What is the best way to avoid getting “Emacs Pinky”? [closed]

Answer 1

I have always been curious about why such a large community of programmers, writers, geeks, etc. haven't yet found super simple and effective solution to this problem. Simply: 1) take a small piece of paper, make paper ball of it; 2) use scotch to stick it on to your left ctrl key (temporarily removing it from the place); 3) when writing, use side of your left palm to press that key - now this key is higher than others and you can do it easily. That way you don't need to buy uber ergo-keyboards, or remap ctrl key to capslock (which you eventually will push with your pinky anyway)...

So much discussions about such a small problem.

Answer 2

My advice would be to try using your thumbs to press modifier keys (control, alt) when they are within a reach. On keyboards which have shorter space-bar it is possible to press Alt (Meta) even without bending your thumb inwards. You can remap e.g. right Alt to Control and this way be able to conveniently access both Control and Alt. This is also possible on MS Natural Keyboards.

Answer 3

I totally agree with the remap caps-lock solution, that helps quite a bit. To go even further, I tried and liked the Ergoemacs keybindings. The project is being actively developed, and supported quite well. I personally don't use it because it's not integrated with Mac OS X (some EMACS Keys are integrated in Cocoa), though it seems someone has posted an inputrc file with Ergoemacs keybindings. Another trick I've been playing with is enabling StickyKeys. It's supported on many platforms and alleviates some of the problems specific to chording (as opposed to just overuse): it is apparently recommended on the emacswiki: http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/StickyModifiers

Answer 4

For the love of God - use another text editor! If it's something that requires a foot pedal to work with it normally, then... well... frankly, I'm speechless. There is a multitude of powerful contemporary text editors out there that don't require you to memorize volumes of arcane keystrokes or buy fancy hardware.

You know, I can understand and accept a lot of things, but a foot pedal for a simple text editor is really where I draw the line.

Answer 5

Remap Left-Ctrl and Caps-Lock so they are where they should be:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout] "Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,03,00,00,00,3a,00,1d,00,1d,00,3a,00,00,00,00,00

 

Answer 6

Configure so that the space bar works both as space and control; when the space is pressed alone, as a space, and pressed with others, as ctrl. So Space + x is treated as Ctrl + x.

You can do it with AutoHotKey in Windows, and with "at-home-modifier" in Xorg in Linux. (X, but Linux only.) You can use Karabiner (formaly known as keyremap4macbook) in Mac. (In fact, I am the author of at-home-modifier. =)

You can do more, if you have a keyboard with many keys around the space, like Japanese keyboards:Japanese keyboard http://www.owltech.co.jp/products/keyboard/KB86STD/KB86STD_B-320.jpg

My bottom row is basically EscBSSpaceEnterTab, but when used as modifiers, it's AltShiftCtrlShiftAlt. (For example, if you hold down Esc first and then Space, it's Alt+Space, but Space followed by Esc, it's Ctrl+Esc. If you press Space, Esc, and x, then it's ctrl + alt + x.) All can be pressed with the thumbs. You can order a Japanese keyboard from say amazon.com. You don't have to speak Japanese.

This is extremely handy. For firefox (sorry, not emacs) for example, focus a link, and press Ctrl + Enter; then it'll be opened in a new tab. (By also pressing Shift, it'll switch to the new tab, rather than staying on the current.)

(The above picture is the one the author of at-home-modifier uses. The maker doesn't sell this model any more, though.)