[HN Gopher] A guide to home row mods
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A guide to home row mods
Author : wtrm
Score : 45 points
Date : 2023-12-03 13:58 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (precondition.github.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (precondition.github.io)
| mingus88 wrote:
| Sun keyboards had Ctrl where Caps typically lies, and it was so
| convenient that I have remapped this in every environment I use
| for decades now.
|
| This presents a small annoyance when I need to use another
| computer and start TYPING IN CAPS when I don't intend to
|
| This home row mod idea makes a lot of sense to me but I don't
| think I would want to train my muscle memory to use such a
| drastic difference in behavior lest I find myself embarrassingly
| useless when presenting on a random work computer that doesn't
| support this
|
| The kbd community has all kinds of small form factor / isometric
| layouts like this that are totally custom and efficient but just
| make me think how you just train your hands to be shockingly
| unproductive on 99.99% of other systems
| quadrifoliate wrote:
| > The kbd community has all kinds of small form factor /
| isometric layouts like this that are totally custom and
| efficient but just make me think how you just train your hands
| to be shockingly unproductive on 99.99% of other systems
|
| I am curious, what kind of conditions require you to be
| productive on "other systems"? As a programmer these days, I
| pretty much am never told to sit in front of a random keyboard
| and expected to be productive there. I have the Ctrl/Caps mod
| you mentioned, and it bites me on other computers -- but these
| typically tend to be instances of me helping some friend out
| with a computer problem. Any time that I am going to working
| for an entire day or more on a computer, I tend to figure out a
| way to swap Caps with Ctrl on it.
|
| I can imagine the "should be able to be productive on any
| system" being a problem in the days when computers were scarce,
| and for instance, one had to use the computers in a university
| lab or similar. I can even imagine it today when you're talking
| about servers (e.g. I need to be able to use emacs, vi, and
| nano on any server that I'm logged into). But for keyboard
| input these days, it seems like we have the luxury to use our
| own highly customized input devices for 99.99% of the time.
| fake-name wrote:
| I probably regularly use 4-5 different machines regularly (2
| at home, my work laptop, work laptop plugged into it's dock
| at work, embedded system flashing machine).
|
| I also help coworkers when handing off a assembled embedded
| machine, which regularly involves temporarily helping out on
| their computer for a few minutes now and then.
|
| I can't exactly see swapping coworkers keyboards out just to
| help debug something.
| doubled112 wrote:
| Exactly. My main work computer is a laptop on a dock, but
| I'm not always at my desk. I'm not going to carry the
| external keyboard around.
|
| The pros never seemed like they'd outweigh the cons. I love
| smaller mechanical keyboards, but I'm not going to venture
| off of QWERTY.
| thayne wrote:
| I think a more common situation for many people is having to
| use the laptop keyboard instead of an external keyboard, for
| example because you are traveling.
| tevon wrote:
| i ended up customizing an ortholinear keyboard, took a
| little while to learn, but seems like my brain keeps a
| separate "mental map" of it, and it doesn't interfere with
| my typing on a standard laptop.
| csdvrx wrote:
| > I am curious, what kind of conditions require you to be
| productive on "other systems"?
|
| For me, vnc and qemu: I haven't found an easy way to have
| gvncviewer use my caps-to-control-or-esc
|
| Even just caps-to-control would make happy!
| xyzzy123 wrote:
| On-site (eg in a dc), pairing, some kinds of hot desking,
| user support.
|
| I've mostly given up on customising and try to find efficient
| ways to work within each OS's defaults.
|
| The wildcard is when you're hands-on keyboard with a heavy
| customiser who has wildly different preferences than you :)
| lawn wrote:
| > lest I find myself embarrassingly useless when presenting on
| a random work computer that doesn't support this
|
| I use a completely custom layout one a small keyboard you're
| describing, but I can still type just as well (in fact even
| faster) on a regular keyboard with a regular keymap.
|
| This fear is completely overblown. As long as you sometimes use
| a regular keyboard, you will retain your muscle memory.
| fake-name wrote:
| I cannot do this.
|
| Just because you can do so easily does not mean everyone can.
