4 ms·

No amount of drooling over Apple keyboards will make me forget that Apple's designers didn't add keys for basic functions such as Copy and Paste, Undo and Redo.

by amelius 13d ago

Cockbrand 13d ago
The Extended Keyboard II came with a plastic overlay for the function keys. It showed Cut/Copy/Paste for F2/F3/F4 respectively. See https://chrispeak.com/2022/04/08/apple-extended-ii https://chrispeak.com/2022/04/08/apple-extended-ii for a photo. Not sure if this was ever supported system-wide in any way, though.
- kps 13d ago
  The Extended Keyboard not-II had the words printed below they keys. https://deskthority.net/wiki/File:Apple_M0115_top.jpg https://deskthority.net/wiki/File:Apple_M0115_top.jpg
  - Cockbrand 12d ago
    Now that you're mentioning it, I seem to remember seeing or even owning Extended Keyboard IIs with the same print. I may be wrong, though.
spijdar 13d ago
Having seen laptops with dedicated copy/paste/undo/redo keys, I think Apple can be forgiven for not going down the function key rabbit hole: https://pomelo.shockfox.net/pub/img/powerlite.jpg https://pomelo.shockfox.net/pub/img/powerlite.jpg (Yes, they could have just replaced the "regular" function keys with copy/paste keys, but I feel like that would have gone over about as well as the various times they've, uh, tried to replace the function keys)
- amelius 13d ago
  The least they could have done was print "Copy", "Paste", etc. on the keys that we now use for those tasks.
- eviks 13d ago
  They can't, those keys are too far away for such common operations. And Fn keys are just as bad, so replacing with them would also have been a mistake
- cpach 12d ago
  Looks like we hugged that poor server to death :-/
  - spijdar 12d ago
    It should be back up now! And being managed by the service manager now instead of running in a shell, so it should stay up. The one and only web host [2] written in Nim [0], running on Sprite [1] ;-) [0] http://nim-lang.org/ http://nim-lang.org/ [1] https://github.com/OSPreservProject/sprite/blob/master/sprite.txt https://github.com/OSPreservProject/sprite/blob/master/sprit... [2] https://pomelo.shockfox.net/pub/src/httpd.nim https://pomelo.shockfox.net/pub/src/httpd.nim
roldie 13d ago
The lack of delete has always annoyed me (and still does). I hate that I have to press fn backspace, or cursor to the end of the word.
- dchest 13d ago
  You can also use Emacs keys (Ctrl-D) for one-handed delete. Very convenient when Caps Lock is remapped to Control.
- reaperducer 13d ago
  The lack of delete has always annoyed me (and still does). I hate that I have to press fn backspace, or cursor to the end of the word. I bind Delete to F12 on every machine I use. It's a wonderful thing.
leoc 13d ago
I don't see a clear advantage over the the ZXCV shortcut placement which the Macintosh team chose. (The original Finder had no specific Redo shortcut because it was single-undo and ⌘-Z performed both undo and redo.) Even well-placed dedicated keys on a Xerox-style (or later Sun-style) "fun cluster" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBiWtJJN5zk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBiWtJJN5zk to the left of the alphabetic cluster would have forced the hand to move further away from the home row. Of course ZXCV is much less well-adapted to the left-handed, but that would probably be true of any dedicated keys as well, unless they were mirrored on both sides of the keyboard.
- kps 13d ago
  > […] left of the alphabetic cluster would have forced the hand to move further away from the home row. The Star left cluster are primarily operations that pair the left hand on the keys with the right hand on the mouse. This derives from Engelbart's Mother of All Demos with the left-side keyset paired with the right-side mouse.
  - leoc 13d ago
    > The Star left cluster are primarily operations that pair the left hand on the keys with the right hand on the mouse. Sure (this is demonstrated in the linked video, for instance) but the ZXCV group is pretty similar in that respect. Even for operations which involve the mouse it's preferable to drag only one hand far away from its home position, rather than both of them. (Especially since the video evidence https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn4vC80Pv6Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn4vC80Pv6Q seems to suggest that Star users tended to move their left hand only after making the mouse selection, instead of prepositioning it.) And the Star's Undo key, which presumably doesn't require help from mouse input and is likely to be needed after a non-mouse action, isn't placed any more conveniently near the home row: it's simply in the right side-cluster rather than the left one.
bdavbdav 13d ago
At least we get cmd and control as separate keys still, which makes copy/paste/… in a terminal a breeze, without either needing to sacrifice terminal control keys, or remember to use different c/p sequences in different scenarios.
- reaperducer 13d ago
  I work primarily on Macs, but also have Windows machines on my desk. Switching to Windows, I always have to pause and think, "Wait… I'm supposed to press what to copy again?" Conflating meta keys with control keys is one of the more pernicious abominations Microsoft saddled on the tech world. Shift - Control - Meta - Super - Hyper. Each has its place.
neilv 13d ago
And there was already precedent: https://deskauthority.saberkeebs.com/wiki.themk.org/index.php/Fun_cluster.html https://deskauthority.saberkeebs.com/wiki.themk.org/index.ph... https://deskthority.net/download/file.php?id=59173 https://deskthority.net/download/file.php?id=59173 Early Mac design was excellent overall, but decided not to include these keys (maybe they were leaning towards Smalltalk-like context menus?), and then seemed to go into more cryptic and power-user in-the-know keyboard direction (like with the 3-icon key including special support for flipping burgers): https://unsung.aresluna.org/_media/key-symbols-we-lost-to-time-pt-2-the-mac-side/6.1600w.avif https://unsung.aresluna.org/_media/key-symbols-we-lost-to-ti...

