4 ms·

"Emacs pinky" lasts not more than five seconds after binding the oversized, wrongly placed, totally useless Caps Lock key to send Control instead, the way God i

"Emacs pinky" lasts not more than five seconds after binding the oversized, wrongly placed, totally useless Caps Lock key to send Control instead, the way God intended.

rgoulter 3y ago
I like putting the modifier keys (shift, ctrl, win, alt) underneath the home row keys using tap-hold functionality. (e.g. tapping 'f' outputs 'f', but holding 'f' acts as 'shift'). And Caps Lock's young new cousin "Caps Word" is worth checking out. https://docs.qmk.fm/#/feature_caps_word https://docs.qmk.fm/#/feature_caps_word
- darkteflon 3y ago
  Alas - at least from what I could tell - very difficult to impossible to achieve on Mac without a hardware-remappable keyboard.
  - rgoulter 3y ago
    There are tools like kmonad (and I think some others), although they do require a kernel extension (or driver extension). https://github.com/kmonad/kmonad/blob/master/doc/installation.md#macos https://github.com/kmonad/kmonad/blob/master/doc/installatio...
    - eviks 3y ago
      have you actually tried that? afaik they don't get you the perfect home row mods due to some limitations re. how they implement the tap vs hold logic https://github.com/kmonad/kmonad/issues/228 https://github.com/kmonad/kmonad/issues/228
      - rgoulter 3y ago
        I use an external keyboard, & haven't tried kmonad. I don't run into HRM even at over 100 wpm, on Dvorak. (I'd expect Dvorak to use home row more than qwerty), whereas one user in that thread said he needed to resort to a fork in order to use them. I read that more as configuring tap-hold is difficult, and that perhaps some typing styles don't suit current implementations. -- I know that if I type "down a, down o, down e, up a, up o, up e" I get "aoe", and afaiu that's different than "must type staccato" that the issue raises.
        eviks 3y ago
        So you're not using software on a mac then for HRM, but keyboard firmware (and the fork mentioned is for QMK firmware, not kmonad software)?
  - eviks 3y ago
    It is partially possible with Karabiner Elements. The part that's possible is you need a minimum hold delay before __f__ turns into __Shift__, but otherwise it works without breaking your typing The other part of no-delay without breaking your typing style should also be possible in the software, but don't know of a great solution there
eviks 3y ago
Sounds more like the Devil: you're replaced one bad design with another, there is no point in using pinky sideways hold (so some of the worse ergonomic components) for such a common key Better to use home row mods, control prefix as a thumb key, or modal key sequencers instead is key combos
- distcs 3y ago
  Home row mods is a superior solution but not every Emacs user is tech-savvy enough to know how to get home row mods. Emacs users come in all forms. There are authors, researchers, people from humanities who use Emacs. Only a few weeks ago I was reading about someone in the fashion industry who uses Emacs. I don't think most of them would be interested to figure out how to get home row mods. Replacing CapsLock with Ctrl works for many Emacs users who cannot create mods or carry around an external ergonomic keyboard with them everywhere they go. I know it does not work for all but it works for many. What really is a bad design is to have precious keyboard real estate wasted by the CapsLock key. Anything that changes that is some improvement on it even if that is mapping CapsLock to Ctrl and using pinky sideways. We use the pinky sideways anyway with Shift, Enter, Tab, ... Adding one more key to sideways pinky does not make it a "bad design".
  - eviks 3y ago
    You've ignored other alternatives that would work better than a capslock even for the less tech-savvy crowd > Adding one more key to sideways pinky does not make it a "bad design". Of course it does, and you mentioning other bad designs (by the way,you can also remap those) doesn't change this basic fact of keyboard ergonomics: it's bad because you're using very inconvenient key for very frequent operations
    - distcs 3y ago
      > You've ignored other alternatives that would work better than a capslock even for the less tech-savvy crowd What are those alternatives? Why talk in riddles when you can simply share those alternatives? I'm looking at a mac user's keyboard settings right now and the only built in options I can find for Ctrl are Caps Lock, Option, Command, Function. If they want to have a better Ctrl experience which of these other alternatives should I suggest them? Install a new tool only to manage key bindings? I've already lost their attention! > it's bad because you're using very inconvenient key for very frequent operations Says who? I don't turn my CapsLock to Ctrl but every longtime CapsLock-as-Ctrl user I know swear by them. They say in person and online that CapsLock to Ctrl helped them get over RSI. How do you decide for them that it's bad for them? You could say that CapsLock to Ctrl is bad for you. I just don't understand how you could proclaim that it is bad for me and others.

