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?
Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V have been so burned into my muscle memory, relearning to use just a single dedicated button might actually be more trouble for me than just using the standard hotkeys.
I have a row of macro keys on my keyboard on the left side. I thought I’d be smart and add copy and paste macros (that were near mm’s away from Ctrl) and I never used them.
Muscle memory would always take over and I’d Ctrl+C Ctrl+V. I realized it would take more work to train myself to use the macro keys (and God forbid I used a different keyboard) than I was saving not having to press a key combination
That’s the first thing i learned using computers, and not something i’ll ever forget.
I wish Ctrl + C wasn’t the break command in Linux so I could map copy to that. It’s harder to presa Ctrl + Shift + C
Maybe if you weren’t so floppy about it
Some keyboards have media keys for that. Some user environments also allow you to remap those keys to other functions.
I’m pretty happy working as a developer where I can choose my own editor. (Neo)Vim, Kakoune, now Helix, they all just have one single key used for copying (/“yanking”) text to a register:
y, and it’s bloody fast. I can’t even use VS Code without a Vim or Helix or Kakoune emulator extension. But of course I prefer to use the faster, pure terminal applications.To be honest I’m not really that great with Vim actions anymore. Even if I was using it for about a decade. The Kakoune and Helix model just made too much sense.
I can see the benefit, although personally I’m too attuned to ctrl+c,v,z,x
A key I’d really like to see on computer keyboards is a shift key that behaves the same as on a phone, toggling between lowercase, Title Case, and UPPERCASE.
It’d be so useful to be able to select text you’ve already typed and change the format. Phones have done it for years, why not computers? Could be a much better use for the Caps Lock key.
https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Case.html
Emacs has commands for converting either a single word or any arbitrary range of text to upper case or to lower case.
Thanks, will check that out.
I like the mnemonics of c (copy), v (get in there), x (snip-snip), and z (bad idea) as much as I like the similar ones for bold and italics.
text you’ve already typed and change the format. Control (shift) + F3 used to do that in MS word. Highlight your text and Toggle Through The POSSIBILITIES.
Control (shift) + F3 used to do that in MS word.
Yeah, so I’ve just been discovering after googling to see if anyone had asked before. Shame there’s no systemwide method though.
Mech keyboard nerds are laughing in QMK…
Barring that, for Windows there’s Auto-Hotkeys or MKLC (Win10)/Keyboard Manager (Win11). For Linux, I use Input Remapper for remapping mouse keys, but it works for keyboards too.
Come to the vim side, we have
yfor copy (yank) andpfor paste. We even havedfor cutWtf is vim
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
Only the best bathroom cleaner ever made.
My Cloud9 ErgoFS has dedicated keys for that. But, my fingers have known Ctrl+c/v for my entire life, plus they’re more easily reachable, so I still do that.
My only problem is Linux at home and Mac at work with the same keyboard so I tend to accidentally hit super+c in Linux because that’s the cmd key on Mac
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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
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
Seems like it would be more useful macro’d to extra mouse buttons.
Keyboard only people are plenty comfortable with frequent shortcuts.
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.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.
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.
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.
Some of us… Do.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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…
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.
Keyboards already have too many keys. Your fingers are extremely inefficient at certain distances so you should never even touch numpad with proper keyboard design. 10 fingers can combine a lot of keys.
Numpad is a MUST for doing quick calc, that top row of numbers always slows me way down.
Also, I need the full numpad in case I’m playing Arma 3, cuz I need to additional keymappings ;)
That’s why I got a mouse with extra buttons on the side, so I can just copy and paste using my thumb.
CTRL-C / CTRL-V too much? ;)
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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Not exactly. Its just awkward for a bunch of repetitions, especially on MacOS keyboards. CMD+C/V is even worse on those.
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.
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)
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.
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.
You can just move the modifier keys around. I have Caps Lock as Ctrl and Ctrl as CMD.
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
I also have Caps Lock als Ctrl, but I leave Cmd where it is by default, and I just disable the Ctrl key.
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.
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.
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
Having grown up on chiclet Mac keyboards, you should try a mechanical keyboard. It’s such a much better experience
MacOS keyboards
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
