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For emacs users out there, what are your recommended keyboards?
Bonus points for keyboards that:
Have no capslock key. Instead, a control key in that position.
Alt keys that are closer to the centre, and easier to use with meta key combos. I find alt keys too far to the left to be a bit awkward to hit with my thumb in some key combos.
Help ergonomically with emacs in other ways.
I'm not a huge fan of model M style high and clacky keys. I instead prefer laptop style flat keys; however, I'm not disqualifying either category.
A couple of interesting keyboards I'm curious if people have tried with emacs - Kinesis
Semi-conclusion:
I ended up getting an MS natural 4k, which I like a lot overall as the alt keys on both sides are easy to hit with your thumbs. This is useful for ergoemacs-mode.
However, one flaw I see with this keyboard is that the number keys are shifted to the left, so that 6 is on the wrong side of the keyboard. Aside from that 0 is left shifted enough that I accidentally hit - when I meant to hit 0 with my pinky.
Due to this flaw, I'm leaving this question open in case someone can come up with the perfect emacs keyboard.
Richard Stallman (which I'm sure you all know is the author of Emacs, and probably the biggest Emacs user) was seen using a HHKB (Happy Hacking Keyboard) (source)
Here's the layout of the HHKB Pro:
No Caps Lock.
Control key conveniently placed for Emacs users.
They're quite pricey though...
I used the Kinesis keyboard with Emacs for many years and loved it. Having Alt, Ctrl, Del, and Backspace all easily reachable with the thumbs is very, very nice. The location of the arrow keys is also quite convenient.
I have a model M "Das Keyboard" Ultimate - no letters on it, highly ergonomical and very beneficial to my productivity. I used to share your taste for low profile laptop style keyboards, but ever since I got the Das Keyboard I cannot imagine using another keyboard. It's as noisy and heavy as they get, but it's benefits cannot be described by mere words - one has to type on it for himself... Since you can easily remap CAPS to control(which I've done) I don't think that you should consider something like this in a keyboard a particular advantage. Also - if you get attached to using a keyboard with a highly customized key layout you'll be very impaired when you have to do some work from time to time on a regular keyboard...
I use MS Natural 4K, with some keybindings altered to cope with the different geometry.
In particular, I swapped c-p/n with a-p/n.
My hand and keyboard geometry are such that Alt lies directly under my thumb and I can trivially scroll up and down with thumb of left and and first/third finger of the right hand.
I do not have pinky pain.
Also, I use emacs & MS 4K both at work and at home, and I am pretty much 100% happy with it and plan to continue it.
I recently got a ThinkPad USB TrackPoint Keyboard at work, and is very pleased with it.
I always remap the Caps Lock to act as an extrac Ctrl. When I do need the mouse, the trackpoint is right there, no need to move your hand away from the keyboard.
The keyboard is very flat and I like the feel of the keys. I have a couple of thinkpad laptops as well, and as this is essentially the same keyboard, the feel is the same whether I at my desk or working directly on the laptop - that's a big plus.
Here's some photos: http://www.thinkpads.com/2009/08/31/finally-photos-of-new-thinkpad-usb-trackpoint-keyboard/
There is another keyboard on the way designed for use within emacs, its name is the key64 and is a keyboard i am designing from about two years ago, right now i am finishing building the firmware while all the instructions to make the pcb and the parts needed to make the keyboard are available at its website www.key64.org
It's 100% programmable within Linux with gcc-avr as it use a teensy board.
Hope to finish the firmware by the end of January 2013 and publish it at the website for anyone interested in making his own keyboard :)
as an avid emacs user and long time rsi sufferer, the best solution i found was kinesis combined with footpedals. i program the pedals for Ctrl, Alt, Meta, and thus can use the notorious emacs combos with only a single finger. especially repeated Ctrl sequences work very well in this configuration. obviously you'll need to reprogram the keyboard a little bit, but those changes will be obvious.
I have been using Emacs since 1976, and have had a Kinesis classic for about 8 years now. I used to use it with foot switches for Control and Alt, but have found that it is equally effective to simply swap Backspace with Control, and Delete with Alt. I also swap the left side arrow keys with [ and ] to make it easier to type "[", "{", "}", and "]".
