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Comment by teo_zero | Hacker News Reader

I couldn't disagree more.

My mental sanity depends on some fixed beliefs. One of those is that every key sequence not involving the Win key is sent to and handled by the application in focus. Including F-keys, which many applications expect, in any case. Ex: F2=edit cell, F9=recalculate in Excel.

Global actions handled by the SO or DE must involve Win. Ex: Win+L lock screen.

And yes, Redmond-imposed Alt-Tab is an abomination: it should have been Win+Tab since the beginning.

The workflow you're proposing could be easily achieved with Win+ a carefully chosen letter. Benefits: 1. the letter is easier to remember; 2. You have 20-something free slots instead of 12 (excluding the ones that are already taken for standard actions like L for lock); 3. Most probably your fingers are already there and you have muscles memory of where the letters are; 4. Consistent, expected behavior of where keys are sent to.

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Broad standards are so valuable. When a hotkey becomes common across apps and operating systems, we should work hard to preserve that rare and beautiful covenant that humanity has achieved together.

F1 means help.

F2 means edit. It edits filenames on most operating systems if you have a file selected, and cells in most spreadsheet programs.

Alt+F4 means close.

Alt+tab means switch program.

Ctrl+C is copy, Ctrl+V is paste

I feel the same way about automobiles. It doesn't really matter whether we initially decided that the brake pedal would be the right or left of the gas pedal, but the fact that you can get in just about any car in the world and rely on the pedals to be in roughly the same place and do roughly the same thing is magical. If you're going to move them around, you better have a great reason.

The agreements we've achieved on standards, even when they're not perfect (QWERTY keyboard, heirarchical directory structure), should be considered global treasures and treated as such.

That is definitely not OS-specific.

On Mac: cmd+tab for app switching, cmd+’ window switching, cmd+q is quitting app and all other shortcuts like copy&paste use cmd as well.

MS tried to introduce a similar scheme with Windows key when Win95 appeared, but they stopped halfway, and now there’s mess.

> The agreements we've achieved on standards, even when they're not perfect, should be considered global treasures and treated as such.

Hell no! As soon as you see a better way to do the same thing, you should allow the user to embrace the new way, while still keeping compatibility with the old one during a grace period.

I know that there are companies that behave differently. Their products are often cruft-ridden.

Automobiles are not exempted: just look at the clumsy, unnecessarily large shift gear lever that equips electric cars where the P R N D L modes are simulated in software. But hey the big lever between the seats is a sacred standard!

I think the optimal solution lies somewhere between my conservative argument and your disruptive one. Standards do become obsolete, and I agree that positive innovation often means leaving them behind.

But in the case of the shift lever -- I think it's great that I can hop in any car, and count on having obvious lever with the basic drive modes. In lots of cars, it's not big or between the seats; doesn't the Prius have it on the dash?

The idea is not centered around F-keys. The idea is to have fast shortcuts to every app you need regularly. You can use any other keys.

The problem, of course, is that all keys are already taken. Even F-keys are normally taken by volume control, playback control, brightness control, etc, and you have to press Fn-F1 to access F1. There are no spare keys, unless you buy a dedicated keypad.

So I, as likely everyone else, have a bunch of Win+something shortcuts, often involving 2 or 3 more keys. (Using KMonad to have modifiers on the home row helps.)

But the idea still stands. I already have shortcuts for the screen shot app, for the character map app, etc; why not add shortcuts for bringing Emacs or Firefox or a terminal to the front? I'll explore that.

> you have to press Fn-F1 to access F1

Yep, by default, but you can change that in the settings. The the Fn modifier isn't required.

>it should have been Win+Tab since the beginning

In the beginning, there was no "windows key".

Windows95 introduced the Windows key, before that sure there was no „win” key, but it was not needed much before real multitasking

Windows 3.1 tasking was technically lacking, but still very useful and still very much needed alt+tab. It needed it even more than win95, in fact, as it had no task bar.

In the beginning, there was the "super key" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_key_(keyboard_button).

Its purpose: control the (global) desktop environment (versus e.g. Alt/Ctrl/etc, which control the currently focused/active/local application).

Many "Windows key" shortcuts do desktop environment actions, hence the Windows key is the super key.

Well it’s worth noting that you can achieve this very easily by just pinning apps to the taskbar : Win+1 will toggle the first one, Win+2 the second one and so on up to 9.

Bingo.

I’d like to add two parts:

1. Alt-Tab also works to select which Excel file you want in focus. I often have 10+ Excel files open and choose what I need with Alt-Tab-Arrow.

2. I can open all apps fast using Windows+Text. For example, Excel opens if I hit the Windows Key then “exc”, Chrome opens if I hit the Windows Key then “chr”, etc. Mac users can do the same by replacing the Windows Key with Command + Space.

I see no upside.

You mean downside?

I see no upside to the suggestions laid out in the article.

Idk where you were at that era but the Win key came out half a decade after Alt-Tab.

Win95 didn't even have the Win key.

Goodness. Think before you post. :) A thing cannot be an abomination for not making use of a building material which would not exist for most of the decade.

I am pretty sure I had a windows key on the windows 95 packard bell I got for christmas 95.

Edit: it was the same model as this reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/vintagecomputing/comments/s518wo/i_...

Win95 had a win key! It was introduced right aling the start menu

I see your point, but personally I never liked following fixed beliefs if in the long run I could benefit from dropping them. As an example, that's why I also learned Dvorak (which was much more painful than re-learning F-keys).

What about special key sequences like Ctrl+Alt+Delete on Windows, or Ctrl+Alt+F-key on most Linux distros?

Or even more crazy special commands like Alt+PrintScreen+REISUB?

Alt+Ctrl+Delete was special-cased as an unforgeable sequence to access the security screen in Win NT, with special provisions down to BIOS level IIRC. (Else credentials stealing becomes too easy.)

REISUB is for truly exceptional circumstances; I used it 2-3 times in 20 years of using Linux on desktop.

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