line-move-visual
in [Lisp]
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From: Xah Lee on 15 Jun 2010 18:45 On Jun 15, 3:27 pm, Thad Floryan <t...(a)thadlabs.com> wrote: > On 6/15/2010 1:42 AM, Uday S Reddy wrote: > > > On 6/15/2010 7:54 AM, Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote: > > >> Well, C-f C-n is all you need.  I mean, keep C-f pressed until the > >> cursor reaches the column you want, you don't even need to count > >> 76.  And keep C-n pressed until the cursor reaches the line you want. > > > Except that pressing control-key for that long with your pinky is a > > health risk! > > [...] > > That's why remapping the [Caps Lock] to be a [Ctrl] is very useful. > swapping Caps Lock with Ctrl is not good. ⢠Why You Should Not Swap Caps Lock With Control http://xahlee.org/emacs/swap_CapsLock_Ctrl.html plain text version follows: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Why You Should Not Swap Caps Lock With Control Xah Lee, 2008-07-10 Swapping the Caps Lock key with the Control key is one of the bad advice in keyboarding. It's one of the myth that perpetuate bad practice. It does damage to your finger's health. Here are the reasons why: * On a typical PC keyboard of today, the Caps Lock is the most difficult modifier key to press, and is pressed by the weakest finger pinky. The Control key can be easily pressed with palm. * It makes the left pinky do 2 pinkies's work. (try to pick out your right Shift key and type for a week and see how you feel) * It forces the left hand to strain into spider legs positions. Or, it forces your right hand to flies about wildly if the letter key is near the middle of the keyboard (example: CapsLock+T, CapsLock+G, CapsLock+B). * It renders many Ctrl+â¹key⺠spots void, since now with only one pinky many otherwise good Ctrl+â¹key⺠spots are hard to use. * The left hand now constantly shift from home position. The above assumes that you do TOUCH TYPE. If you do not touch type, you really need to learn that first before you can talk about hand health. The above also assumes that you are using a full sized keyboard, not the keyboard on laptops. If you are stuck with a laptop computer keys, then you need to get a full PC keyboard first. Prolonged typing on laptop sized computer is sure way to damage your hands. -------------------------------------------------- Good Tips * If you use the Ctrl key much more frequently than Alt, then do swap them. Because, Alt is much easy to press, with the thumb. (See: How To Swap Caps Lock, Alt, Control Keys On Windows, How to Swap Modifier Keys on OS X) * Buy a keyboard with Control on both sides of keyboard. * Buy a keyboard such that the modifier keys are placed symmetrically with respect to F and J keys. (That is, the distance between Left Control to F should be the same as right Control to J.) * Press modifier keys using both hands, in the same way of using Shift key in touch typing. If the letter is on the left side, use the Ctrl key on the right side, and vice versa. * On most full sized PC keyboard, it's very easy to use palm or semi-fist to press Control key. Do this and save the Pinky. -------------------------------------------------- Why You Should Not Swap Caps Lock With Control Among tech geeking circles, it's widely recommended like a dogma, to swap Caps Lock and Ctrl keys. However, remapping Control to Caps Lock seriously violates some basic ergonomic principles. In touch typing, modifiers comes in pairs, such as Shift. The accepted ergonomic way to press them is using one hand to press the modifier and the other to press the letter key. You can see how it is otherwise by disabling one of the Shift key. With just one modifier, you are heavily handicapped. As a example, try this exercise: TYPE THIS SENTENCE WITH ONLY THE LEFT SHIFT KEY AND WITHOUT USING CAPS LOCK. Quickly, you'll see the pain. Similar is with other modifier keys such as Alt and Ctrl. The reason they are not noticed only because they are seldom used. However, in emacs, it is heavily used. So, by mapping Ctrl to the Caps Lock key, you put a severe handicap by putting all work into the left pinky, and restrict the number of keys you can comfortably use with Ctrl. The reason that many tech geekers still recommend it is because the Ctrl key is traditionally on the corner of keyboard and rather difficult to press. Also, many keyboards does not have right Ctrl. So, in a sense, Caps Lock as Ctrl is a improvement. It is especially a good solution on laptop's keyboards. There are 2 ways to remedy the problem of pressing of Ctrl. One is to buy a good keyboard that has big Alt and Ctrl keys, and on both sides of the keyboard, and symmetrically placed with respect to your thumbs when hands in home position. (some keyboards, such as Apple keyboard, has the right side modifiers far to the right, rendering them unusable for touch typing) Microsoft's ergonomic keyboard are very good with respect to this, and also vast majority of generic PC keyboards. The other way is to learn to type the corner Ctrl by pressing down your palm or semi fist, instead of poking it with your pinky. This can be comfortably done on most PC keyboards. (See: photo of generic PC keyboard) To see which is better, you can type this sentence and press Ctrl for every