I was just reading this thread… https://sh.itjust.works/post/23476261
…and it got me thinking about something that I’ve wanted for a long time. Why is it that keyboards have not evolved to have dedicated copy/paste keys left of the main board? I’d love to see an additional column of keys left of Esc->Ctrl configurable as macros at least. I do a lot of copy/paste for work. The current shortcuts arent terrible or anything but they’re not exactly comfortable. I’d rather move my whole hand to the left for a macro key than contort to hit the current shortcut.
What do you think?
I guarantee I can hit ctrl-c faster than I can move my hand to a different part of the keyboard.
Mm, I wouldn’t hate it. It could take the place of the scroll lock and pause break buttons on my keyboard, two keys i’ve literally never used.
If you’re using Linux, you can do this easily with custom key bindings.
On linux middle mouse is traditionally paste, with just selecting text being copy.
This is one of the greatest features ever. I constantly use it. I always get screwed up if I end up on a windows system and select text and wonder why I can’t paste it with a click.
is Ctrl c and Ctrl v too hard for OP? it’s damn near universal with no extra effort to setup…
Doesn’t work in Linux consoles.
nearly every console requires including SHIFT if it doesn’t work like normal, even truenas shell. add that to your toolkit, will be good.
CTRL + SHIFT + V also gives you paste options and paste without formatting, so it’s already superior.
There are some work that requires me to copy and paste a lot of times, after a while, it kind of strains the fingers a bit.
point is, this already exists, no reason to add special keys when there are already work arounds for people that want it different.
Yes, it’s weird, but maybe he does a lot. For example, I use the superkey+space to change the keyboard layout about five times per minute, but I changed it to use the Caps Lock key to change the keyboard layout instead.
AutoHotKey on Windows is very good also.
No, because ctrl is so close to c and v
no, never. 34 keys is all you ever need
Could you screenshot this again but showing what each key maps too?
Christian Seleg (not sure if spelt correctly, but the Apollo for Reddit dev) has a recent video on his channel about making a keyboard very similar to this shape and it looked really cool but again couldn’t quite understand what key each is.
You can make them what you want. Also with layers , much like the shift layer, but now you can have 4 shift layers if you want.
Thanks. I guess there is an optimal setting for A-Z is why I was asking for OPs setup.
Not sure why I took a downvote tbh for asking a question.
Mechanical keyboards like this are often fully programmable. I have a ZSA Moonlander and routinely modify the function of each and every key. Everyone’s workflow is a little different, for example I have a
Del Wordkey which deletes entire words, but is really a macro of the OS key + Backspace.Thanks.
Surely you don’t change A-Z though? That seems like it would be unworkable.
Also, never knew OS Key + Backspace would delete a word. Thanks for sharing.
It’s totally workable, there’s significant movements to get away from the QWERTY layout and at least several alternative keyboard layouts. Personally I got on board with Colemak-DH; there’s also Dvorak, AZERTY, Workman, and so on.
Learning a new layout comes at a short term price if all you’ve ever used is QWERTY, but there are long-term gains to reductions of RSI, and typing comfort.
The OS key differs between OSs. Macs are Command+Backspace and I believe windows is Ctrl+Backspace.
Very hard to imagine after 30 years of qwerty muscle memory. Not sure I could change even if I tried.
It’s definitely a challenge. Colemak has a progression called Tarmak which transitions you to Colemak by changing only a few letters at a time. I did it over the course of about a month.
I configured it using ZMK, it’s a firmware for wireless keyboards. The keyboard is “wireless”, I’m just using USB cables for power while I’m waiting for the batteries to arrive. The keyboard you saw might be the Ferris Sweep, which mine is based on. Well, based on is probably the wrong word, I copied the layout, rotated the pinkies a bit and did the PCB myself using Ergogen and Kicad.
This is my default layer:
I use the Colemak mod DH matrix layout. Colemak is a common alternative key layout, mod DH is a certain modified version of it, and matrix means that the keys aren’t row staggered. You can also see that some keys have some more stuff on them, those are homerow mods (red) and dual function layer keys (blue). Homerow mods is the name for a common practice on small keyboards where you place modifier keys in the homerow along with the normal keys. Holding them turns them into the modifier and pressing them is just the normal key.
