Keyboard usage
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} € On the modern keyboards, the right alt key is way too small. Why does the Windows key have to exist on both sides of the space bar?? Ctrl+Esc is fine for me. And the context menu key is superficial, too - normal users are mouse-focused anyway, and power users would have no problem remembering Shift-F10.
Psychologically, I still use the 'numeric' keypad for the arrow keys, since the original 84 key keyboards did not have the 'extra' section there. I guess my formative years were spent on the wrong keyboard :->
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Psychologically, I still use the 'numeric' keypad for the arrow keys, since the original 84 key keyboards did not have the 'extra' section there. I guess my formative years were spent on the wrong keyboard :->
My formative years were spent on all manner of keyboards of wide variety, maybe that's why I'm open to trying something new. I just can't understand programmers using keyboards designed for "joe six pack" to surf the web. The arrow key layout on the keyboard I linked to is really nice.
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I just reprogram the keys to whatever I want, for example I've made the left winkey a control key. There's a great utility on the 'net that does this for free sharp keys[^] You don't have to accept whatever label is printed on the key. Mines remapped all over the place for optimal programming.
The idea of Sharp Keys looks good, but appears what the website is off-line?
John Cardinal wrote:
You don't have to accept whatever label is printed on the key.
Really! do you have checked this[^]?
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.(John 3:16) :badger:
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Get one of These and learn how to use it. The number pad's location will never be a problem again. I've also seen keyboards with detachable number pads that you could place on the left if you prefer.
-- Rules of thumb should not be taken for the whole hand.
Speaking as someone who used to do data entry for a year what in the world are programmers doing with a freaking number pad. It's crazy, un-ergonomic and just plain senseless. A keyboard is to a programmer what a guitar is to a virtuoso or a wood carvers tools, those people wouldn't fathom for an instant not assesing whether their tools are adequate or not, but many programmers apprently literally sit down like neanderthals at whatever keyboard *happens* to be in front of them and pound away on it. I just wish I had started on a dvorak keyboard all those years ago, I wonder how many people realize they are working on a keyboard layout that was deliberately designed to be slow and hard to type on to stop mechanical typewriters from jamming up.
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The idea of Sharp Keys looks good, but appears what the website is off-line?
John Cardinal wrote:
You don't have to accept whatever label is printed on the key.
Really! do you have checked this[^]?
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.(John 3:16) :badger:
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Speaking as someone who used to do data entry for a year what in the world are programmers doing with a freaking number pad. It's crazy, un-ergonomic and just plain senseless. A keyboard is to a programmer what a guitar is to a virtuoso or a wood carvers tools, those people wouldn't fathom for an instant not assesing whether their tools are adequate or not, but many programmers apprently literally sit down like neanderthals at whatever keyboard *happens* to be in front of them and pound away on it. I just wish I had started on a dvorak keyboard all those years ago, I wonder how many people realize they are working on a keyboard layout that was deliberately designed to be slow and hard to type on to stop mechanical typewriters from jamming up.
John Cardinal wrote:
I just wish I had started on a dvorak keyboard all those years ago, I wonder how many people realize they are working on a keyboard layout that was deliberately designed to be slow and hard to type on to stop mechanical typewriters from jamming up.
I've considered going dvorak before, the biggest thing that's holding me back is having to use PCs that aren't mine and which are configured for QWERTY. Just going from a standard to reversed button mouse for normal use has forced me to use my right hand when using a 'normal' mouse elsewhere, and that's only 2 items changed not ~60. The same issue with other people's hardware caused the two people I know who used Dvorak for a while to eventually revert. Are you actually using dvorak, or just wanting to? IIRC it also has problems from a developer standpoint in that it shuffled some of the delimiter characters needed for C style languages into awkward locations to type.
-- Rules of thumb should not be taken for the whole hand.
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Psychologically, I still use the 'numeric' keypad for the arrow keys, since the original 84 key keyboards did not have the 'extra' section there. I guess my formative years were spent on the wrong keyboard :->
Blake Miller wrote:
I guess my formative years were spent on the wrong keyboard
heheh. I'm responsible for my younger, right handed, brother being a lefty with the mouse. He was ~5 at the time and unlike my sisters and dad didn't realize he could move it, and since he and I used ~95% of the total computer time it was just always on his left. :->
-- Rules of thumb should not be taken for the whole hand.
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My formative years were spent on all manner of keyboards of wide variety, maybe that's why I'm open to trying something new. I just can't understand programmers using keyboards designed for "joe six pack" to surf the web. The arrow key layout on the keyboard I linked to is really nice.
John Cardinal wrote:
The arrow key layout on the keyboard I linked to is really nice.
Mashing the arrows into the shift/enter area is one of my two biggest hatreds of the typical laptop keyboard. The other is randomizing the placement of the ins->pgdn keys. Dell's layout comes closest to meeting what I want of any laptop keyboard I've used. It still shoves the arrows over but drops them down a row so only the top arrow is in the way of the shiftkey, and keeps the ins->pgdn keys in the standard ordering even if they're located above the backspace key. I've never seen any other laptop keyboard that does the latter.
-- Rules of thumb should not be taken for the whole hand.
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My keyboard has a lot of multimedia keys, internet navigation keys, calc, etc... I think what I use just the Calculator button and sound volume up/down. Do you use some these keys?
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.(John 3:16) :badger:
Nope, I try to get a keyboard with the fewest keys I can find. It makes no sense to me to put single-function keys on a keyboard. I don't even know what the "Windows" keys are supposed to do. On a previous job the keyboard had those extra keys and a slot in which to put a template; I made a template that said things like "Phasers", "Photon Torpedoes", "Tea, Earl Grey, Hot", etc.
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John Cardinal wrote:
I just wish I had started on a dvorak keyboard all those years ago, I wonder how many people realize they are working on a keyboard layout that was deliberately designed to be slow and hard to type on to stop mechanical typewriters from jamming up.
I've considered going dvorak before, the biggest thing that's holding me back is having to use PCs that aren't mine and which are configured for QWERTY. Just going from a standard to reversed button mouse for normal use has forced me to use my right hand when using a 'normal' mouse elsewhere, and that's only 2 items changed not ~60. The same issue with other people's hardware caused the two people I know who used Dvorak for a while to eventually revert. Are you actually using dvorak, or just wanting to? IIRC it also has problems from a developer standpoint in that it shuffled some of the delimiter characters needed for C style languages into awkward locations to type.
-- Rules of thumb should not be taken for the whole hand.
dan neely wrote:
Are you actually using dvorak, or just wanting to?
Neither, I wish I had started with a dvorak, but I can touch type pretty fast with a qwerty layout and I've been doing it for too long to want to change now, but then again programmers don't type a lot of text at a time. I type more characters in a short space of time in the lounge than I ever do programming.
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Nope, I try to get a keyboard with the fewest keys I can find. It makes no sense to me to put single-function keys on a keyboard. I don't even know what the "Windows" keys are supposed to do. On a previous job the keyboard had those extra keys and a slot in which to put a template; I made a template that said things like "Phasers", "Photon Torpedoes", "Tea, Earl Grey, Hot", etc.
[Windows-D] "Show Desktop" (Minimize all minimizable windows, and teporarily hide the others) [Windows-E] run explorer [Windows-R] show "Run" box [Windows-PAUSE] : "show system properties" (three more keys to the device manager!) [Windows-M] Minimize all [Windows-U]: If eyesight fails you, or you want to show off that you know the on-screen keyboard [Windows-F]: Explorer search (not that it is any more useful through this) [Windows-L]: Quick-switch user [Windows-G]: Earl Grey, hot
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