letter. (do it outside of emacs) You can quickly find out which way is better for you. The above assumes you touch type. If you don't, some tips may not apply, and you really should learn touch typing first. -------------------------------------------------- Anecdotes vs Ergonomics Joel wrote: «... do not use two fingers on the same hand at the same time, except in emergencies. ...». YSK wrote: «Seriously? I do this all the time. Some of my favorite (non-emacs) shortcuts include stuff like C-M-S-e, all done with my left hand. Is that bad?». -------------------------------- One Modifier Key Yes and no. In general, if you just have one modifier key and one letter key, the proper touch typing guidline is to use one hand on the modifier and the other on the letter. Choose the modifier on the other side of the letter key. You can test this out. Try to type this whole sentence in captical letters (but without using Caps Lock). First, try it using just the left Shift key. Then try it using the touch type guidline as above. You'll see how using single hand creates pain. Similarly, you can try the above with the Control key as modifier. -------------------------------- Multiple Modifier Keys When you have multiple modifier, it gets a bit more complex and the rule applies less. Ultimately, there are several factors involved. For example, the keyboard hardware is not well designed due to historical reasons. (See: Keyboard Hardware Design Flaws) Secondly, many keyboards such as Apple's that has the right hand side's modifier far to the right, making them less usable for touch type. Lastly, the principles of ergonomics presumes you are doing the task repeatitively for a prolonged time. Else it doesn't apply. For example, for vast majority of computer users (say 95%), they only type maybe for 1 hour per day, and there's not much activity of continued typing more than 5 min. Lots of professional programers don't even touch type; partly because heavy duty data-entry is not really part of programing. And when it comes to Control key, or multiple modifiers, they are not used that much often, so whichever works for you is ok. However, this does not mean it's completely a personal issue without any scientific criterion on what is better. For example, of all the styles and anecdotes you hear about how you should press modifier, you can easily test them out and find the better one, by say, force yourself to continuously operate it for 10 min using one way, then do the same test with another way. You'll quickly see which one is more tiring and which is faster with less effort. Xah â http://xahlee.org/ â
From: Thad Floryan on 15 Jun 2010 19:31 On 6/15/2010 3:45 PM, Xah Lee wrote: > On Jun 15, 3:27 pm, Thad Floryan <t...(a)thadlabs.com> wrote: >> On 6/15/2010 1:42 AM, Uday S Reddy wrote: >> >>> On 6/15/2010 7:54 AM, Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote: >>>> Well, C-f C-n is all you need. I mean, keep C-f pressed until the >>>> cursor reaches the column you want, you don't even need to count >>>> 76. And keep C-n pressed until the cursor reaches the line you want. >>> Except that pressing control-key for that long with your pinky is a >>> health risk! >>> [...] >> That's why remapping the [Caps Lock] to be a [Ctrl] is very useful. >> > > swapping Caps Lock with Ctrl is not good. > > • Why You Should Not Swap Caps Lock With Control > http://xahlee.org/emacs/swap_CapsLock_Ctrl.html > [...] Your opinion which neither I nor 100,000s of others share -- you stand alone. A [Ctrl] to the left of [A] is natural and what I've been using since the mid-1960s with absolutely NO problems or RSI whatsoever beginning with a TTY ASR33 and continuing with a Datapoint 3300, DEC VT100, Datamedia DT80 and others along the way to today. Mapping and using the [Caps Lock] as a [Ctrl] to the immediate left of [A] is no different than the ["] to the immediate right of [;] re: pinkies. The (dumb) PC standard of a [Ctrl] key at the lower-left of a keyboard is ridiculous and WILL cause pinky problems if one uses Emacs as an editor and bash as a shell.
From: Evans Winner on 15 Jun 2010 23:30 ,------ Thad Floryan wrote ------ | Your opinion which neither I nor 100,000s of others | share -- you stand alone. Not alone. I've read similar advice in the past. What I would like to try is a situation in which holding down SPC and then hitting something else causes SPC to act like Control. But if nothing is hit along with SPC then it sends a Space character on key-up. Obviously this would have the drawback that one could not get repeated spaces by holding down the space key, but I would like to at least experiment with it. I don't know if it is possible to map the keys that way, though. I've looked into it a bit, but not figured it out. Failing that, I do use Caps-Lock and Control swapped and have for some time. It doesn't seem terribly harmful to me. The idea of palming the Control key is interesting, but it seems as if it would require tiny hands to really do comfortably. For me, I do have to move my hands awkwardly from the home row to do that, whereas I don't really have to move from the home row to hit the key to the left of `A'. Maybe it was all the piano playing back in the day, but my fifth finger moves the slight bit sideways pretty fluently.
