I am not a programmer and I also have a hard time explaining ideas. I am on a dell mini laptop. The mouse touchpad is in a spot where my thumbs rest.
My left touchpad button acts as a control key:
With the side of my thumb I press it and edit in emacs as usual.
I was going to map the right touchpad button to alt, but instead I have done the
following:
I press the button and the control key gets pressed (locked).
I press it again and controll gets released.
This not only made my pinky feel better it also made my editing twice as fast. (according
to my org-mode clocks)
It is hard to explain how nice it works.
In order to do this I used the following two aplications:
xbindkeys
xdotool
My xbindkeys config file:
###########################
# xbindkeys configuration #
###########################
# left mouse button ctrl key
"xdotool keydown ctrl"
b:1
"xdotool keyup ctrl"
control + b:1 + Release
# vi wanna be style editing
"xdotool keydown ctrl"
release+b:3
"xdotool keyup ctrl"
release+control+b:3
# -------------------------
Before experimenting with these ideas make sure to read the man pages.
Do not have anything important open. I had to kill my window manager a few times
before getting it correct.
notes:
I use xmodmap to do all the regular stuff i.e. caps ---> control (not a full solution), swapping alt and control. (on a laptop It is ok but my thumbs cramp up)
I use the window manager config file (stumpwm) to create bindings to load the proper key mapping
file. (depending on my mood for the day)
I am sure all this can be implemented in a different environment.
My pink pain is gone, my editing is faster.