| I am apparently unable to segment my muscle memory like you
| seem to be able to (I'm actually jealous you can do that!).
| gumby wrote:
| I don't think it's any different from, say, speaking other
| languages or switching back and forth from countries that
| drive on different sides. These things just become
| automatic.
| eichin wrote:
| But that's not universal either; I have a friend who
| started losing english vocabulary when they first learned
| french. (The collected-anecdote metaphor (not, afaik
| backed up by any particular cognitive science) seems to
| be having "slots" for language, one-vs-two-vs-many...)
| lawn wrote:
| I just think it comes down to practice, like being able to
| speak multiple languages or program in different
| programming languages.
|
| And something that can help is to differentiate your layout
| physically. In my case an entirely different keyboard, but
| even something like pressing space with the other hand can
| help keep them separate.
| tevon wrote:
| Completely agree, however when I customized a standard
| keyboard, I DID have issues switching back. Now I've
| customized an ortholinear split hand keyboard, and my brain
| seems to keep this as a completely separate mental map and I
| have no issues switching to my laptop keyboard anymore.
| smlacy wrote:
| Welcome to the world of being someone who uses the Dvorak
| Layout. I quickly learned that my brain can't hold "two
| layouts" and my qwerty-layout touch typing pretty much
| evaporated after focusing on typing exclusively Dvorak. I can
| touch type Dvorak at over 90wpm, and Qwerty at maybe half that
| at best.
|
| The thing that you somewhat over-exaggerate is the frequency at
| which I'm not using "my own computer" that has been already
| setup with Dvorak. Its exceedingly rare that I ever type
| anything on someone else's machine.
| gumby wrote:
| My only problem with this is I don't normally hold the buckey key
| particularly long -- I strike the buckey key and selector key
| (i.e. an alphabetic) simultaneously and release. Holding it down
| would break decades of muscle / rhythm memory. This is the same
| reason I don't use key repeat.
|
| Hmm, I don't disable key repeat but never invoke it which
| confirms/reinforces my belief that I do a simultaneous strike.
|
| Perhaps others use their keyboards differently.
| rssoconnor wrote:
| I've been using home-row mods on my moonlander layout (a modified
| miryoku layout[0]). The big problem has been the timings.
| Sometimes I get two letters, instead of a shifted key, and
| sometimes I get my GUI key pressed instead of the letter 'a'.
|
| I've recently fine-tuned my timings so that shift/f/j keys have a
| shorter time to invoke shift, and the GUI/a/; key requires a
| longer time to invoke the GUI modifier.
|
| It does seem to have improved things.
|
| [0]https://configure.zsa.io/moonlander/layouts/b7yOD/latest/0
| ashtuchkin wrote:
| Haven't been able to make them consistently work on my
| moonlander. Too many mistypes when quickly writing code.
| Ultimately removed everything time-related and stateful and only
| kept simple layers - worked great for the last ~2 years.
| moogleii wrote:
| I tried them for awhile, but there was always just enough false
| positives to make it too intrusive for normal work flow,
| especially if you're normally a fast typer. In the end, it was
| better to either just add more thumb keys in a custom layout, or
| eschew such clever shortcuts altogether when using a normal
| keyboard.
| absoluteunit1 wrote:
| Oh so happy to see this on hacker news!
|
| I used this guide (in combination of a few other resources) to
| add Home Row mods to my QMK modded Kinesis Advantage 2 and my
| Corne.
|
| After 6 month of use, one change I made though is instead putting
| the mod keys on the home row, I put them on the row below. It
| turned out to be more suitable for me
| tevon wrote:
| One thing that I've found in addressing the worry about training
| muscle memory on 99% of "standard" keyboards: use a keyboard that
| is sufficiently different from standard that you brain inherently
| recognizes the difference.
|
| I use a dygma defy ortholinear keyboard and haven't seen any
| reduction in accuracy when using my normal mac keyboard. however
| when I customized a standard keyboard layout I DID find myself
| making mistakes. I put this up to my brain having a different
| mental map of the ortholinear keyboard, in the same way that
| typing with our thumbs on our phones doesn't impede our typing
| ability on a laptop.
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(page generated 2023-12-03 23:01 UTC)