To further ease typing, I have created bindings for common programming language sequences that require shifted symbols. For example, in C++ I map "." to a function that replaces ".." with "->". I have also experimented with word abbrevs that are effective only when preceded by a semicolon, e.g. replacing ";pp" with "++".
I use the Kinesis keyboard most of the time; I've had mine for 10 years and recently retrofitted it with the new Linear Feel "Cherry Reds" and it should be good to go for another 10. But the keyboard is perhaps less important than the keymapping. The basic rule is: don't move your wrists when you're typing, at least not more than you have to.
In order to accommodate this on the Kinesis, I have the bottom row mapped to Hyper, Super, Control, Meta. I have Mode_switch on the thumb keys. So I absolutely never have to move my wrists to type key combos. (I use Mode_switch to connect to an "embedded arrow key" layer.)
You can do something similar on any keyboard, for example, your laptop keyboard -- remap the number row to modifiers, using xmodmap. You can still type Shift+num to get the standard symbols. Here is a minimal xmodmap starter kit. Use xev to customize further.
clear Shift
clear Lock
clear Control
clear Mod1
clear Mod2
clear Mod3
clear Mod4
clear Mod5
keycode 9 = s S Left
keycode 10 = d D Down
keycode 11 = f F Right
keycode 21 = w W BackSpace
keycode 22 = e E Up
keycode 23 = r R Delete
keycode 26 = Super_L exclam
keycode 27 = Hyper_L at
keycode 28 = Control_L numbersign sterling
keycode 29 = Meta_L dollar
keycode 30 = F6 asciicircum
keycode 31 = Mode_switch percent
keycode 32 = bracketright braceright
keycode 33 = Control_L parenleft
keycode 34 = Mode_switch ampersand
keycode 35 = bracketleft braceleft
keycode 36 = Meta_L asterisk
keycode 37 = Hyper_L parenright
add Shift = Shift_L Shift_R
add Control = Control_L Control_R
add Mod1 = Meta_L Meta_R
add Mod2 = Hyper_L Hyper_R
add Mod3 = Super_L Super_R
add Mod4 = Mode_switch
add Mod5 = Alt_L
I use a GoldTouch keyboard at work and home, and it works great to keep my arthritis at bay. I've remapped the Caps Lock to the Ctrl-key which helps quite a bit w/emacs-pinky. The Alt-key is a bit problematic, but I've solved some of this with a simple mapping in my .emacs file:
; Replace M-x with C-x C-m or C-x C-c
(global-set-key "\C-x\C-m" 'execute-extended-command)
(global-set-key "\C-xm" 'execute-extended-command)
Any OS allows you, one way or another, to remap all your keys.
This will improve greatly your speed, as long as you are not one of those who actually have to look at the keyboard while they type.
If you do that, you can then choose the keyboard focusing exclusively on the one which has the best physical keys (just try them).
I use Apple's wide keyboard and it's - for me - the best one I've ever used by far.
I like the Sun Type 6 Keyboard for Emacs - http://www.aquaphoenix.com/graphics/SunKeyboardType6/SunKeyboardType6_front_top-large.jpg
Upvoting MS Natural Pro 4000. It is the only Microsoft product I use on a regular basis and can strongly vouch for it.
I use a traditional keyboard, except that I change Caps Lock key to Ctrl and Document key to Caps Lock.
The Comfort Keyboard Original allows remapping of any keys, including Caps Lock -> Control, and is generally very ergonomic.
Is there anyone using these two keyboards?
http://www.trulyergonomic.com/store/products (trulyergonomic; about 250usd)
http://www.personal-media.co.jp/utronkb/ (utron; over 500usd)
Tooooooooo avoid RSI.
Related
I'm learning Vim for few days and I have a question when coding with vim.
Let say I'm creating an object like this
const person = {
name: "Tu<my pointer after u character>"
}
What is the best way to move my pointer from after u character to after the double quote so I can keep writing my object
Another case is if I finish create object like this
const person = {
name: "Tu<my pointer after u character>"
}
How do I get my pointer to the line after the close curly bracket to keep writing code.
