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?
My keyboard has a column of configurable macro keys. My last one had two columns. I use them soooo much I have literally never bothered to figure out how to set them up on this one.
What keyboard is it? I’m curious.
Corsair
K60K95Edit: it is the K95 not the K60, the K60 does not have the macro keys.
That’s why I got a mouse with extra buttons on the side, so I can just copy and paste using my thumb.
Having keys to the left of ctrl is a fucking mess! Ine of my kids have a gaming keyboard with a extra column of keys there and it is a pain to use.
What should happen, is move capslock to the locks row on the tip right side. And give us a new meta key there instead! That would be a win-win
i rebind caps lock to control on all my machines.
it’s much easier to hit comfortably in that location making it a better meta key, usually stupidly big on most keyboards making it even better, and i literally never need caps lock, ever.
Yes same, been doing that for 2 decades. About time keybords learned that.
it’s where CTRL was originally!
https://deskthority.net/wiki/File:IBM_XT_top.JPG early IBM as an example
why they gave such valuable real estate to caps lock of all keys i will never understand
Meh, Ctrl+C Ctrl+V works well.
What I really would like is a Compose key.
The concept is brilliant, you use it with a special key combination to “draw” a special character or symbol.
If you wanted to type a copyright symbol you would hold the Compose key and press O and C in order, then release the compose key.
Here is a list of a few characters with their compose key combinations, every combo is pressed in order while holding the compose key.
To get the letter Ä use " and A
To get the letter Å use o and A
To get the letter Ö use " and O
To get the letter Æ use A and E
To get the symbol ¿ use ? and ?
To get the symbol ¡ use ! and !
To get the symbol ® use O and R
To get the symbol ™ use T and M
To get the symbol € use C and =
To get the symbol £ use L and -
There are plenty more combinations…
I have never used a computer with a compose key, but I love the concept of drawing other characters like this.
Other than already working like that for accents in spanish keyboards, what is with the euro combination??? C + =?? What kind of unhinged British person are you, not to think it would be like the pound, E + - ??
To be fair, you can use E= to get a euro symbol as well, I just found that C= demonstrated the whole drawing characters from other characters very well.
As for the L- for £ that came from a different page titled “Compose Key Sequences” at a personal website, but when I look at the main page of the site it seems like mostly refer to HTML, with little explanation.
The Swedish keyboard works the same as the Spannish kayboard with regards to accent modifiers.
Fun fact, at one of my earlier jobs we aquired several international offices and didn’t have any corporate laptops with a Spannish keyboard, so I was asked to modify a laptop and make a spannish keyboard using Dymotape.
It worked well enough, but we never ended up using the concept.
At the same job, I got to type on the following keyboard layouts:
Swedish/Finnish
Danish
Norwegian
UK
US
German
French
Turkish
Japanese
Dutch
Spannish
I am probably forgetting one, it was almost ten years ago…
On windows at least, that sort of already exists. You can hold down Alt and use 3 numpad numbers to “compose” any ASCII character you like. It’s fun!
I do know about that, but that is just picking a number from a list, the clever part of a compose key is that you can sort of figure it out on your own; if you are on a US keyboard and need to type the letter/word “Å” it makes sense to try with compose+Ao but when that didn’t work you tried compose+oA and got it.
No need to look it up in a big table.
Yes! 100% this. The closest thing I’ve seen is Quick Accent in Power Toys for Windows. But something like what you’ve described is what I’ve always wanted.
I also thought about mapping this to Auto Hotkey, but didn’t bother after finding Quick Accent.
Most linux distros allow you to set a compose key through a gui. For Windows there’s (or at least was) WinCompose. I know fuck all about MacOS, so I can’t help you there.
Yes, finally someone else who appretiates compose key!
I use Linux, so I remap it on every PC I use, when I have right context key, I remap that, otherwise I remap right Ctrl to compose.
It’s so good, specially for using US keymap to write in other european languages. At first it takes a bit, then it’s second nature.
Come to the vim side, we have
yfor copy (yank) andpfor paste. We even havedfor cutWtf is vim
Only the best bathroom cleaner ever made.
terminal text editor
mcedit over vi(m)
The best text editor in the world. With the best training manual.
https://vim-adventures.com/
Timmy, no
It’s v. But improved. Vim.
I’m laughing way too hard at this thank you
I have a mouse with programmable (ish) keys and I have some buttons assigned to copy paste. I like it.
I’ve seen a few that do that, actually. Like a media keyboard with buttons for music controls, there are some that have additional functions like copy, paste, cut, double space, double enter, etc.
I don’t know about that but I think we need two clipboards, standard. If we had the existing clipboard and a second with dedicated keys that would be very helpful.
Linux has sort of two clipboards. There’s the normal Ctrl-c/Ctrl-v one and also if you highlight a text you can paste that text using middle mouse button.
Yes! I use those all the time. It needs to be standard.
I recently switched to Linux and I miss Win+V a lot. I keep pressing it expecting something to happen out of habit
in a hyprland config i used to use win+v had a clipboard history thing pop up wherever your cursor was
I only have windows at work. What does this do is it like a clipboard manager?
Yes, if you enable clipboard you can access it with that shortcut
I can do it on KDE!
Did you install something else? I’m using mint and I installed a clipboard manager but I haven’t been able to bind it to win+v and also it doesn’t work as well as the windows implementation
I think it’s just a vanilla option, I have KDE on endeavorOS. It’s not quite as smooth as the windows implementation but it’s really nice to have
I love how the clipboard works on Android. It has a whole history you can copy a bunch of things and then select which instance you want to paste. I want that in Windows.
