
Using a Custom Keyboard for CSS - err4nt
http://codepen.io/tomhodgins/post/doing-the-68-key-shuffle
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melling
It would be great if some of the repetitive tasks didn't even require a
keyboard but rather use subtle gestures, eye tracking, and voice commands.
Leap Motion, for example, never panned out but Google's Soli project might get
us there:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QNiZfSsPc0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QNiZfSsPc0)

Throw in better autocompletion
([http://www.benkuhn.net/autocomplete](http://www.benkuhn.net/autocomplete))
and software development becomes more precise and less repetitive.

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smt88
I find autocompletion in JetBrains and Visual Studio (disclaimer: haven't
tried many others) to be outrageously good. Sometimes, in a dynamic/weak
language, I wonder how the hell it can know what to suggest.

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PopeOfNope
Good, but slow. Even most of the autocomplete solutions I've used in VIM fall
in that category. The only one that doesn't is exuberant ctags and that's
because it's not intelligent; it does tag lookups and nothing more. If you
have two classes with the same function name, it can't tell which one you
want. Which is too bad. It doesn't seem like asking for fast autocomplete is
unreasonable for 2015. Then again, between PHP, html, css and JS, Zeal takes
up many gigabytes of my hard drive. The wordpress docs are even bigger. Maybe
it's not that autocomplete is slow, it's that the data set it has to operate
on is increasing at an alarming rate.

Slightly OT food for thought.

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spdionis
How is JetBrains autocomplete slow? It's 90% of the time instant for me. The
10% of the times always happen in the same patterns and I already expect it to
not work immediately. In the other 90% i just always expect the autocomplete
to be there and keep typing without thinking about it.

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PopeOfNope
what type of development do you do with it? Like I mentioned, I use it for
wordpress development. That means on any given keystroke, IntelliJ has to find
the right symbol buried in gigabytes of data, since any given php file can
have html, css, js, php and/or wordpress. Not to mention the wordpress plugins
I'm developing are (imho) unnecessarily large. Half a second to several
seconds is the typical autocomplete time for me, with the time increasing the
longer it's open.

Just writing this makes me long for the good old days of html 4, css 2 and JS
only being used to animate mouse trails.

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spdionis
I use PhpStorm and write in symfony. All framework related plugins are enabled
and even those work instantly. And I have just an average laptop.

Maybe your problem is lack of ram. Jetbrains IDEs need enough ram to work
properly, otherwise they do get slow.

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smt88
Slow storage (HDD instead of SSD) would also make a huge difference.

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spdionis
I have an HDD

------
equil
It's always great to see people improve their workflows in creative ways. At
the same time, I find it strange how insensible browser defaults are for
productivity (why do ctrl+F & ctrl+G do the same thing?). Developers tend to
zoom around in their text editor at breakneck speeds, but slow to a
comparative crawl in the browsers themselves. If I press F12 in Chrome or
Firefox, I have no idea where focus even goes.

My primary annoyance is how ctrl+L (and alt+D) is the standard "focus urlbar"
keyboard shortcut. It's definitely one of the most useful actions, but the
shortcut requires a large motion or two hands. I rebound it to ctrl+Q for a
while, but reverted as I just kept closing browser windows on other people's
computers.

Ultimately, I recommend any person who uses a program often to explore ways of
using it more effectively, not just for speed, but also to prevent RSI.

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wodenokoto
> why do ctrl+F & ctrl+G do the same thing?

They don't. One opens the search dialog and the other finds the next instance
of the search term.

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0942v8653
I find that even moving to the F1-F12 row is sometimes slower than hitting a
key combination (whether with a prefix key or a modifier) somewhere closer.
Back when I used Caps Lock as both Escape (am vim user) and my i3 modifier I
could keep my hands on the home row when switching windows. (I'm on oS X
now...)

The layout posted would be useful for launching apps and resizing windows but
I can't imagine using it for copy and paste or typing things like "px".

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err4nt
I test in Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, so I'm constantly doing this set of
actions:

\- Focus address bar

\- Copy URL

\- Launch Firefox

\- Focus address bar

\- Paste URL

\- Press Enter

\- Launch Safari

\- Focus address bar

\- Paste URL

\- Press Enter

So to be able to make that a sequence of 10 button taps I can do in rapid
succession without even looking at the screen or touching the mouse does save
a bit of time. It's primarily for web testing, more than text editing.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
With Pentadactyl (vim-like plugin) for Firefox, copying a URL is simply
pressing the "y" key, and paste+goto URL is "p". I believe Chrome has similar
plugins, dunno about Safari.

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hackuser
How about a simple modal switch, maybe even a foot pedal, changing your
keyboard into ~105 single-button commands, similar to what Vim does in normal
mode?

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err4nt
The keyboard has 3 backlight options: unlit, blue, and red. I have several
'shift' keys which toggle the action (and backlight) of other keys, but having
one keyboard two-layers deep isn't as powerful as the combinations you can
build with multiple shift modes.

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SeeThruHead
I love custom keyboard. Very cool. But looking at the stuff he's using the
keyboard for it seems to me like he might be better off with a programmable
60% kb and a trackball.

copy, paste, enter, refresh, scroll down and save are then self explanatory.

adress bar is cmd + l

switching between firefox, chrome, safari and a text editor could be function
+ q,w,e,r. Resizing the browser window can be done with any window management
software on function + asdf.

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charlieegan3
[https://shortcatapp.com](https://shortcatapp.com) seems relevant to the
discussion. I've been using that recently where I can. It unfortunatly only
works in apps that have accessibility implemented.

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err4nt
Wow thanks for the link, I didn't know about ShortCat until right now.

Sometimes the smallest little utilities can totally change the way you use a
machine, like Quicksilver the application launcher. Can't imagine life without
Quicksilver (or Gnome Do on Linux)

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zeckalpha
What is the anime GIF from?

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ljk
From "Ghost in the Shell" \-
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_6hxB1OK00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_6hxB1OK00)