"Emacs pinky" lasts not more than five seconds after binding the oversized, wrongly placed, totally useless Caps Lock key to send Control instead, the way God intended.

rgoulter 3y ago

I like putting the modifier keys (shift, ctrl, win, alt) underneath the home row keys using tap-hold functionality. (e.g. tapping 'f' outputs 'f', but holding 'f' acts as 'shift'). And Caps Lock's young new cousin "Caps Word" is worth checking out. https://docs.qmk.fm/#/feature_caps_word https://docs.qmk.fm/#/feature_caps_word

darkteflon 3y ago
Alas - at least from what I could tell - very difficult to impossible to achieve on Mac without a hardware-remappable keyboard.
- rgoulter 3y ago
  There are tools like kmonad (and I think some others), although they do require a kernel extension (or driver extension). https://github.com/kmonad/kmonad/blob/master/doc/installation.md#macos https://github.com/kmonad/kmonad/blob/master/doc/installatio...
  - eviks 3y ago
    have you actually tried that? afaik they don't get you the perfect home row mods due to some limitations re. how they implement the tap vs hold logic https://github.com/kmonad/kmonad/issues/228 https://github.com/kmonad/kmonad/issues/228
    - rgoulter 3y ago
      I use an external keyboard, & haven't tried kmonad. I don't run into HRM even at over 100 wpm, on Dvorak. (I'd expect Dvorak to use home row more than qwerty), whereas one user in that thread said he needed to resort to a fork in order to use them. I read that more as configuring tap-hold is difficult, and that perhaps some typing styles don't suit current implementations. -- I know that if I type "down a, down o, down e, up a, up o, up e" I get "aoe", and afaiu that's different than "must type staccato" that the issue raises.
      - eviks 3y ago
        So you're not using software on a mac then for HRM, but keyboard firmware (and the fork mentioned is for QMK firmware, not kmonad software)?
- eviks 3y ago
  It is partially possible with Karabiner Elements. The part that's possible is you need a minimum hold delay before __f__ turns into __Shift__, but otherwise it works without breaking your typing The other part of no-delay without breaking your typing style should also be possible in the software, but don't know of a great solution there

eviks 3y ago

Sounds more like the Devil: you're replaced one bad design with another, there is no point in using pinky sideways hold (so some of the worse ergonomic components) for such a common key Better to use home row mods, control prefix as a thumb key, or modal key sequencers instead is key combos

distcs 3y ago
Home row mods is a superior solution but not every Emacs user is tech-savvy enough to know how to get home row mods. Emacs users come in all forms. There are authors, researchers, people from humanities who use Emacs. Only a few weeks ago I was reading about someone in the fashion industry who uses Emacs. I don't think most of them would be interested to figure out how to get home row mods. Replacing CapsLock with Ctrl works for many Emacs users who cannot create mods or carry around an external ergonomic keyboard with them everywhere they go. I know it does not work for all but it works for many. What really is a bad design is to have precious keyboard real estate wasted by the CapsLock key. Anything that changes that is some improvement on it even if that is mapping CapsLock to Ctrl and using pinky sideways. We use the pinky sideways anyway with Shift, Enter, Tab, ... Adding one more key to sideways pinky does not make it a "bad design".
- eviks 3y ago
  You've ignored other alternatives that would work better than a capslock even for the less tech-savvy crowd > Adding one more key to sideways pinky does not make it a "bad design". Of course it does, and you mentioning other bad designs (by the way,you can also remap those) doesn't change this basic fact of keyboard ergonomics: it's bad because you're using very inconvenient key for very frequent operations
  - distcs 3y ago
    > You've ignored other alternatives that would work better than a capslock even for the less tech-savvy crowd What are those alternatives? Why talk in riddles when you can simply share those alternatives? I'm looking at a mac user's keyboard settings right now and the only built in options I can find for Ctrl are Caps Lock, Option, Command, Function. If they want to have a better Ctrl experience which of these other alternatives should I suggest them? Install a new tool only to manage key bindings? I've already lost their attention! > it's bad because you're using very inconvenient key for very frequent operations Says who? I don't turn my CapsLock to Ctrl but every longtime CapsLock-as-Ctrl user I know swear by them. They say in person and online that CapsLock to Ctrl helped them get over RSI. How do you decide for them that it's bad for them? You could say that CapsLock to Ctrl is bad for you. I just don't understand how you could proclaim that it is bad for me and others.