
Why Emacs keys are painful (2007) - deepaksurti
http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/emacs_kb_shortcuts_pain.html
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hprotagonist
The first thing i do on any new system is to rebind Caps_Lock to be a
duplicate L_Ctrl.

this solves 90% of my ergo issues/pinkie pain, and not just for emacs use.

~~~
hibbelig
After using a Mac for a while, I realize how easy the cmd key combinations are
to press. They are easier than the ctrl key combinations.

I think it would be useful for Emacs to swap cmd and ctrl.

~~~
robohoe
Cmd key combinations are one of the things that keep me coming back to macOS.
Far more ergonomic than ctrl and just requires you to move your thumb (which
typically would hover over cmd key anyway). It’s one of those things Apple did
right back in the day.

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yigitdemirag
If you love emacs's functionality and prefer vim's key bindings, you may find
[http://spacemacs.org/](http://spacemacs.org/) useful. Its org-mode support is
amazing.

~~~
atemerev
Performance issues of emacs (made much worse by many layers of plugins),
combined with vim’s counterintuitive bimodality, originally meant to
compensate for slow terminals? Thanks but no thanks; for me, Spacemacs took
the worst from two editors. I love the eye candy, though (when it works);
however, it’s not enough to compensate said curious choice.

~~~
arkano
I rarely see any performance issues, even when running spacemacs over ssh. The
only issue I have is start-up time and there are ways to speed that up.

~~~
OhSoHumble
I run it as a daemon that is managed by systemd. The startup time is the time
it takes for my window manager to create a new window.

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mhd
"Emacs actually comes with a builting Emacs Aptitude Test. Do you remap your
keyboard or the Emacs keybindings before the chords and sequences it comes
with by default have wreaked havoc with your hands? If you do not do anything
to make Emacs more convenient for yourself, you may not have the prerequisite
aptitude to use it productive."

Thus spoke Erik Naggum, who, IIRC, didn't always agree otherwise with Xah Lee
back in the glory days of comp.emacs.

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krylon
I used to think the term "emacs pinky" was a joke, until I had the opportunity
to use it full-time. Within a few weeks, my pinky started to hurt, and
pressing the Ctrl-key was especially painful. Not unbearable, but still,
pretty annoying.

Then I found out how to turn CAPS LOCK into an additional Ctrl, and ever since
it has been one of the first things I do on a new computer. I only ever used
CAPS LOCK by accident, anyway, so it's a double win.

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triska
In addition to the recommended CapsLock ⇒ LCtrl rebinding done on the OS
level, there are also several things you can do within Emacs to edit and
navigate comfortably.

For example, you can add this to your ~/.emacs:

    
    
        (global-set-key [f8] 'view-mode)
    

This lets you quickly enable and disable view-mode, using F8. In view-mode,
you can use SPACE and BACKSPACE for scrolling, which is useful for reading
longer documents and files.

With a Dvorak keyboard, navigation is also more convenient, since for example
C-n and C-p are at the respective locations of C-l and C-r on US keyboards, so
that both hands are regularly used and not used.

Other than that, I recommend to also use search for navigation, and to
occasionally read and re-read the first chapters of the Emacs manual: There
are many useful commands that can help a lot if you know them and their prefix
arguments.

~~~
thibran
Thanks for the suggestion to use view-mode. I bound a quick double-tap of vv.

    
    
        (use-package key-chord
          :init
          (key-chord-mode 1)
          ;; (key-chord-define-global "jj" #'avy-goto-word-or-subword-1)
          (key-chord-define-global "vv" #'view-mode)
          :custom (key-chord-one-key-delay 0.3))

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aasasd
The point about central Alt vs corner Ctrl is important, and it's unbelievable
how Windows and Linux have messed this up.

A primary modifier right beside the space bar is incredible because the thumb
is the strongest digit, whereas the pinky is the weakest (on the hands)―and
shares a tendon with the ring finger.

It's doubly great with a big bottom row like on MS Natural keyboards: you just
mash these big blobs which are right under your thumbs, instead of aiming for
minuscule keys in the corners with your most pathetic fingers.

Macs have Cmd as the primary modifier, located on both sides right beside the
space bar. Apps use Cmd for shortcuts―while Alt and Win keys aren't free to
remap for most programs. So Mac users had this experience for decades now, and
in the meantime afaik Windows and Linux haven't even attempted to correct the
mistake.

(A bit ironic how MS keyboards' layout works best on a Mac.)

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tom_
For Ctrl, I recommend pressing it with the knuckle of your little finger.
There's a photo of the technique here, about halfway down:
[http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/emacs_pinky.html](http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/emacs_pinky.html)

The main advantage of this over rebinding Caps Lock: it keeps the meta keys
symmetrical, so you don't have to faff about rebinding Enter, or wonder about
how you're going to solve the issue of hitting Ctrl with your right hand.

(Lee recommends not doing this, citing unspecified issues with the little
finger. For whatever it's worth, probably not much in the face of that kind of
argument, I've been doing this for about ten years now and haven't noticed any
problems. I'm afraid you're just going to have to make your own decision
here.)

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
On some desktop keyboards (like mine) it's also possible to press each control
key with the metacarpal phalangeal joint on the respective hand- that's the
bit of bone and sinew at the base of the pinky finger [1]. Or, you can always
move your palm to the side and hit CTRL with your thumb, but that means your
fingers must leavet he home row.

I often use my thumb to press Ctrl+E/D to scroll up/down in vim.

_____________

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metacarpal_bones#/media/File:M...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metacarpal_bones#/media/File:Metacarpus_\(left_hand\)_dorsal_view.png)

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mncharity
Has anyone seen any interesting keyboard-plus-multitouch hybridization? For
illustration, say left hand on kbd and right on a graphics tablet? Or laptop
touchpad thumb-based modifier keys? Or, less likely, interesting things to do
when keycaps are touchpads?

Last year I was working on optical finger tracking to get 3D positions and
entire keyboard as a multitouch surface. It's not clear I want to continue
banging on it this year. So I'm fishing for an "oh, _that 's_ a neat idea...
ok, yes, I _do_ want _that_ " motivating instance.

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stunt
I got two different issues with my hand (RSI and Wrist pain) after coding for
7 years and that was when I switched to VIM keybinding pretty much everywhere
even in my web browser (Vimium). I'm also using Kinesis keyboard with a lot of
mappings to have all modifier keys under my thumbs.

It is one of those things like smoking! You always hear it is bad for you and
you always think it only happens to others and never happens to you.

That is my advice to everyone now. Either don't do touch typing, or you should
use a better keyboard layout and VIM keybinding to avoid stretching too much.

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decasteve
Tagged as 2007 but the article date says “Last updated: 2018-12-18.”