That’s been implemented many times on the Mac and Windows and Linux. It’s generally referred to as a “clipboard manager”, if you want a search term.
I’d also add that emacs has its own (more sophisticated) system, the “kill ring”, and I’m sure that vi has an analog of some sort.
You can do that in Windows and on some Linux distro, at least on KDE. It might be a setting you have to turn on. Hit windows key + v to choose what to paste
I disagree. [Modifier] + C & [mod] + V works just as good as a dedicated button and you are using the space more efficiently by having multiple uses for one key.
Keyboard already has a lot of buttons. We should be considering which to remove, not any additions
I don’t think we need to remove anything. I mean if you really want a smaller keyboard that badly you could get one of the ones that removes the number pad.
But as someone who was a cashier long ago before GS1 codes on produce, we got fast at 10-key typing by touch. The thought of doing a spreadsheet or extended number-work without the number pad is unthinkable to me…
I support the number pad as well. I type in numbers into spreadsheets often enough that it’s useful for me.
If we were to delete, I’d say get rid of the F1 keys, get rid of Home / End, get rid of Num lock, etc.
Logitech G910 has a bunch of extra keys that you can create macros for and on mine I’ve got three of them set just for that
I do.
I generally think that chording is superior to single button presses, which is what is normally done, but if you want a single button, you can either set up some existing button on your keyboard that you don’t use to do that or, if you want to keep those, you can get a macro pad, and set one of its buttons up for that.
https://www.amazon.com/macro-pad/s?k=macro+pad
EDIT: Apparently there are some macro pad manufacturers that cater to specifically your ask. Examples:
https://www.amazon.com/BTXETUEL-Select-All-Shortcut-Mechanical-Programmable/dp/B0BW135TW5
Well I’ve found Mac key commands a lot more ergonomic since I can use thumb and index finger instead of pinky. I still end up mashing control c all the time in my terminal, but anything centered around the command key is way nicer. That said, inside classic editors like vi/vim and emacs, there are completely different copy paste commands that don’t use modifiers.
I copy paste a lot, but it feels natural- I also have to paste with modifiers a lot for things like “paste and match style”, paste as quotation, etc… a dedicated button would probably complicate that. Final thought- unless you move an existing button out of the way, a dedicated button would be hard to reach, where as command/control c/v are directly under fingers already.
I have a mouse that happens to have two extra buttons off to the side and mapping those to ‘copy’ and ‘paste’ has been the best thing i’ve ever done for my productivity. Also mapping middle mouse button to ‘screenshot to clipboard’ but that’s just a personal thing i happen to do a lot
Forward and Back is also nice to map on those buttons if you do a lot of web browsing or navigating through folders.
I use “forward” in my web browser about once a year
by default my computer interprets them as forward and back but i’ve got to be honest, it doesn’t do it for me 😂
I have also been using wgestures which let me have gesture movements with mouse that serve “copy”/“paste” functions. Can’t work without it
oh that’s awesome!
We do. ctrl+c / ctrl+v
Most people would use dedicated single copy/paste buttons more than page-up/down or home/end.
I 100% agree with what you are saying. Not to be contrary, but just because it amuses me, I use page up/down and home/end all the time. You’re still right.
No and yes. If the copy and paste buttons would be at the position of page-up/down, I think many people would still use Ctrl+C because it is quickerto reach.
If the keys would be at easily reachable positions, then sure.
But… That’s on the right side of the keyboard. I guarantee it’s faster to press Ctrl-C/V since my left hand is already there than it would be to move it or my mouse hand to Home/End.
But I realize there are left-handed people and other use-cases…
Home and End are useful and I can still see a use case for PageUp/PageDown. But I’m pretty sure I’ve never pressed the Scroll Lock or Pause/Break button even once. I don’t think Pause/Break actually does anything anymore and I don’t know what scroll lock does but I’ve never needed it.
Personally I prefer chording with the arrow keys for home/end pageup/down. One of the actually useful things about condensed laptop keyboards with the Fn key. Fn+Arrow.
It disables scrolling. I’m sure there’s a use case but mostly it’s annoying. I don’t think every program/OS respects it anymore either.
Win+Pause/Break opens properties of your PC (on Windows obviously).
page-up/down or home/end.
I don’t even think about those keys
Well, they don’t think about you either.
When you want to select a section in a long document or webpage without dragging the mouse and waiting for animations you hold click from where you want the start point to be and page up/down.
When you are trying to select multiple icons from a file browser using your keyboard, shift + arrows gives you item by item, shift + page up/down gives you pages of them.
When you are in a long document or webpage and are trying to scan the text for something and use your mouse to do something on the page, page up/down is often faster than the scroll bar and your mouse if free for pointing and selecting.
Page up/down works as previous/next in many media applications.
When you write text, see that you made a mistake in the middle of the sentence, correct it and then hit home or end to jump to the beginning/end of the sentence in one action.
When you want to select text pressing shift + left/right selects letter by letter, shift + ctrl + left/right selects a word, then shift + home/end selects the line.
In a browser home/end will bring you to the beginning/end of a page. Especially useful for long pages. In a text editor it does the same by adding ctrl to the mix.
Games and specialized software like 3d and cad use these keys all the time for all kinds of functionality.
They may not be the most glamorous keys, but they are very useful in many situations.
