From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "B. T. Raven" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: how to change C-x prefix to C-k in a clean way? Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2009 23:18:51 -0600 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1237178471 3497 80.91.229.12 (16 Mar 2009 04:41:11 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2009 04:41:11 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Mar 16 05:42:27 2009 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 1Lj4eh-0007GD-10 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Mon, 16 Mar 2009 05:42:27 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:52837 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Lj4dK-0000d9-Sn for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Mon, 16 Mar 2009 00:41:02 -0400 Original-Path: news.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews.google.com!news2.google.com!Xl.tags.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local01.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.posted.cpinternet!news.posted.cpinternet.POSTED!not-for-mail Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2009 23:17:25 -0500 User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.19 (Windows/20081209) Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help In-Reply-To: Original-Lines: 122 X-Usenet-Provider: http://www.giganews.com Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 64.61.221.138 Original-X-Trace: sv3-NG4u8+xJMGY+q4fV3qrkijfHEo0HxXefM1EqGKpDir6jE+KKi/fAKOPaZ6sQK/IyHuOaUJdS7s5X9ce!2cTY9sYAlk1cO7WaWo4cCTiYk1o86YSgiRJM1NhALZQ/lgJSo/VfgWuJTbwJcReD4d0kIClhLG9Q!U4pGiBkT0jFPM0/6O1E= Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@cpinternet.com X-DMCA-Complaints-To: abuse@cpinternet.com X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.39 Original-Xref: news.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:167669 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:62964 Archived-At: Rustom Mody wrote: > >> i learned dvorak in 1992 or 1993. More or less due to my >> nerdiness towards better design. I don't have typing speed >> problem nor RSI in anyway. > > I guess anyone using/working with/working on emacs has to be almost by > definition a productivity-junkie starting with rms, going on to the > fancy modes for programming and sysad support of the last couple of > decades and today's hot stuff like org, icicles etc. > > I toyed with the idea of trying dvorak for a while but then somehow > came to the conclusion that it does not go far enough. You see dvorak > was invented in the age of mechanical typewriters which had two > fundamental assumptions (or invariants in programmerese) > 1. The typist can type only 1 key at a time > 2. One (key)stroke generates exactly 1 letter > > Obviously neither of these is a necessary assumption today though both > are universally assumed. > > Well 1. has the exceptions like Ctrl/Alt/Shift but these are very > minor exceptions if you compare them with the possibilities of > full-scale chording which you may appreciate as a pianist! A > simplistic estimate of this being: 10 fingers -> 26 letters means > (partial) functions from a 10 element set to a 26 element set, which > is 27 raised to 10 (thats a number in trillions!) This is way more > chords than any reasonable sized dictionary and hence every word could > be in principle 1 single chord, ie keystroke. Even if this set is > pruned many billions of times for eliminating inconvenient/impossible > chords. Nevertheless the hundred most frequent words of English ( > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_common_words_in_English ) could > easily be assigned one unique chord and that would mean 1-stroke > 1-word (strangely comes back to Chinese by a back door). > > Ive not gone into this more because even simple keyboard hackery like > flipping Ctrl and CapsLock causes so many problems in practice that > full scale converting of a qwerty keyboard into a 'piano' is a little > technically daunting. > > So let me go on to point 2 which (I hope!) is more feasible and > productive -- in a word abbrevs. Evidently even adding a few dozen > abrevs for the most commonly used words that we use in some context > would significantly reduce typing. > > But trying to explore this further Ive started studying the alphabetic > shorthand called keyscript [ http://www.freewebs.com/cassyjanek ] > It has a whole system of shorthanding English into ASCII with some > fair amount of 'logic'. > Here is a taste (though not the logic) : > > One letter abbrevs for the most common words > b = but > c = with > d = had > e = this > f = of > g = that > h = the > j = which > n = and > ...etc etc upto > z = was > > then common phrases > able to = cb > had been = dn > do not = dx > did not = ex > does not = dsx > etc > > and a few dozen other abbrevs like > > become = bc > better = bee > before = bf > being = bg > below = bl > consequences = csqa > unfortunately = nxf > same = sa > said = sd > such = sc > statement = ztx > sufficient = sfj > > >> The significantly noticeable thing is the comfort. I didn't realize >> it until in late 1990s, when sometimes i had to go back to qwerty >> as a sys admin, and the first thing to note is that the fingers >> jump wildly. > > I am sure you can see that the 'wild jumping' you describe as reducing > from QWERTY to dvorak would reduce very significantly with such a > system -- dont you think? > > The only problem is that -- as a confirmed productivity junkie -- I > realise that working very hard to become more productive is a surefire > way of doing no real work!! Ive spent about 3 weeks on this and I am > really sweating! > > Your modest proposal is brilliant in some as yet to be specified way. The only problem I see with it is if it has to be read aloud. For example, nxf e dsx bc bee if read out loud should probably be spelled out in full. So, since so much time and space is saved by abbreviating words, there will be a concomitant opportunity to actually expand the individual letters, as in areeeayeellellwye essdoubleyoueeayeteeeyeengee! The only thing I am not sure of is whether that 26^10 (~141 trillion)is even close to being equal to c(26,1) + C(26,2)+ .... C(26,10). But it doesn't matter. The few hundred key combos in the repertoir of even the most accomplished power user is a tiny fraction of those potentially available by combining modifiers (Shift, Control, Meta, Alt, Super, Hyper) with the other fifty-some keys within easy reach. For instance, I just queried the binding of C-H-M-s-^ and found that it was undefined. Surprise, surprise. Still Xah is right about Dvorak. It's about 10% faster and 30% less taxing. (Numbers grabbed out of the air that seem about right.)