Some people say that I can escape the insert mode and using shift + A to go end of line but it takes 4 buttons to do that?
Thanks for answering my question.
Indeed the way to do it is to escape insert mode and use A to
[A]ppend stuff to the end of the line. To jump to the } in your code, there
are many many options, and which to use depends on the situation and user
preference, but I tend to use something like 3j to move 3 lines down (or
however many I need to move). And by putting the following in my vimrc:
set number
set relativenumber
I always know what number of lines I want to move.
Vim seems a bit weird for about 2 weeks (for me at least, when I started coding
in Vim) but after that it becomes automatic that if I finish inserting text for
any reason, I instinctively hit Esc. Many (most?) vim users remap
the some other key like CapsLock to act like Esc, since the Esc key on
modern keyboards is in an awkward position (unlike in the early days).
Once the 'modal' nature of vim becomes natural for you, things will fall into
place.
Oh, and it really helps if you learn to touch type 100% (i.e. never need to
look at the keyboard - even for numbers, punctuation, 'weird symbols' etc.)
Good luck!
In the first case, press <Right> or <End>, just like in any editor.
In the second case, press <Down> to move the caret after the }, then press <CR> (to open a new line) or <Down> (to move the caret to the line after the }), just like in any editor.
Going back to normal mode just for that is silly.
Note that you wouldn't have to deal with this without whatever you installed that closes quotes automatically.
I have an Autohotkey function that lets me switch between tabs with "Control + left/right" as well as closing tabs (Ctrl-down) and going into the search bar (Ctrl-up). It helps me save clicks and use the mouse less.
However, I use the Canadian Multilingual Standard keyboard to type accents (éèçà) in French for some of my classes and this keyboard DISABLES the right control key (the one right beside my keyboard buttons) which is the most convenient to use with my right hand only.
Here is a source documenting this: http://archives.miloush.net/michkap/archive/2013/04/08/10409187.html
Is there any way I can override this? I very rarely use the letter œ for because I can just use ALT + 0156 instead.
Here is the very simple code for my hotkey!
^Left::SendInput, ^{PGUP}
^Right::SendInput, ^{PGDN}
^Up::SendInput, !d
^Down::SendInput, ^w
Using SciTE4AutoHotkey tool, on my UK hardware keyboard right ctrl is detected as expected (RControl)
When I switch to French (Canada) Canadian Multilingual keyboard,
the right ctrl key is not found, also Virtual Key is different: DF
(SC means scan code and VK means virtual key)
so if you remap, it should solve the problem
~SC11D::RControl
After remapping: not found is replaced by RControl with each keypress.
Even if above remapping does not work for your case, it is a matter of finding which key corresponds to relevant scan code and then you can remap it.
Double click on your ahk script on the taskbar, and then
View > Key history and script info (Ctrl + K) by pressing key and refresh(F5) you can see respective keyboard scan codes.
I have some kind of weird behavior in Netbeans. I guess I accidentally entered some key combination which messed up the cursor and selection behavior. In the image you'll see what I mean: normally, if you select text across multiple lines, you'll see the behavior on the right screenshot.
But I have the behavior on the left screenshot. Also, trying to insert text at a certain position with Shift, inserts it some positions to the right (= not where the cursor is). Additionally, when the cursor blinks, it appears dashed.
The fact that the selection in the left screenshot is drawn nicely doesn't make me think of a bug, but rather of a feature. I can't seem to find the key combination to turn it off again.
So my question is, what is this feature? Why does it exist and with what key combination did I turn it on?
One possibility is you have the Rectangular Selection plugin installed.
However, the more likely candidate is the rectangular selection feature in the editor core. Find the button on your edit toolbar, and toggle it off. As per helpful comments below, this can accidentally be switched on (and toggled back off again) using:
On Windows and Linux: Ctrl + Shift + R
On Mac: Shift + Meta + R
On Mac, if the above does not work: some folks have reported that Shift + Command + R worked for them
This key combination (Ctrl+Shift+R) is used to open types etc. in Eclipse, so when switching to Netbeans many people will get stuck with this.
