From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Evans Winner Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: How to type when using Emacs? Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:57:24 -0600 Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server Message-ID: <86od54l04r.fsf@timbral.net> References: <03a7c17e-9187-422b-be26-092e15d552be@k30g2000hse.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1215805259 9143 80.91.229.12 (11 Jul 2008 19:40:59 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 19:40:59 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Jul 11 21:41:45 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1KHOUt-0007ds-2P for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 11 Jul 2008 21:41:39 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:53414 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1KHOU1-0006WZ-BI for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:40:45 -0400 Original-Path: news.stanford.edu!headwall.stanford.edu!newshub.sdsu.edu!aioe.org!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 66 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: tHL7Pw00KvzSeEbptdOqCQ.user.aioe.org Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org Cancel-Lock: sha1:d5zid+7LOpSvp6i8MwmUZmrNg7Y= User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.0.60 (gnu/linux) Original-Xref: news.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:160099 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:55443 Archived-At: Miles Bader writes: One thing you'll learn on this group though, take _everything_ Xahlee says with a huge grain of salt. He has his own wacky theories about almost everything, many of which are just plain daft... I found his page about the ``Emacs-Pinky Problem'' very interesting. I was never properly trained on touch-typing, so my technique is an ad hoc evolution of hunt-and-peck to about sixty wpm if I am really trying. I had never seriously thought about the possibility of using (gasp) /both/ the shift keys, or /both/ the alt or control keys. So that already is useful. I am also considering buying one of those Microsoft keyboards that splits into a distinct right-hand and left-hand portion. From a brief examination at a store it seems as if it might help me train myself out of some of my pianist's ``hand-over'' techniques that I use (and that are, I am sure, quite inefficient). I have a few of questions and comments inspired by Mr. Lee's page: 1. I have not tried the Dvorak layout but might like to. Have you ever tried the ``Programmer's Dvorak[1]''? Any thoughts? I know that coding in lisp and in xml-like languages, not having (, ), <, and > on shifted keys and having them in convenient and left/right balanced positions would be nice. 2. Also regarding Dvorak, is there a good way to re-label keys that you know of? Something for a shared PC would be nice if it, for example, had QWERTY labels in one color, and Dvorak in another. Maybe just print out letters on envelope label paper...? 3. I notice that you recommend swapping ctrl and alt at least under some circumstances. I have been a pretty happy user of the caps-lock/ctrl swap for some time. For me it feels more awkward to tuck my thumb under my hand to hit alt than it is to move my pinky slightly left to hit ctrl. Am I unusual in this? 4. I have noticed some advice here and there to swap the escape key with the key left of the `1' key, making it much closer. Since Emacs uses alt and Escape nearly interchangeably, maybe that would be the smart thing to do, and then use escape instead of alt -- and then you get the benefit of not having to hold down the key while hitting whatever other key. In any case, actually maybe swapping escape with alt would be something to try.... 5. And speaking of holding down keys, I have noticed that people seem to say that, for instance, hitting C-x C-f would mean hitting ctrl, then hitting x, then hitting ctrl and hitting f. But I (and I imagine most people) actually hit ctrl only once and hold it down for the whole operation in many cases. Footnotes: [1] http://www.kaufmann.ro/roland/dvorak/