No amount of drooling over Apple keyboards will make me forget that Apple's designers didn't add keys for basic functions such as Copy and Paste, Undo and Redo.

by amelius 13d ago

No amount of drooling over Apple keyboards will make me forget that Apple's designers didn't add keys for basic functions such as Copy and Paste, Undo and Redo.

Cockbrand 13d ago

The Extended Keyboard II came with a plastic overlay for the function keys. It showed Cut/Copy/Paste for F2/F3/F4 respectively. See https://chrispeak.com/2022/04/08/apple-extended-ii https://chrispeak.com/2022/04/08/apple-extended-ii for a photo. Not sure if this was ever supported system-wide in any way, though.

kps 13d ago
The Extended Keyboard not-II had the words printed below they keys. https://deskthority.net/wiki/File:Apple_M0115_top.jpg https://deskthority.net/wiki/File:Apple_M0115_top.jpg
- Cockbrand 12d ago
  Now that you're mentioning it, I seem to remember seeing or even owning Extended Keyboard IIs with the same print. I may be wrong, though.

spijdar 13d ago

Having seen laptops with dedicated copy/paste/undo/redo keys, I think Apple can be forgiven for not going down the function key rabbit hole: https://pomelo.shockfox.net/pub/img/powerlite.jpg https://pomelo.shockfox.net/pub/img/powerlite.jpg (Yes, they could have just replaced the "regular" function keys with copy/paste keys, but I feel like that would have gone over about as well as the various times they've, uh, tried to replace the function keys)

amelius 13d ago
The least they could have done was print "Copy", "Paste", etc. on the keys that we now use for those tasks.
eviks 13d ago
They can't, those keys are too far away for such common operations. And Fn keys are just as bad, so replacing with them would also have been a mistake
cpach 12d ago
Looks like we hugged that poor server to death :-/
- spijdar 12d ago
  It should be back up now! And being managed by the service manager now instead of running in a shell, so it should stay up. The one and only web host [2] written in Nim [0], running on Sprite [1] ;-) [0] http://nim-lang.org/ http://nim-lang.org/ [1] https://github.com/OSPreservProject/sprite/blob/master/sprite.txt https://github.com/OSPreservProject/sprite/blob/master/sprit... [2] https://pomelo.shockfox.net/pub/src/httpd.nim https://pomelo.shockfox.net/pub/src/httpd.nim

roldie 13d ago

The lack of delete has always annoyed me (and still does). I hate that I have to press fn backspace, or cursor to the end of the word.

dchest 13d ago
You can also use Emacs keys (Ctrl-D) for one-handed delete. Very convenient when Caps Lock is remapped to Control.
reaperducer 13d ago
The lack of delete has always annoyed me (and still does). I hate that I have to press fn backspace, or cursor to the end of the word. I bind Delete to F12 on every machine I use. It's a wonderful thing.

leoc 13d ago

I don't see a clear advantage over the the ZXCV shortcut placement which the Macintosh team chose. (The original Finder had no specific Redo shortcut because it was single-undo and ⌘-Z performed both undo and redo.) Even well-placed dedicated keys on a Xerox-style (or later Sun-style) "fun cluster" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBiWtJJN5zk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBiWtJJN5zk to the left of the alphabetic cluster would have forced the hand to move further away from the home row. Of course ZXCV is much less well-adapted to the left-handed, but that would probably be true of any dedicated keys as well, unless they were mirrored on both sides of the keyboard.

kps 13d ago
> […] left of the alphabetic cluster would have forced the hand to move further away from the home row. The Star left cluster are primarily operations that pair the left hand on the keys with the right hand on the mouse. This derives from Engelbart's Mother of All Demos with the left-side keyset paired with the right-side mouse.
- leoc 13d ago
  > The Star left cluster are primarily operations that pair the left hand on the keys with the right hand on the mouse. Sure (this is demonstrated in the linked video, for instance) but the ZXCV group is pretty similar in that respect. Even for operations which involve the mouse it's preferable to drag only one hand far away from its home position, rather than both of them. (Especially since the video evidence https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn4vC80Pv6Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn4vC80Pv6Q seems to suggest that Star users tended to move their left hand only after making the mouse selection, instead of prepositioning it.) And the Star's Undo key, which presumably doesn't require help from mouse input and is likely to be needed after a non-mouse action, isn't placed any more conveniently near the home row: it's simply in the right side-cluster rather than the left one.

bdavbdav 13d ago

At least we get cmd and control as separate keys still, which makes copy/paste/… in a terminal a breeze, without either needing to sacrifice terminal control keys, or remember to use different c/p sequences in different scenarios.

reaperducer 13d ago
I work primarily on Macs, but also have Windows machines on my desk. Switching to Windows, I always have to pause and think, "Wait… I'm supposed to press what to copy again?" Conflating meta keys with control keys is one of the more pernicious abominations Microsoft saddled on the tech world. Shift - Control - Meta - Super - Hyper. Each has its place.

neilv 13d ago

And there was already precedent: https://deskauthority.saberkeebs.com/wiki.themk.org/index.php/Fun_cluster.html https://deskauthority.saberkeebs.com/wiki.themk.org/index.ph... https://deskthority.net/download/file.php?id=59173 https://deskthority.net/download/file.php?id=59173 Early Mac design was excellent overall, but decided not to include these keys (maybe they were leaning towards Smalltalk-like context menus?), and then seemed to go into more cryptic and power-user in-the-know keyboard direction (like with the 3-icon key including special support for flipping burgers): https://unsung.aresluna.org/_media/key-symbols-we-lost-to-time-pt-2-the-mac-side/6.1600w.avif https://unsung.aresluna.org/_media/key-symbols-we-lost-to-ti...