivalents like I described above with the STPH prefix. So, no real loss there. That's the only "loss" I experienced when using Vin. You still keep the verb-word benefits. Contrary to your concern for having to use more basic commands, because you can define any mapping you want, you can create shortcuts for common sequences. For example, if you use dip a lot, just map that to one stroke (maybe something like TK*EUP) rather than needing to stroke d-i-p. If you did that enough, you might instead define a left-hand prefix or settle for always doing two strokes, one to say "the next stroke is a Vim abbreviation" then having the second stroke be a brief for whatever vim stuff you want to do. A conceptual downside is you end up having two layers of mapping: 1) the steno mapping between the key and the output and 2) the mapping between the output and the application (in this case Vim). That is, you might press SKWR for "j". That's the steno mapping. Vim then receives a "j" and runs whatever command is associated with it. In practice, it's not a problem.
- lawn 3y ago
  Awesome, thanks for the information!

by lawn 3y ago

spit2wind 3y ago

Thanks for letting me know what questions you have. Steno is at least as efficient with Vim as Vim is with a keyboard. Vim works by pressing a single key and mapping it to a command. Steno still allows you to send single letters. hjkl lose their benefit because each has a different shaped stroke. But then you could use arrow key equivalents like I described above with the STPH prefix. So, no real loss there. That's the only "loss" I experienced when using Vin. You still keep the verb-word benefits. Contrary to your concern for having to use more basic commands, because you can define any mapping you want, you can create shortcuts for common sequences. For example, if you use dip a lot, just map that to one stroke (maybe something like TK*EUP) rather than needing to stroke d-i-p. If you did that enough, you might instead define a left-hand prefix or settle for always doing two strokes, one to say "the next stroke is a Vim abbreviation" then having the second stroke be a brief for whatever vim stuff you want to do. A conceptual downside is you end up having two layers of mapping: 1) the steno mapping between the key and the output and 2) the mapping between the output and the application (in this case Vim). That is, you might press SKWR for "j". That's the steno mapping. Vim then receives a "j" and runs whatever command is associated with it. In practice, it's not a problem.

lawn 3y ago
Awesome, thanks for the information!