From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: hw Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: vterm and Meta? 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It's a good suggestion and I considered it. I'm not gona follow it because it makes no sense for me, not because I have firm, fixed views. I have a collection of keyboards all of wich are different, all of them except one have a German layout which doesn't have two Alt keys; some of them have these retarded windows keys that always get in the way while others don't, and I'm somtimes using keyboards on other machines. I have found a way to deal with it and part of that way is to go with default configurations as far as possible because it means that I can use emacs and other software with whatever keyboard is connected. Also I don't have the time to configure every machine I run emacs on with the same configuration I have on my workstation at home, and doing that won't make sense because some of these machines don't have keyboards and emacs is accessed through ssh through whatever keyboard the machine has that is used to connect to them. The default of the last 30+ years is that ESC is the only Meta key you get. That my workstation at home is now configured to have Alt as Meta is an exception. I probably can't even be bothered to configure my laptop like that and whenever I can I connect a "real" keyboard to it of whatever layout which happens to be available. Its keyboard is totally different again. If had a firm, fixed view, I wouldn't get anywhere. So please don't assume that would the reason I'm not following your suggestion. Your suggestion does not work with a Germany keyboard, especially when it has windows keys that get in the way. There are probably other keyboards for different languages with which it doesn't work, either. Have you considered that? > [..] > > I'm finding it much easier to slightly move my left hand to press left > > Ctrl where it is with my little finger. With Ctrl and Alt swapped, I > > can't really bend my right thumb to reach right Ctrl whereas I can > > press it with my little finger when the keys aren't swapped. > >=20 >=20 > Yes, unless the keys are moved to the keys immediately to the > left and right of the key, the suggestion of using -[ should > not be used. Swapping Alt and Ctrl on the right side of _this_ keyboard would make Ctrl virtually inaccessible. Why would I ever press Cltr+[ instead of Alt for Meta? If you remember, pressing that requires you to press AltGr+Shift+Ctrl+8 on a German keyboard. That's bascially an unpressable key combination. The only other program that I know of which uses that is telnet, and it took me years until I finally realised what they meant. Telnet used to say something like "press ^[", and that's one of the most unhelpful hints you can find. IIRC, joe used Ctrl+[ for some things which probably means that wordstar used it, too. Ctrl+[ may make sense on an US keyboard and it doesn't on a German one. I never used that. AltGr+Shift+Ctrl+8 is just too much. > The most typed key on the keyboard or a typewriter is the > key, so the design should and does place it under the strongest > finger (the two thumbs). You're totally wrong here: If you have ever used a mechanical typewriter --- and that is where the keyboard layouts we commonly still use today originate from --- you will have noticed that space is the key that requires the least strength to press. The carriage is spring driven and space only releases it to go one letter further, which is easy. With all other keys, you have to hit them hard for the lever to slam down upon the ribbon to get the letter printed on the paper, plus printed on the copies you may also have wound into the machine. That means each finger has to slam so hard as to print the letter through the ribbon onto the paper the ribbon prints on (already hard) and then another two pieces of paper with copy sheets in between of each of them (*really* hard). Two copies is about as much as you can do with a good mechanical typewriter, and it was usually avoided. As a typist, you had to have really strong fingers while your thumbs always had the easiest job, no matter how many copies you had in the machine. When typewriters were invented, manual labour was way different from how it is today and ppl back then probably had incredibly strong fingers. Finger strength was probably not a concern at all when it came to the placement of the keys. They wanted to place them conveniently and at the same time couldn't place them too conveniently because when you type fast on a mechnical typewriter, the levers don't have enough time to get out of the way of the other levers and then the levers get stuck on each other and then the machine is jammed up. That also involved putting levers for frequently used characters apart from other levers for frequently used characters because the further the levers were away from each other, the more room they had not to get into each others way. Since the levers were directly connected to the keys, that meant to have to place the keys away from each other. Nowadays, how much force and thus strength is needed to press a key only depends on the design of the key. That is since electrical typewriters were invented, and that was a long time ago. Only the keyboard layout didn't change much because people are used to it. > Reaching slightly to the left and right of the key with the > thumbs On the right side of this keyboard, the key rightmost the space bar is labled Alt, and it is so far to the right that I can't really bend my thumb all that way. There is not slightly here, and every keyboard is different. > means that 1) a strong finger does the reach Wich is irrelevant because the key isn't any harder to press than the others --- depending on the keyboard, of course, since there are keyboards with keys that are harder to press than others. If your fingers are so weak that it does matter, you may need a keyboard with keys that are particularly easy to press. > and 2) like Shift keys, your hands can be used together. I can use my hands together all the time. > For example, to type -u, press and hold the left with > your left thumb while typing the "u" with a finger on your right > hand. Ctrl-U is very difficult to press. I never do that unless I really have to, which is almost never. Perhaps my hands aren't as bendy yours. If I were to press it, I would press right Ctrl with my right little finger. It's easier to do that than to try to bend my thumb all the way to reach the Alt key. And it doesn't require special configuration. > Likewise, to type -a, press and hold the right > with your right thumb while typing the "a" with your left pinkie. That wouldn't be feasible when Ctrl and Alt were swapped. Pressing Ctrl with mit right little finger works fine. You might suggest a keyboard with three keys in the middle of the space bar, i. e. Space-Ctrl-Alt-Ctrl-Space. That way, the thumbs can either press