From: David Kastrup on 16 Jun 2010 08:43 Alan Mackenzie <acm(a)muc.de> writes: > In comp.emacs Uday S Reddy <uDOTsDOTreddy(a)cs.bham.ac.uk> wrote: > >> Every time I narrowed down to that issue in this thread, the >> participants have fallen silent (first Xah Lee then Tim Cross, Alan >> Mackenzie and Stefan himself). I guess there is no good answer to >> it. > > Ooh, talk about trolling! ;-) I have "fallen silent" because I've > nothing much fresh to say. Huh? Did you think that a discussion involves anything apart from everybody repeating himself until all but one have given up? Are you old-fashioned or what? -- David Kastrup
From: Xah Lee on 16 Jun 2010 10:31
On Jun 15, 4:31 pm, Thad Floryan <t...(a)thadlabs.com> wrote: > On 6/15/2010 3:45 PM, Xah Lee wrote: > > > > On Jun 15, 3:27 pm, Thad Floryan <t...(a)thadlabs.com> wrote: > >> On 6/15/2010 1:42 AM, Uday S Reddy wrote: > > >>> On 6/15/2010 7:54 AM, Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote: > >>>> Well, C-f C-n is all you need.  I mean, keep C-f pressed until the > >>>> cursor reaches the column you want, you don't even need to count > >>>> 76.  And keep C-n pressed until the cursor reaches the line you want. > >>> Except that pressing control-key for that long with your pinky is a > >>> health risk! > >>> [...] > >> That's why remapping the [Caps Lock] to be a [Ctrl] is very useful. > > > swapping Caps Lock with Ctrl is not good. > > > ⢠Why You Should Not Swap Caps Lock With Control > >  http://xahlee.org/emacs/swap_CapsLock_Ctrl.html > > [...] > > Your opinion which neither I nor 100,000s of others share -- you stand alone. if we actually do a poll anywhere near scientific, i think majority will find my opinion the better on, as given in my essay. > A [Ctrl] to the left of [A] is natural and what I've been using since the > mid-1960s with absolutely NO problems or RSI whatsoever beginning with a > TTY ASR33 and continuing with a Datapoint 3300, DEC VT100, Datamedia DT80 > and others along the way to today. Right, another anecdote from a old man. The question is not whether you have RSI problem. As i detailed in my essay, you can be a programer for 40 years coding daily, and never had RSI problems, yet you can't even touch type. In fact, many programers can't touch type. Am curious what's a rough percentage. I think actually more than 50% of those who makes a living by coding cann't touch type. > Mapping and using the [Caps Lock] as a [Ctrl] to the immediate left of [A] > is no different than the ["] to the immediate right of [;] re: pinkies. The question is not whether it is that bad or not that bad. As i pointed out in my essay, the keyboard itself is badly designed, and much worse is its precursor the typewriter. Yet, people lived with typerwriter for generations. > The (dumb) PC standard of a [Ctrl] key at the lower-left of a keyboard is > ridiculous and WILL cause pinky problems if one uses Emacs as an editor and > bash as a shell. The question, is whether Swapping Ctrl and Caps Lock key is better with respect to ergonomics, on a average PC keyboard for the general public. I've given detailed reasons why i believe that it is worse, in my essay. To argue fruitfully, you might counter my points. from my years of experience on this and my observation from the arguments, i think that actually only a minority really propose that swapping Caps Lock and Control is a good thing, even that we hear them online often. It is this minority that keeps spreading baseless info. Also, i think this minority tends to be older people, say, had computing career at least as early as back in 1980s or early 1990s. i think mostly the reason these minority have such view is because in those days, it is not unusual to find keyboards with Control key on the Caps Lock position. These people âgrew upâ with that. The habit stuck. As i have said in my essay, there's a very simple test anyone can do to see which is better. Let me repeat here: Now, type the following, but on every 3rd letter hold down Caps Lock key as if it is Control. a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Do this 100 times or 20 minutes. Really. Do it. Now, take a break. When you are ready, do it again, but each 3rd letter press the Control key at the either corners of your keyboard, and follow my methods described in my esssay. You can easily determine, which is less tiring or faster. This simple test can be varied easily. For example, instead of typing the alphabets in order, you can just grab any sentence. Instead of holding the modifier every 3rd letter, you can easily create a test so that it's every nth letter with n being random from 3 to 5. To prepare the test, YoU caN cAp The letTER tHAt yOu neEd to pReSs thE ModiFier liKE In thIs senTenCe. -------------------------------------------------- aside from the ergonomic matter, i've noticed in my study of keyboarding, that the choices of many shortcuts in many apps are adopted to the many aspects of the keyboard hardware of the time in use by the community. For example, i am quite absolutely certain, that emacs's keybindings are not simply based on the first letter of commands, but the qwerty layout's key positions have significant influence on it. This also applies to the letter choice of unix's shell commands. Much of this influences of design are unconcious. i've studied keyboarding quite a lot. Wrote some 40 articles in the past 10 years from my 20 years of using keyboards, 10 or so keyboard macros softwares across linux mac classic, os x, Windows; (resedit keymap, QuicKey, QuickSilver, keybinding.dict, AutoHotKey, IntelliType, xmodmap, ...), studied key systems in oses (mac classic, x11, mac os x), mastered shortcuts in tens of apps across oses and their capabilities at user level settings, touch type at professional speed in qwerty and dvorak layouts, studied chinese input systems, studied shortcut notations and key notations and key macro language notations, studied keyboard soft layouts (qwerty, dvorak, and international ones), studied keyboard hardware key layouts,... you can see them here: ⢠All About Keyboards, Keyboard Layouts, Shortcuts, Macros http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/keyboarding.html if keyboard freaks of the world would gather, i think i'd be a high ranking officer. LOL Xah â http://xahlee.org/ â |