Re: Control-C conundrum

[Bob Proulx]

Tim Johnson wrote:
>   I use a Happy Hacking Lite2 Keyboard (non-mac), for the most part,
>   attached to a Mac Mini with OS X. I have a numeric keypad on the
>   left which I've also set up for emacs and a logitech trackball on
>   the right.

I also own a Happy Hacker Lite 2.  The one with the cursor keys on the
lower right side.

  http://www.pfusystems.com/embedded-keyboard/hhkb/index.html

The keys are excellent.  The left half is perfect for me.  The right
half has a different key layout than the IBM PC with the short enter
and gives me difficulty.  In particular the Delete key give me
problems because I type fast with lots of mistakes and lots of hitting
of the backspace key.  On the HHL2 it is located in a different spot
and I always end up hitting the backslash instead.  If that one key,
Delete, were in the same place as the IBM PC keyboard Backspace then I
think I would adapt better to the rearrangement of the backslash and
tilde keys.  But because of that difference in arrangement I moved
away from it.  That keyboard is now in my traveling computer parts bag
for use plugging into headless systems.  It is a nice keyboard.  But I
didn't adapt to it for full time use.

>   Alternatively I use any of several netbooks. Those are running
>   lubuntu with fluxbox and have the control and capslock switched
>   via xmodmap. Generally I'm ssh'd onto the Mac from a netbook.

Most of the netbooks have squished compact keyboards with additional
keys rearranged.  You must be a person who can adapt to different
keyboards easier than I do.  Good for you.  Bad for me.  I find it
difficult to use the compacted keyboards and it is worse when random
keys are moved to non-standard locations.

>   I seldom use the 'alt' key, prefering Ctl-[ or ESC. ESC is on the
>   left on all machines that I have to use.

Me too.  For normal things such as M-w for me it is ESC-w.  However
for more complex combinations such as M-^ that would require an
awkward move of the left pinky.  For that I tend to use left shift-alt
with thumb and forefinger and then ^ with the right forefinger.

Bob