Comment by klibertp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by klibertp | Hacker News Reader

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> numpads on a laptop are a terrible idea.

I disagree completely. Having a numpad on a laptop is the only way of getting cursors and function keys (from Home to Insert to Delete) in a sane place. On my current laptop, were it not for a numpad, I'd have to press a Fn key every time I wanted to use Home/End. I'd also need to hunt for Delete somewhere above the Backspace, and PageUp/PageDown being on both sides of Up arrow (and close to it!) is simply infuriating. And it's a Dell Latitude[1], much better in this regard than tons of normal laptops.

I'm not against remapping some keys, but you need the physical keys to be there in the first place to remap to them! Without the numpad, disabling the irritatingly placed PageDown/PageUp keys would leave me without the keys completely.

There are downsides - mainly the fact that it's harder to work with a laptop actually on my lap, ie. it's harder to balance the device when most of the applied weight is on the left side, but I can deal with this with a $20 laptop tray. For additional $10 I can even get a tray with a place for an external mouse, although as I use trackballs exclusively I have little need for it.

[1] https://www.computershopper.com/var/ezwebin_site/storage/ima...

> I disagree completely. Having a numpad on a laptop is the only way of getting cursors and function keys (from Home to Insert to Delete) in a sane place. On my current laptop, were it not for a numpad, I'd have to press a Fn key every time I wanted to use Home/End. I'd also need to hunt for Delete somewhere above the Backspace, and PageUp/PageDown being on both sides of Up arrow (and close to it!) is simply infuriating. And it's a Dell Latitude[1], much better in this regard than tons of normal laptops.

I've found the layout used on the VAIO Z to be very practical, with Home/End as FN + Left/Right, and PageUp/PageDown as FN + Up/Down:

https://www.replacementlaptopkeys.com/product_images/images/...

It appears to be close to the Dell Latitude, but removing the dedicated PageUp/PageDown keys, and instead having larger arrow keys likely works better.

My HP laptop has a single column with delete/home/pgup/pgdn/end, like this: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/3646...

This works very nicely for me.

I could not deal with those arrow keys, though.

That arrow key design is terrible though.

Ok, now I know what I'd need to do to finally switch to hjkl (for arrows) when using Vim, I'd just need to buy a keyboard like yours ;)

Joking aside, a keyboard is a very personal thing and picking the right one depends on many factors, from the shape and size of your hands and fingers to your chair and desk setup, to your OS and programs you use. For most people, it probably doesn't matter that much, but for people who use keyboards for work, it's IMHO worth it to take your time and choose a keyboard that is precisely right.

As an example, I was perfectly happy with a standard desktop keyboard when I used Vim, even though Esc is rather far from home row (but it's easy to find by touch). Once I switched to Emacs, with its famous dependence on pressing and holding (as opposed to just hitting Esc in Vim) Ctrl and Alt, I almost immediately started getting RSI in my left hand. I quickly noticed that it happens only on the full-sized keyboard, not on (most) laptop keyboard. I considered switching away from Emacs, but, as with many cults, you can only leave in a body bag, so I had to find another way of dealing with it.

After a lot of research, I found that Logitech K340[1] is the keyboard for me. As you can see, the Ctrl key is where it should be (in the bottom left corner - sometimes there's a Fn key there), is bigger than usual and much closer to the home row than in full-sized keyboards. This eliminated pain in my hand almost entirely. Full-size Enter key and Backspace (their shrunk versions are evil), quite workable placement of function keys above the numpad, the Fn key placed where it doesn't bother me, and arrow keys which are easily found by touch are all essential features, which match my workflow very well. The only key which is not as accessible as I'd like is Insert (the top one), but I don't use it very often.

I'm sure there are tons of people who would find that keyboard unworkable for their workflows, though. I guess what I want to say is that if something works for you, then you should just use that. Still, you should make sure it actually works, because a wrist pain a year down the road is not a pleasant thing.

[1] https://purplezest.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/121.jpg

Something that helped me was remapping the caps lock key to ctrl.

Already done, of course. It was easy, as I had it remapped to Esc before anyway :) But using CapsLock as Ctrl makes it harder to press Ctrl-a and Ctrl-x, which are kind of essential.

Anyway, CapsLock is got to be the least useful key on a keyboard. It occupies a place on the home row, suggesting it should be as often used as Enter is... while it's decidedly not. I have no idea why it persists, it was useful on a typewriter, where you needed to apply significant force to press a key and doing so to two keys at once (Shift+letter) could have been hard, but today?

The arrow key cluster, it burns us!

> There are downsides - mainly the fact that it's harder to work with a laptop actually on my lap, ie. it's harder to balance the device when most of the applied weight is on the left side, but I can deal with this with a $20 laptop tray.

If you're already always using the laptop on a desk or table with a stand because it's too awkward to use, you know, on your lap... then just get a real keyboard to go with it.

I use an external keyboard on my desks at work and at home, but at least I can put my laptop on my lap and still use it on-the-go, too (which I do on a daily basis).

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