Re:Moving the Ctrl Key
by throwaway0x7E6 on Sunday December 25, 2022 @05:47PM
(#34132307)
just type with your index fingers
everything else is a meme
I have had this idea as well but for me there is too much space wasted by the space bar. I feel I have to get the thumb to far in under my hand for that setup to be comfortable. I would like a 3-4 unit space-bar.
When I switched to MacOS I was amazed how convinient is the mac layout: cmd and option under thumbs. I do the same for Linux immediately: win/alt/ctrl instead of ctrl/win/alt. And esc on caps of course.
My final changes were, in order of effectiveness:
- Put Ctrl on Alt, next to the space bar. Use thumb to press. This saves a huge amount of pinky and wrist contorting.
- Put Alt on Win, next to the now Ctrl key. Also use thumb to press. With both of these my pinkies have way less to do.
- Put Backspace on CapsLock. Though this does use a pinky finger, it is much easier to type than the normal backspace location requiring a hand full stretch.
- Use the Dvorak layout. Much less finger travel since more is on the home row compared to Qwerty.
- In Vim, use Ctrl+C instead of Escape to leave insert mode. Though not exactly identical, Ctrl+C is almost the same as escape and especially with the above changes is much easier to type than hitting the actual escape key.
I have been typing for 15 years since and I have zero hand pain.