[HN Gopher] I disabled my mouse for a week
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I disabled my mouse for a week
Author : tosh
Score : 17 points
Date : 2024-02-16 18:50 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| AnonC wrote:
| Whenever I use a new application I look up the frequently used
| menu options and the corresponding keyboard shortcuts, if any.
| It's a lot faster than using the mouse for most actions.
|
| Nowadays most applications are developed with the mouse as the
| primary or sole interface (look at some Electron based or similar
| apps), treating the keyboard as just an input mechanism for
| characters and numbers, and not supporting it as a navigation or
| control mechanism. I don't see many recent developers trying to
| learn and use keyboard shortcuts either. They suffer through slow
| and imprecise mouse navigation and clicks.
|
| Keyboard interfaces are faster for those who use it, but the OS
| and applications have to provide first class support. While I
| like macOS way more than Windows, don't ever try giving up on the
| mouse or trackpad on a Mac. It'll be mostly unusable and will
| waste a lot of your time in trying to get things done with just a
| keyboard. In Apple's own apps, you just cannot do what you want
| to with the keyboard alone (Reminders has been a great example
| for many years -- trying to navigate using tab or arrow keys
| would show how utterly broken it is).
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| And that is why I stick to windows and excel. You can use the
| keyboard far more powerfully.
| treetalker wrote:
| Many MacOS users don't know that, in almost all applications,
| 'Command + ?' opens the Help menu and immediately focuses a
| search field that allows the user to search and activate any
| menu command.
|
| An additional non-native but _amazing_ (and free!) application
| is Shortcat (https://shortcat.app/). Among other amazing
| abilities, Shortcat lets the user access parts of the current
| application's GUI that may not be accessible through the Menu
| Bar or other keyboard shortcuts. Highly recommended!
| stevage wrote:
| I recently used windows for 2 years, and had been looking
| forward to good keyboard support. But modern windows is
| terrible at that. Many apps don't even allow you to press Alt
| to get to the menu.
|
| I think these days macOS is actually better for keyboard. It
| has pretty good support for setting up custom keyboard
| shortcuts.
| lwkl wrote:
| As someone who did the opposite switch I was surprised how
| easy it is to make your own shortcuts on macOS.
|
| I also thought the built-in help on macOs pretty amazing.
| With Microsoft (except in Office) you basically have to
| Google and hope that there aren't only links to their useless
| support forum. They should just replace it with a page that
| explains how to run sfc.exe /scannow.
| WWLink wrote:
| I don't know what you're talking about. Historically, mac
| programs were designed with way more, and way better hotkeys
| than Windows apps. It's just that people got used to alt and
| arrow keys to dig around menus. Macs have a whole proper 3rd
| modifier key. Up until Windows 10, the "Windows Key" was a damn
| joke that wasted a spot lol.
|
| Plus I can do things like ctrl+a/ctrl+e pretty much anywhere to
| go beginning of line/end of line (except microsoft apps). I can
| use ctrl+c in the terminal like it was meant to be, since copy
| is mapped to cmd+c.
|
| I could go on probably, but seriously, that was one of my
| favorite things jumping from Windows 2000 to Mac OS X lol.
|
| I honestly couldn't stand using Windows for any serious kinda
| work until 10 added WSL and improved git support.
|
| Then again, I learned how to program on bsd machines and spent
| most of my teenage times using linux and OS X. I still don't
| really grok writing code or using dev toolchains on Windows.
| It's such a foreign OS. Everything about it feels backwards and
| upside down. It's like every other OS is a car with a wheel,
| shifter and two/three pedals. And then Microsoft came along and
| made a car with 2 joysticks and a butt controller.
|
| Admittedly, MacOS is feeling more and more like that these
| days. They keep breaking shit. I tried to figure out how to
| accept/decline incoming phone call notifications (on a mac) and
| there isn't a hotkey for it. lol. I'm still pondering how I'd
| do that, because I have a stream deck here and I'd really like
| to set it up on my mom's computer lol.
| crtified wrote:
| Looking to the future - I guess eye tracking somewhat deprecates
| the mouse, in theory.
|
| The mouse is a very clever abstraction, combining human hand/eye
| coordination with the brain's near-effortless spatial
| transformation of the mouse's horizontal plane to the screen's
| (usually) vertical(-ish) plane, along with matters of proportion
| and scale. But it's still an extra layer(s) of abstraction, and
| of limitation, e.g. the more time your hand is on the mouse, the
| more time your computing experience is limited to the abilities
| of the mouse.
| dcchambers wrote:
| After doing the vision pro demo in the Apple store I am not so
| sure I buy eye tracking as the future...
|
| Assuming that Apple's tech is best in class, it's still nowhere
| near as accurate as mouse input. Even if it's 99% accurate, we
| click on stuff a LOT so you will feel that 1% error rate
| immediately.
|
| I would like to see someone experiment with AVP-level eye
| tracking for cursor control on a Mac/PC, so that I can leave my
| hands on my keyboard 100% of the time and still have mouse
| control. I think this could be huge.
|
| I also realize that I track the mouse in my peripheral vision
| _all the time_ when I am using the computer, especially when
| using tools I am familiar with. It would be a massive downgrade
| to have to look _exactly_ where I want to for every action.
| canucker2016 wrote:
| Probably won't work for the blind/legally blind.
|
| I wonder what happens when someone who is cross-eyed or has one
| real eye and one glass eye try to use the VisionPro?
| skydhash wrote:
| > The mouse is a very clever abstraction
|
| It's more like an extension of the body itself, the same way we
| use any tools. And there's a set relation between causes and
| effects, which becomes more instinctual the more we use it. I
| think eye tracking suffers from that we use our eyes for
| perception, not action. Constraining it to action, especially
| with how slow our movement is, will barely improve our
| interactions, and may impede them.
| stevage wrote:
| I recently spent a few minutes setting up keyboard shortcuts in
| VSCode to navigate around the various panels, and do everything
| else I used to do with a mouse.
|
| Wish I'd done it years ago, it was so easy.
|
| I also found it was much easier to create shortcuts that are
| intuitive for me than to learn the preconfigured ones.
|
| And the standard debugging shortcuts (ctrl f8) etc are super
| unergonomic. Replaced them with ctrl-' etc.
| lwkl wrote:
| As someone using a non US keyboard layout I find using non OS
| shortcuts very frustrating. Especially VIM is unusable on a non
| US layout.
|
| I wish shortcuts were mapped to the ANSI or ISO positions of the
| keys instead of letters.
|
| But with how things are right now you are probably better off
| learning a new layout which might as well be DVORAK or smething
| similar.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| If you find yourself before a Windows machine without a mouse but
| you _really need it_ , then press: Alt + Shift +
| Num Lock
|
| That would enable MouseKeys on the num pad.
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