From: Nicholas Van Weerdenburg <vanweerd@...>
Date: 2004-12-25T12:42:20+09:00
Subject: Re: OT: Alternate Keyboards (was vi useability question)

On Sat, 25 Dec 2004 04:16:44 +0900, trans.  (T. Onoma)
<transami@runbox.com> wrote:
> On Friday 24 December 2004 11:45 am, Michael W Thelen wrote:
> 
> | I feel like making some reference to Ruby to stay on-topic, but I can't
> | think of anything to say.  (Ruby rules.)
> 
> How bout writting a Dvorak typing tutorial in Ruby? Then maybe I'd give it a
> go.
> 
> Speaking of which (and sorry I haven't followed this thread more) there are a
> number of things I think keyboard could use to "modernize". Some that I've
> thought of:
> 
>   * A distinction between hyphen and minus.
>   * Infinity symbol
What are the use cases for these two points?

>   * Keys for Bold/Strong, Italic/Emphasis and Underline.
Most editing now is style based, so I'm not sure if this would offer
much benefit. How about a style key :)? Style-B, Style-I, etc.

>   * A Page key instead of pgdn and pgup so combos work:
>       Pg+Up (page up)
>       Pg+Dn (page down)
>       Pg+Home (top of page)
>       Pg+x (close tab or window)
>       etc.
Ctrl seems to be mapped to do a lot of that already. The arrow keys
aren't that overloaded since they are off the main keyboard.

>   * Change the Alt key's name to Menu.
Sticky tape!

>   * A real Alt key, allows a key to have a variat symbol
>     and antoehr Shift+Alt symbol. Think C64! Plus it could be
>     used to provide literal representations of certain codes
>     like ESC and SPACE.
> 
Why is it more "real" then the current alt key?

> Anyone have other ideas?
> 
A lot of people it seems remap their keys. Combined with many programs
allowing key mapping, you can probably reconfigure for what you've
described. Have you done any of the above?

How about a doc key? Hit Doc-<key> and it shows all the associated
mappings and possibilities with a key.

> T.
> 
> 

Nick
-- 
Nicholas Van Weerdenburg