Ctrl on one side or Alt on any side, or bend a little left or right to press Space. I might like that. (And why are there no keyboards that have different textures for keys to make them more distinguishable by touch?) > The common practice of putting the key on the key > means that only one key is used and so the left hand has to be > used to type both the key and the second key. No one would > suggest that the two keys be reduced to a single key. Having an additional Ctrl on the otherwise annoying key for CapsLock gives you more Ctrl keys and doesn't reduce the number of Ctrl keys to only one. > > That would be totally weird. And it would create issues, like how am > > I supposed to press Cltr-l without bending my hand when the Ctrl key > > is misplaced? > >=20 >=20 > It should be the same, nearly, as pressing the bar with your left > thumb -- one of the most frequent key presses on the keyboard. No, I press Ctrl with my little finger on the right side. That key is where it is supposed to be, i. e. where my finger presses. If I were to swap Ctrl and Alt it would suck because I'd have to go out of my way and relearn for an inconvenient keyboard layout with the only machine with which I'd have that is my workstation at home, and only as long as I have an US keyboard connected to it. And remember, German keyboards don't have an Alt key on the right, so what do you suggest how I would configure all those after I painstakingly learned where to press Alt and Ctrl? For keyboards that have the retarded windows keys, I usually put either Alt or Ctrl on them because that gets less in the way, but only at home. Unfortunately, pulling those key caps doesn't really help because the keys remain. > > If you want to get a Model M, go for it. It's still overall the best > > keyboard you can get. The original ones have become expensive and > > hard to find and may be worn out after 30 years. Fortunately, you can > > get a new one from Unicomp, and that's very likely the better deal. > >=20 >=20 > Thank you for the recommendation. It sounds like a nice keyboard and > keyboards are worth investing in for typists, including programmers. > Although those keyboards are much better than laptop keyboards, my > suggestion to move the Ctrl keys is made after using it on laptop > keyboards for many years. Ah, well, I hate laptop keyboards and avoid using them as much as I can. They are unsuited for typing and some keys are in very wrong places, making them unusable for some things and generally not usable but unfriendly. It's acceptable for a makeshift solution because carrying a laptop is more than enough even without carrying a keyboard along with one. If I had to actually use my laptop, I'd carry a keyboard with it. Why don't they just make laptops with decent keyboards. > In fact, a critical consideration when buying > a laptop is whether it has the and keys in the locations > outlined above (that is, to the left and right of the key). I > have rejected laptops that do not have that because it would lead to RSI > and make typing for programming significantly slower and more difficult. Try to find a laptop that has Home, End, Del, Insert, PgUp, PgDown and the like where they are supposed to be ... > > And my thumbs are pretty much the last fingers I'd use to press Ctrl > > when the rest of my fingers are at the home row. The home row is > > great for typing, not for moving around. I either type or move > > around, and for moving around, the dedicated movement keys are very > > convenient. How much do you move around on a typewriter? > >=20 >=20 > The point of the suggested move is to make typing easier and less > prone to RSI. It mostly isn=E2=80=99t even necessary to leave the home r= ow (an > occasional - or key) and use the very large number of > Emacs key combinations. Key combinations become just like another kind > of "shift." It's also not necessary to torture myself. And again, try the emacs way of movement with ESC being the only Meta key you have. I'm sure that's gone be fun ;) > > > A suggestion to try is to reposition the keys and go through the Emac= s > > > Tutorial (C-h t). That would provide practice using many Ctrl key > > > combinations and could help you decide whether this new approach is t= o > > > your liking. > >=20 > > I did that in the 90ies on my Atari ST. You can still find pictures > > of the keyboards they used. How much sense do you think that tutorial > > made with these keyboards (their German version) --- and no, Alt > > didn't work for Meta but ESC did. > >=20 >=20 > It didn=E2=80=99t make sense and it lead to RSIs. Fortunately, since the= n > keyboards moved from having a single key to having two, along > with two keys. The Atari ST keyboards didn't lead to RSI. PC keyboards have differnt keys since a very long time. German keyboards still have only one Alt key ... > This, plus the ability to reconfigure the keyboard has mostly > eliminated RSI and increases typing speed (including Emacs=E2=80=99s > commands). Yes, after 30+ years I could finally configure my workstation to use Alt as Meta. It still doesn't work on my laptop or any other computer ... And it didn't lead to RSI ever. Just use a good keyboard, not a laptop keyboard. > [..] > > Your suggestions are good, only they don't work for me. >=20 > OK. That was always a possibility. It is a suggestion for you to > consider and you still could reconsider now that you have seen it as a > possibility. Well, swapping Alt and Ctrl on the right might make some sense, but I sometimes press Ctrl-a and Ctrl-e with my right hand. Try that when swapped ... And it's too much configuration. > (I had RSI for years because I could not see how a simple > reconfiguration could fix the problem for me, and I wished I had > seen it suggested from the beginning. It is such a significantly > better arrangement that I wish it was documented in the Emacs > Manual. It could help many people overcome the problem of the > complicated key combinations being difficult and driving them not to > use Emacs.) Here=E2=80=99s hoping that it might be helpful for some othe= r > reader who uses Emacs. Perhaps you could write a manual that can be included in Emacs. I've never had such isses and always used decent keyboards. Or quit trying to use laptop keyboards and get a decent keyboard. Nowadays you can get some decent ones, and which switches you like is personal preference. Just stay away from so-called "gaming keyboards" (or other "gaming" hardware). They can be incompatible, and stuff labled "gaming" either sucks and doesn't work right, or is way overpriced, or both. Also, move your hands some more instead of forcing them to remain in the home row and to bend themselves so unnaturally to the keyboard. It's good for them and the fingers when they can assume different positions and stretch in different ways and directions, like when pressing dedicated movement keys. Otherwise it's no wonder that you hurt yourself, especially with a laptop keyboard.