Open Letter

[kate_nepveu]

Dear manufacturers of keyboards,

It's called muscle memory. Don't screw with it.

In particular: Do not group function keys in non-standard sets; F3, F4, and F5 have very different effects. Especially do not mess with the placement of the Delete key.

Very truly yours,

P.S.: I admit, the slight curve is a surprisingly effect compromise between a flat keyboard and a split one. Not as good for my hands, but fits better on my lap.

Comments

[kate_nepveu]

(I've pried off the Delete key to save myself the aggravation. I only ever use Backspace anyway.)

[oyceter]

*snort*

I am slowly getting used to that weird new configuration, largely because the keyboard at work was like that long before I got my new keyboard here.

My keyboard makes me happy because it has a little indentation all around the caps lock so it's harder to accidentally press when I'm trying to type "a" instead!

[ckd]

I just remap capslock to control, because my muscle memory includes keyboards with control to the left of the A key.

[kate_nepveu]

I couldn't figure out how to remap keys quickly with this keyboard, hence the resort to brute force. =>

[ckd]

On current versions of Mac OS X, the Keyboard settings area in System Preferences has a button for changing the effects of the various modifier keys.

[kate_nepveu]

A quick google suggests that doing the same in Windows requires a utility or editing the registry; I think I'll stick with this--since they aren't set up in the same way anyway, the muscle memory isn't going to carry over perfectly no matter what remapping I do.

[kate_nepveu]

That's a good idea; I don't think any keyboard I've ever used has had that.

[oyceter]

Yeah, it is a very nice touch! I'm living with the giant Delete key, largely because it took Insert out, which I detest and never ever use.

Ahhhhh, keyboards. They make me so happy (or irate, depending).

[montoya.livejournal.com]

It's amazing how, in one sentence, a person whom one has thought of as basically normal can be revealed as a completely alien crazy person.

("I remapped the 'z' as CTRL, because I prefer British spellings.")

[kate_nepveu]

It turned out I was wrong, because I found myself reaching for Delete after I'd pried it off. But that inconvenience is far outweighed by the inconvenience of deleting things when I'd meant to go to the end of a line.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

I still sometimes have trouble remembering that the Caps Lock key doesn't work like the Shift Key on a typewriter. So, for example, if the Caps Lock key is on that doesn't mean hitting the 4 key will give me a dollar sign.

There used to be computer books which said that the Caps Lock key worked just the same as the typewriter Shift Key. That was an easy way to weed out books not to trust.

[kate_nepveu]

I learned to type on a typewriter, but I'd forgotten that would work.

(What I need to train myself to do, and what I wasn't adequately taught into typing school, is not to use the same hand for shift + key. Very bad for the wrist.)

[ckd]

I used to use a typewriter that had a Shift Lock, so I understand your difficulty.

[od-mind.livejournal.com]

My wife still gets irate over the time, a decade or more ago, that the new version of her word-processing software (WordPerfect?) arbitrarily swapped the functions invoked by two of the Fn keys from what they had been in the previous version.

Those functions were "save file" and "delete file".

(By the way: have you seen this one (http://www.safetype.com/how-it-works.htm)?

[kate_nepveu]

Heh. Opera remapped its keyboard shortcuts to make things easier for new users, but it lets me remap within the program, which I did immediately. (So does WordPerfect, at least now anyway.)

Yes, I've seen that and I like the idea, but what I really want is the one with each half on an individually-rotating rail system, so you can position your hands flat, sideways like the one above, or anywhere in-between you find comfortable. It was very expensive and I can't for the life of me remember the name, but boy did it look nice.

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, the 3x2 instead of the 2x3 placement of the insert-home-delete group. It made me want to throw things whenever I had to use one of those keyboards---I touch-type home, end, pg up and down, and I use delete almost as much as backspace.

[kate_nepveu]

It doesn't even have an Insert key, just an extra-long Delete (Home and End at the top, Page Up & Down to the right of the Delete).

I don't miss Insert at all, personally, as I block-cut things and type anew rather than typing over. But, argh.

[citizenpsmith.livejournal.com]

Those of us who use Ctrl-Ins and Shift-Ins for 'copy' and 'paste' would certainly miss it. CUA's been around since 1987, people; don't mess with it now.

[kate_nepveu]

Ah. If I'd once learned those I no longer remember it, but that is a good reason to keep Insert around, as often as it causes me problems.

[netdef.livejournal.com]

That's almost as bad as that Natural Keyboard "standard" (not the pro version, which I loved) they came out with several years ago. You remember, all the arrow keys were clustered in a different than standard pattern and the delete/home/end/PU/PD buttons were in a vertical alignment.

I hated that keyboard . . . using the term very generously.

[kate_nepveu]

Hmmm, I don't think I know that one. I used the older beige split, non-concave keyboard before I dumped water all over it by mistake and liked it fine. I still have one at home, but it's only PS/2 and my newish laptop doesn't have a port for it (a PS/2-to-USB connector doesn't work very well), hence the current purchase.

[corruptedjasper.livejournal.com]

Keyboard manufacturers who move the insert-pgdn block down a key and then use the space previously occupied by ins/home/pgup to place power/standby/sleep keys should be fucking SHOT. Putting those keys in the empty space between the arrows and the movement block, marginally better. Putting them nowhere at all, best.

[kate_nepveu]

Oh, that's a bad one indeed. I'm not convinced those belong on a keyboard anyway, at least not as standalone keys--in combination, maybe.

[corruptedjasper.livejournal.com]

Well, you know how many keyboards these days have special function keys above the regular keyboard, not key-sized, with functions like www, email, play/stop/pause, etc? *There*, they might be useful. Or at least one of them might be -- I'm not so sure many people would really need off, sleep, *and* standby all available instantaneously.