Re: org-meta-return

[Nick Dokos <nicholas.dokos@hp.com>]

[Warning: off-topic]

42 147 <aeuster@gmail.com> wrote:

> My hands might be smaller than average, or, at least, smaller than yours.
> To reach <right> I must shift my entire arm to the right and
> downward. To reach <RET> no such movement is necessary. Maybe a slight
> turn of the wrist to the right.
> 

I doubt my hands are bigger than yours: I have to do exactly what you
describe (at least on the bigger keyboards). It's just not as big a deal
for me as it is for you.

> > Of course, these things are *highly* personal preferences, and you might
> > have a lower tolerance for pain than I have, but I have to ask: where
> > exactly is your <right> key relative to <RET>?
> 
> Warning, digression:
> 
> I'm ultra cautious about finger / wrist strain. Even if I feel slight
> discomfort from a keybinding, I will change it to be more ergonomic and
> strain-free. Practically every basic Emacs movement command has been
> rebound for optimum comfort as a QWERTY typist.
> 
> Many of the default Emacs keybindings are notational, not positional. For
> example, C-p and C-n. I've made them all positional. C-p / C-] are now
> paired together for previous-line / next-line. C-q / C-e for
> beginning-of-line / end-of-line. From a positional standpoint, C-p / C-n
> makes absolutely no sense.
> 

Agreed - they are only mnemonically significant. And I think you are
right in taking precautions. As I said, I'm a sufficiently bad typist
so that all these sins have not bitten me (at least not yet - and they
are rapidly running out of time).

Have you tried a Dvorak keyboard? My son uses a QWERTY keyboard, mapped
in software to Dvorak - he learnt to touch type on one by switching
all the keycaps, although he didn't need the crutch
after a while, so his second keyboard has all the keycaps in the
standard places - they just produce different characters than what the
keycaps say. This had two advantages for him: the Dvorak placement
which reduces strain (supposedly at least), and the fact that I
couldn't say to him "Move over and let me drive for a while". I tried
a couple of times and I can still hear his laughter... I suspect
that unless one is an experienced Dvorak typist, it is a better security
device than many passwords :-)

I'm not sure a Dvorak keyboard would help with emacs chords though.
Another possibility is one of the funky Kinesis keyboards: a colleague
would wax ecstatic about his, but he was not an emacs user. And they
are too expensive to buy one just to try it out.

I'd be interested if somebody has tried either a Dvorak keyboard or
a Kinesis one with emacs - but this is way off-topic by now, so maybe
not.

Nick