Holding A or O is like holding CTRL R or I is ALT S or E is Shift T or N is the Windows key The keyboard is split so they’re mirrored on the two sides (also useful for when you want to do CTRL+A for example)
The layer shifts function similarly, pressing them results in the normal key (tab, space, enter) and holding them shifts me to a different layer (layer 7, layer 1 (its 0 indexed), and layer 2). Layer 7 has function keys, layer 1 is for navigation and layer 2 has my symbols.
layer 1:
(here you can see that I technically have a “numpad”, just that it’s always directly under my hand instead of off to the sidelayer 2:
layer 7:
I have 11 layers in total, but the other 7 are just special layers for games. I use this keyboard for everything, including programming and gaming without any issues.
edit: not sure why people downvoted you, it’s an awesome question and I’m glad you gave me an excuse to spam you all with info about my keyboard. Also, Ben Vallack got me into all of this, he kinda inspired this layout. He has some AWESOME videos about keyboards like this, look him up if you’re interested! You don’t have to go as far as I did.
It’s true they would probably be more useful to the average keyboard user than say the scroll lock key, or the fucking copilot key. But to be really useful, they would have to be easily accessible without moving you bands, or else it’d just be faster to use a shortcut. Keyboards with macro keys do exist so maybe get one and map them to CTRL+C/V
I have a mouse with programmable (ish) keys and I have some buttons assigned to copy paste. I like it.
I wish there was a dedicated hotkey combo that worked across all applications for paste plain text
Powertoys has a “paste as plain text” module that will allow the same keyboard shortcut across all of Windows
on linux debian, it’s ctrl+shift+v
On mac it’s cmd-shift-v
Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + V is pretty much the norm. It works in everything I’ve used it in.
Thanks, it seems the support for it has improved since I previously gave up on it.
Same on windows. Works in most applications except some Microsoft Office apps (like Excel and Word) that have a separate “past as text” option.
Just buy this
Not so subtle dig, but I’ll allow it. 😉
That button’s name… Middle Mouse.
Middle mouse click is so much more useful as the navigation tool that it is. Using it for something completely unrelated like pasting is degeneracy.
Actually, any text manipulation assigned to the mouse is completely ignoring the functionality of the 2 normal input devices on a normal computer.
You’re missing the point, in Linux middle mouse button works for the navigation that you’re mentioning, and additionally it pastes the text you have selected (not the one you have copied, so realistically you can “copy/paste” two things at once). So you don’t lose anything, you just gain functionality.
You lose the auto-scroll button, which I use all the time and it only makes sense to be on the scroll wheel. I dispise what Linux does to this button. 🤷
What are you talking about? auto-scroll works the exact same way
You middle click in a web page and it gives you the scroll orb instead of pasting text in the selected text box? Last time I checked that was not default behaviour, but possible with configuration.
Yes, all you have to do is not click on a text input area. It’s not the default behavior anywhere because the feature is disabled by default on most browsers (even on Windows) but enabling the auto-scroll feature on the browser makes it work exactly as you would expect, i.e. middle-click on a text area inputs the text, and on the majority of the page it gives you the scroll orb.
Auto-scroll by middle click is not disabled by default in windows and never was. Not in browsers, not I’m PDF apps, not in file explorers, not in word processors. If this were a disabled by default feature no one would use it. It’s in linux that you have to muck about with configuration to get it back to normal, which is using a navigation button on your pointing device to work for navigation instead of text manipulation. You shouldn’t have to configure something to make it make sense.
Highlight text to auto-copy, middle-mouse to paste.
Smooth, fast and always accessible.
I’m sure there are newer ways to configure the mouse too.
Auto copy is a privacy concern and paste can be anything else but the middle mouse button, because it takes away the auto-scroll functionality which only makes sense to be on the wheel that deals with scrolling.
Nah, my keyboard has too many buttons as is
CTRL-C / CTRL-V too much? ;)
Not exactly. Its just awkward for a bunch of repetitions, especially on MacOS keyboards. CMD+C/V is even worse on those.
Your first mistake is using apple products
Can’t help it when your job supplies it to you.
I’ve got Graphene on my phone and Fedora on my desktop.
You can just move the modifier keys around. I have Caps Lock as Ctrl and Ctrl as CMD.
I also have Caps Lock als Ctrl, but I leave Cmd where it is by default, and I just disable the Ctrl key.
I use caps lock a lot for stuff, so that probably wouldn’t work well for me, but I’m glad you found a solution that works for you
Having grown up on chiclet Mac keyboards, you should try a mechanical keyboard. It’s such a much better experience
Honestly I LOVE being able to have Ctrl and Cmd be different modifiers.
Ctrl-C is break, Cmd-C is copy. And so on. All the Unixy stuff respects Ctrl and ignores Cmd and vice versa for the Mac stuff. Honestly it’s the best keyboard setup I have experienced and the only one which never manages to irritate me.
