
Show HN: shortcutFoo is an effective way to learn shortcuts (Vim, TextMate, etc) - watterssn
https://www.shortcutfoo.com
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solutionyogi
Looks good.

For VIM, please show the shortcut in lower and upper case instead of showing
everything in uppercase and distinguishing actual upper case with a shift key.
It was very confusing.

Also, if my answer is wrong, pleas show me the 'incorrect' key I pressed along
with the right answer. I want to know whether I mistyped OR I got the shortcut
completely wrong.

~~~
watterssn
Thanks. A couple others mentioned this over olark. I'll definitely make a note
of this.

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vasco
Don't show us a register box, show us the product right away.

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watterssn
Thanks for the feedback. I agree a demo on the front page would be nicer. I'll
work on getting that done!

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mrgoldenbrown
Why does there need to be a sign in page at all? How does that benefit the
user? Shouldn't I be able to come to the page, choose a topic, and start
practicing? If I want to save progress, or customize something, then I might
want to create an account.

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pajju
The concept is really good! And lots of things can be explored from here.

1\. Bring all the cheat sheets, Best Practices and Gamify them.

2\. Bring Linux command line Drills, Best practices and Command line
shortcuts(I will pay $$ for this!)

3\. I miss typing tests and drills. Something better than typeracer
competitions?

4\. Show the product right away in your landing page, and not asking for
registrations.

5\. Finally build a platform and Crowdsourced community around. Let others
decide what Practice they want and also challenge others.

Thanks, I will be your customer and definitely pay for such a service!

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existentialmutt
I'm not too impressed by this product's teaching method.

I mentally store keyboard shortcuts as an association between key combinations
and behavior I see in my editor. The name for the behavior is secondary.

This product provides you with the name of a behavior and asks you to type the
keyboard shortcut that performs it. So it's building associations between keys
and names of behaviors, not the behaviors themselves. That's a big difference
for me.

I imagine this product's method could work for some learning styles. For me, I
prefer to practice and apply keyboard shortcuts in an environment where I can
see their results (like the actual editor!)

~~~
gms7777
I agree. Using this tool alone won't make you effective at using the
shortcuts.

I think it is a good first step though ,for people like me, who use VIM on a
regular basis with a fairly limited vocabulary of shortcuts. To actively learn
new shortcuts, I usually need to write them down somewhere next to the
computer and then keep referencing them (especially when they are ones I don't
use very often so they take a bit longer to memorize). Something like this is
great because it will at least drill the shortcut into my head, so that while
it won't become habitual to use it (and I'll need to make an effort to make it
so) at least I'll be able to mentally reference it when I need it without
having to look it up.

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sparknlaunch12
Interesting. Landing page looks clean and professional. However hesitant that
there is much of a market for this. Do people actually want to learn shortcuts
like this? Most learn directly in the application and/or refer to a cheat
sheet reference?

~~~
drsim
As a Visual Studio developer, what I'd really like is a plugin that can reveal
shortcuts as I use the app in a usual way. So pop up a message if it sees I've
done something through the menus: 'hey, you've just pasted in some text: use
CTRL+V'

~~~
Cilvic
We work on exactly that: <http://www.veodin.com/keyrocket> unfortunately
Visual Studio is not in yet, but Excel, Outlook, Word and PowerPoint are!

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toyg
Office is a good start, but to be really useful it needs to have more modes.
Maybe you should have a simple shortcut editor that anybody can use to produce
schemes which can then be uploaded to some common repository.

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zafriedman
Please keep doing this, and explore what else besides keyboard shortcuts can
be learned best with the "drill method". I plan on giving you real positive
feedback by voting with my dollar as soon as I get some work done today, but I
suspect that for some people (I am one of those people) that the "drill
method" is an excellent way to learn new things. I am a person who learns by
doing, and as such repetition is the key to me becoming an expert with a new
language, framework, IDE, etc. Talk about "making wealth" a la PG, this makes
a lot of wealth for me, and I suspect there are more like me.

~~~
watterssn
Thanks I appreciate it. Expanding to other areas is definitely on the agenda.
Hope you enjoy it!

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brsim
Using Chrome on the mac, the "New Project" shortcut open a private browsing
window. I believe the browser shortcut issues are being addressed already
though.

Overall I like the idea a lot, I've just began learning how to use VIM and
this app seems a nice way to learn, but as has already been mentioned it seems
more like a practise tool rather than actual teaching. The only way to learn
the answer is by getting it wrong the first time. I think there needs to be
more focus on the "shortcuts" tab, or at least integrate together with the
main app.

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yurifury
Learning shortcuts is very effective with Spaced Repetition Software like Anki
or Mnemosyne. I learnt many useful vim commands that are still burned into my
skull years later. For an example deck:
<https://github.com/amikula/vim_flashcards>

The UI here is responsive and bouncy, but splitting it into several decks
rather than spacing one deck is suboptimal.

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23david
Great idea. The platform is awesome. Great idea and amazing design/execution
so far.

I wasn't aware that I could create my own quizzes/training until I clicked on
the upgrade link... Perhaps you can make that more clear to your visitors.

I agree with the idea others have mentioned here that not requiring an
email/password initially would be a bit better, but it was so fast to get
started I didn't mind too much. Congrats.

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andr3w321
Tried it out for a bit. It's a little confusing and not a great way to learn
shortcuts IMO. The first time I tried it I had no idea what was going on and
got every one wrong despite knowing the shortcuts. These results were then
saved and I'm not sure how to delete them after I figured out how it worked.
Interface looks nice though and you obviously spent a lot of time on this.

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pwan
It would be better if maybe there was some ipsum lorem text that was updated
based on the key compos. the text was acting on. That way if you get a drill
item wrong, you get some more positive feedback wrt the key-combo, and if you
get it wrong, you get some additional feedback wrt what that wrong combo does.

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pjmo
I just used it a bit, and didn't really enjoy it too much. It's more of a way
to test whether or not you know them, rather than teach you the shortcuts. I'm
in the process of trying to learn more shortcuts, so I thought this would've
been helpful, but there's a lot more refinement needed.

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aptwebapps
Nice.

A nitpick: I had never used C-X U for undo in Emacs before. I use C-/ and when
I Googled it I found C-_. Not sure which one (if any) is canonical, but it'd
be great if it allowed all versions.

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rufugee
Doesn't work at all for me on Linux with Chrome. This is what happens when I
start a drill: <http://i.imgur.com/O5C9n.png>

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omgsean
A lot of the shortcuts are being processed by my system before they get passed
into your app (Chrome, OS X 10.7)

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toyg
Uh, no <title> tag in header?

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tylermenezes
Tiny bug - Command+Enter for Mac Sublime is always registering as incorrect.

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davidjhamp
like the idea but I was hoping to be able to use it for eclipse.

~~~
cstuder
You might try MouseFeed, it's a funny plugin which actually disables mouse
commands once you've learned the keyboard shortcut:
<http://www.mousefeed.com/>

(Horrible website though, and I haven't tried it with a current Eclipse
version.)

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rex64
using chrome, xcode New empty file shortcut opens a new windows

