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?
Not to be that guy, but on Linux if you highlight text you have already copied it to a different clipboard than the CTRL-C/V one, and can paste it by a middle click. This has been the default in Linux since before I used it (I’m 17 years in with Linux), but CTRL-C/V are so in my head that I usually forget to do it.
I was told that this would go away with Wayland, but I just tested it in a Plasma6 Wayland session and it clearly has not gone away.
Hey, I’m also 17 years in, with Linux! I started with, I believe, Ubuntu 7.04 or 7.10, Feisty Fawn or Gutsy Gibbon, I can’t remember which.
Which was your first distro?
I had been trying it for awhile off and on, but told myself I’d jump in with two feet when I could get wifi working with no troubleshooting. As you know wifi was rough back then sometimes, and I had absolutely no capability to troubleshoot linux. But I figured as long as I had reliable wifi, everything else was just a google away. Oddly, that was not Ubuntu (I probably also tried 7.04 - I expected Ubuntu to be what did it) - it was a now defunct slackware based distro called Zenwalk.
There needs to be a cool word for people who started with Linux in the same year lol. 🙂
Cool stuff!
now defunct slackware based distro called Zenwalk
Seems to me like it’s a very much alive project still?
There needs to be a cool word for people who started with Linux in the same year lol. 🙂
Yeah! How about:
- Linlings
- Liblings
- Linwins
- Lwins
This was hard…
Seems to me like it’s a very much alive project still?
It looked dead to me, but the domain still works etc so maybe I’m wrong. Last blog post looks to be a year old FWIW.
I think I like Linwins, despite the unintentional Windows reference there. 😁
This was hard…
You came up with better ones than I would have though. :)
😄 I personally like Linlings, I think… Anyway, thanks for sharing!
I think that’s because KDE has just reimplemented it to work on Wayland, but it’s not there by default. This is a feature of X.
The thing with Wayland is that it’s not anymore built into the display server itself, like it was with X.org. So, this works on Plasma, because KDE implemented it themselves. On other Wayland compositors, this may not get implemented.
But yeah, we’ll have to see. If there’s a way to make it work for all wlroots-based compositors, that would give it pretty wide support, again.
cool trick, works for me. Thanks for sharing
Any time!
If you have a QMK compatible keyboard you can do that.
Ctrl + Ins
Shift + Ins
Usually much easier than the usual combo
Seems like it would be more useful macro’d to extra mouse buttons.
Keyboard only people are plenty comfortable with frequent shortcuts.
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 got one of those 8BitDo retro keyboards a while ago, the one with the FamiCom color scheme, and it comes with these two giant “a” and “b” buttons that you can map to macros. You could set one of those to CTRL+C and the other to CTRL+V and just bop either button when you need either function.
We do. ctrl+c / ctrl+v
Most people would use dedicated single copy/paste buttons more than page-up/down or home/end.
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.
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.
page-up/down or home/end.
I don’t even think about those keys
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.
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.
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.
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
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
Mm, I wouldn’t hate it. It could take the place of the scroll lock and pause break buttons on my keyboard, two keys i’ve literally never used.
Have you tried the shortcuts for the other side of the keyboard
Ctrl + insert = copy
Shift + insert = paste
Shit + delete = cut
I find them much easier to use than the traditional shortcuts.
This is cursed af but I can’t explain why
Where do you shit?
On the delete key!
Man, if I had to shit every time I wanted to cut something I would have to do all of my programming on the toilet and not just some of it.
I do.
I think that everyone who really wants that will spend a half an hour learning how to remap keys.
True. My caps lock is already my mute button. Now I’m going to figure out which keys to remap as copy/paste cause that’s an awesome idea
Nice. Also because it has a little light that’s now on whan you mute things.
Exactly, and really, you can just hold shift with your pinkie if you need caps
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.
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.
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 use “forward” in my web browser about once a year
I have also been using wgestures which let me have gesture movements with mouse that serve “copy”/“paste” functions. Can’t work without it
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