(Personally I am fine without a dedicated copy/paste key; the only ones I like having dedicated keys for are things like volume up/down for which I’m not aware of a universally understood key combination for)
Here here. Whenever I work on a Linux machine, I really miss having a separate command button for all of the commandline stuff. I keep missing it and have ti remember to hit Ctrl instead.
MY PEOPLE! I’m so used to the CMD key that I made this shitty AutoHotkey script that makes things mostly work the same in Windows. It’s glitchy and imperfect, but it’s better than changing my muscle memory.
If anyone has any recommendations to improve the situation (besides recommending that I switch OSes), then I’m all ears.
I kind of agree with all this, except I find it super annoying switching between OSes and always having to recalibrate to command/control being the standard modifier.
The Control key is just badly placed on present-day PC keyboards. I swap Caps Lock and Control.
On Windows, it was always farthest left button + C.
Mac, it’s the Apple button + C.
Ive changed that because I hate it. You can change your hotkeys to fit your needs, as well as create macros that trigger events.
I find cmd c so much easier that ctrl c. I can hit it with just my thumb. cmd V is basically the same as ctrl C/V
Personally since I use touch typing being able to hit ctrl-c,v without looking works best for me. Anything else would require me to shift my hands too far away from the “home row” and slow me down.
I use touch typing
As opposed to taste typing??
Some people never learned touch typing.
Never heard it called touch typing before… Always just “typing”
Before millennials, touch typing was a specialized skill on your resume, since “typing” would include hunt and peck, which itself is still fairly common among earlier generations.
I’m a millennial and I learned touch typing on a typewriter in school, specifically for my resume.
Wow, that did not feel great to say.
With 35 years of computer experience I can say that anything except Ctrl+Insert/Shift+Insert is worse.
By that I mean, we all need to adjust our brain to be fluent on which ever ecosystem we are currently logged on to, and become native users of key combos on all we use. I have used MacOS daily since 2004, and linux, Windows and DOS all longer than that. It takes practice, a lot of practice, but in the end I don’t even realize I sometimes use Ctrl+c, other times Cmd+c, and yet again Ctrl+Shift+c. It all comes naturally, by some miracle my brain knows which one to use. Granted, the DOS one I use so rarely these days I need a double take on the Ctrl+Insert. Last time was still around 6 hours ago today.
I guess what I’m saying is keep doing it, you’ll get there.
To paste in Linux:
Ctrl + shift + vin terminal.Ctrl + uin nano but nano doesn’t use the same copy buffer but you can also useCtrl + shift + vbut only to paste something copied from outside nano.To paste in vi(m)
:?!&///<¥₱!Pretty much everywhere else, eg file manager, any GUI, browsers, etc. is
Ctrl +vI also just love that it is beyond simple to create any key combo shortcut for absolutely anything on Linux.
Make that menu key work for the real estate it occupies.
To paste in vi(m)
:?!&///<¥₱!Wut? Is this a joke that it’s difficult to paste in Vim? Because it’s literally just
p.You do need to be in command mode, so alright, there is some complexity there, but you won’t get much closer to just a single key, as OP wants.
Ctrl + shift + vin terminal.In some terminals. urxvt for example just uses the selection buffer. And either is reasonable, because
Ctrl + Cto send sigterm predatesCtrl + Cto copy.Some terminals use weird combinations like Shift + Insert, which is ridiculous, because it requires me to take my right hand off the mouse to hit the insert key
MacOS keyboards
Right???
It’s a bit awkward to do a basic action
Is this a joke? It’s so easy. What would be better?
Not everyone has the same hands.
Well sure, some people have no hands and need a completely different way to input keys. But I figure we weren’t talking about the exception, and you didn’t actually answer the follow-up question.
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You really brought a lot to the conversation
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Seems like it would be more useful macro’d to extra mouse buttons.
Keyboard only people are plenty comfortable with frequent shortcuts.
I think we should have MORE combination buttons! Typing should be like playing the piano imo
Even if we just had one more, it’d open up a huge new range of possibilities. Ctrl, Shift, Alt and now Var (or whatever)
As well as the 26 new Var + _ combinations you’d be able to have:
- Shift + Var + _
- Ctrl + Var + _
- Alt + Var + _
- Shift + Ctrl + Var + _
- Shift + Alt + Var + _
- Alt + Ctrl + Var + _
- Shift + Ctrl + Alt + Var + _
Hundreds of new shortcuts! As long as you could remember them of course :-)
