From: Dick Davies Date: 2004-12-23T00:58:03+09:00 Subject: Re: OT: vi useability question * Nicholas Van Weerdenburg [1242 14:42]: > > > > Do you use the touchstream gestures? How do like the keyboard for > reasons other then RSI? It's the best hardware ever. I can't believe anyone still uses those things with the keys the size of sugarcubes. It presents to the OS as a usb hub with keyboard and mouse attached, and the firmware keeps all it's settings - for instance, the machine I'm typing on now thinks this is a standard us keyboard, but it's a us dvorak layout. No need to configure the OS at all. The keyboard handles the character conversion transparently, so I can plug it into anything from a mac to a solaris box and don't need to dick about with X settings (or xps stupid habit of installing a keyboard driver per window if you have multiple keymaps installed). It has a java gui configurator (I was really surprised I didn't have to use a winders box to set it up), and if that's too heavyweight - personally I cant' abide jvms - you just click in a textfield (or a command line, or a mail composition window like this one) and press all 4 corners, like this: ## Choose Mode: 1=Mac 2=Win 3=3rdButton 4=Linux 7=Emacs ... ENABLING: Thumb+Index+Middle for Middle Button, Thumb+Ring+Pinky for Right Button ##3 and configure it that way :) I make an effort to learn a couple of gestures a month, usually when something hurts (for example I was getting twitches from reaching down for shift/ctrl/alt, turns out you can enable: all 4 fingers on one sides home row => shift all 4 fingers on one sides top row => ctrl all 4 fingers on one sides bottom row => alt which sounds a bit 'leet', but it saves me literally wincing with pain, so I love it.) Next thing to get into the habit of is all 8 fingers on tops row => toggle caps and (can't remember) => enter I don't bother with the app specific stuff, it makes more sense to just learn the presses imo. True, it's not the cheapest board in the world, but it keeps a roof over my familys head (I was contracting when I got RSI, so I would have been jobless if I hadn't fixed it myself). I spend all day with this thing, so what's a couple of hundred bucks? > The gestures look pretty cool. I'm now disappointed all keyboards > don't support that- it's a interface possibility of a keyboard that is > orthogonal to typing, and thus non-intrusively overlayed. I know, it even has quake (or emacs) mode :) > ....., OT is usually pretty cool. Maybe > there should have a ruby-ot mailing list to enable the ruby community > to collaborate in orthogonal directions without annoying the core > mailing list. But annoying the core list is basically all I do.... :) -- 'Everybody's a jerk. You, me, this jerk.' -- Bender Rasputin :: Jack of All Trades - Master of Nuns