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This question is, as indicated, for those who use Emacs.
When you do, do you rebind the caps-lock key to CTRL, or do you use the "normal" ctrl key?
I've recently learned some Emacs commands and was using the Visual Studio 2008 emacs commands for a while, and of course I used a caps-rebind tool, but I'm curious how many other people do.
On a side note, the emacs bindings for VS are severely incomplete :(
I have no use for Caps Lock under any circumstances, whether I'm using Emacs or any other program. In the rare case that I need to type several capital letters at once, I can easily hold down Shift with my left pinkie and type almost as fast as normal with my remaining fingers. If I ever needed to produce a large amount of all-caps text using Emacs, I'd just type it all in lower case, select it, and upcase it all at once with C-x C-u, aka upcase-region.
So yes, I do make Caps Lock an additional Control key. I don't just swap them, I eliminate Caps Lock entirely.
I'm not an emacs user, but I use Unix heavily with programs such as screen (and, cough, vim) which use control a lot, and I bind my caps lock to control. Caps lock is a useless key that should have never made the typewriter->computer transition.
Yes I do remap CAPSLOCK to control.
I kept one of my old Sun keyboards with control where God intended it until it would not work with the new UltraSparcs. Ever since I have always remapped them, even if it did result in some odd blinking light behavior on some machines.
Absolutely yes, and I'm really happy with it. Caps Lock is simply unuseful and irritating, switching it to a Ctrl will:
Save you from awkward positions
Save you from accidentally activating Caps Lock
I also have useless MSWindows on my keyboard, so now I have three Ctrl keys on the left-hand side: Caps Lock, Ctrl, and LWin.
RWin generates "menu", which runs execute-extended-command (just like M-x). I'd never even tried pressing it until last week, so I don't know how long that's been the case for, but I'm trying to get accustomed to it.
I'm also trying to get used to using the right-hand Ctrl key when the keys to be modified are on the left side of the keyboard, and not in immediate range of (one of) the left Ctrl keys.
I do, both on windows and linux.
A show of hands? I have been using Emacs on and off over the past 5 years or more. Never bothered about the caps lock key. I do not bind it to control key. C-x C-u did the work every time. I can't recall any instance of having hit the caps lock when i was reaching out to 'a' or tab or 'shift'.
My be it it time for me to change the key binding. I get pain in the hands while typing. I'm going to try and see if having caps lock as control helps.
I found that using 'alt' as 'ctrl' and 'win' as 'alt' is better than the well known 'capslock' method.
Google 'lisp keyboard' you'll get a better idea what I'm suggesting and why Emacs has so many 'ctrl' combinations in the first place -- at the time it's invented the keyboard layouts doesn't look like what it is today.
After failed multiple times trying to use 'capslock' as 'ctrl', now I love the 'alt' way.
I am looking for a way to have my control key and caps-lock key switched when I am in the emacs window, but when I go to any other program such as Firefox I want to be able to use the normal control button for new windows, tabs and such.
Additional Information: I am using Ubuntu, but answers for all systems are good since someone else may want to know how to do it on their system.
Emacs never actually sees the CapsLock keycode (under X anyway), so you can't remap the key in Lisp. Take a look at this page for details:
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/MovingTheCtrlKey
On windows using Auto Hot Key you can achieve this with this piece of code put in default script:
#IfWinActive, emacs#
CapsLock::Control
#IfWinActive
Auto Hot Key is a very handy utility and it is also free software like in GPL.
For globally remapping keys there is xmodmap. xkeycaps is an interactive tool. You can put control on both keys.
Since you want to remap the keys only for Emacs (which I find somewhat ill-advised) you need to look inside Emacs for a solution. It should be possible, because you can rebind all keys, but it may be too tedious to swap all keys around if the modifiers cannot be swapped.
Personally I map CapsLock to Compose, to type all kinds of funny characters like ä, ß, å, þ, «, —, ...