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?
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
I guarantee I can hit ctrl-c faster than I can move my hand to a different part of the keyboard.
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.
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.
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.
AutoHotKey on Windows is very good also.
Got myself a cheap Chinese programmable foot switch with three switches that enables me to do exactly that without fucking up my normal layout. And it can be switched to other things depending on the application as well. Very useful.
When I started my current job, I thought I was getting a repetitive stress injury from the hundreds of copy pastes I was making daily. Eventually I got used to it, but my hand still hurts occasionally.
I am 100% behind the idea of dedicated buttons!
Look into autohotkey or a mouse with extra buttons you can map to these functions.
I highly recommend mice with additional programmable keys, speech recognition, and programmable foot pedals. I use all three at work and they’re great for splitting the workload across different body parts.
Mouse? The thing that sat on a pad next to a box of floppy disks?
That’s the one. We actually still use floppy disks in my industry.
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.
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
That’s why I got a mouse with extra buttons on the side, so I can just copy and paste using my thumb.
Some of us… Do.
No, it should be on the mouse.
Linux has its own weird implicit copy paste on the mouse - pressing the wheel pastes the last thing you selected.
It depends though - if you’re copy pasting between programs, you’re probably using your mouse already, so it’s good that the buttons are there. But if you’re writing or editing text, you probably have your hands on the keyboard, so you need the shortcut there as well.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Come to the vim side, we have
yfor copy (yank) andpfor paste. We even havedfor cutWtf is vim
The best text editor in the world. With the best training manual.
https://vim-adventures.com/
Timmy, no
terminal text editor
I’m laughing way too hard at this thank you
Oh man, you were born too late for the wild 90s era of experimental keyboards
I was young, but definitely using computers in the 90’s. I remember some wacky stuff.
While it doesn’t have a copy and paste key, my omnikey ultra is certainly wacky.
