Useless keys on a keyboard

[henz]

i use all keys, some more than others. If you think a key is useless, you should make it useful.

[TopreFan333]

Also everyone who doesn't use home/end must really love their arrow keys or switching back to their mouse...maybe that's why people feel the need to have their mouse so close to the alpha keys...? 

Seriously though, honest question for those that don't use home/end.  If you have to edit the middle of a sentence while you're posting, why not hit 'end' to skip to the end of the line?  Or maybe you just don't make mistakes like that. 

I wonder if that's a PC-specific thing, using the END button to move the cursor to the end of the line. On a Mac, it only seems to function for page scrolling (jumping to the bottom of whatever you're in).

I tend to use [CMD] → to jump to the end of the line, and [OPTION] → to jump a word at a time, adding [SHIFT] to select words as I go.

[HoffmanMyster]

Also everyone who doesn't use home/end must really love their arrow keys or switching back to their mouse...maybe that's why people feel the need to have their mouse so close to the alpha keys...? 

Seriously though, honest question for those that don't use home/end.  If you have to edit the middle of a sentence while you're posting, why not hit 'end' to skip to the end of the line?  Or maybe you just don't make mistakes like that. 

I wonder if that's a PC-specific thing, using the END button to move the cursor to the end of the line. On a Mac, it only seems to function for page scrolling (jumping to the bottom of whatever you're in).

I tend to use [CMD] → to jump to the end of the line, and [OPTION] → to jump a word at a time, adding [SHIFT] to select words as I go.

Yep!  You're right.  I actually complained about that very functionality on MacOS in the Bothering thread.  )  So I suppose if you use a Mac, I can understand not needing that key.    And apparently the Delete key doesn't do much on a Mac either?  I always have to right click a file to "send to trash" - why doesn't Delete...delete...it?

[davkol]

Also everyone who doesn't use home/end must really love their arrow keys or switching back to their mouse...maybe that's why people feel the need to have their mouse so close to the alpha keys...? 

Seriously though, honest question for those that don't use home/end.  If you have to edit the middle of a sentence while you're posting, why not hit 'end' to skip to the end of the line?  Or maybe you just don't make mistakes like that. 

Have you considered that there are _other_ user interfaces?

For example, I use VimFx in Firefox (for convenience); simple `gg` goes to the beginning of the page, `G` to the end. My preferred text editor is Emacs—then Ctrl-A goes to the beginning of the line, Ctrl-E to the end (I believe similar shortcuts work on OS X too), and Meta-[<>] jumps to the start/end of the document. There are hotkeys for jumping between sentences too…

[HoffmanMyster]

Also everyone who doesn't use home/end must really love their arrow keys or switching back to their mouse...maybe that's why people feel the need to have their mouse so close to the alpha keys...? 

Seriously though, honest question for those that don't use home/end.  If you have to edit the middle of a sentence while you're posting, why not hit 'end' to skip to the end of the line?  Or maybe you just don't make mistakes like that. 

Have you considered that there are _other_ user interfaces?

I have.  I have not, however, experienced them all, so I think it's a valid question.

For example, I use VimFx in Firefox (for convenience); simple `gg` goes to the beginning of the page, `G` to the end. My preferred text editor is Emacs—then Ctrl-A goes to the beginning of the line, Ctrl-E to the end (I believe similar shortcuts work on OS X too), and Meta-[<>] jumps to the start/end of the document. There are hotkeys for jumping between sentences too…

Thank you, that's very enlightening.

[davkol]

BTW I highly recommend VimFx and It's all text! add-ons for Firefox. They make it very easy to browse with barely leaving the home-row surroundings, while the default browser UI is nearly intact.

[Leslieann]

Also everyone who doesn't use home/end must really love their arrow keys or switching back to their mouse...maybe that's why people feel the need to have their mouse so close to the alpha keys...? 

Seriously though, honest question for those that don't use home/end.  If you have to edit the middle of a sentence while you're posting, why not hit 'end' to skip to the end of the line?  Or maybe you just don't make mistakes like that. 

I wonder if that's a PC-specific thing, using the END button to move the cursor to the end of the line. On a Mac, it only seems to function for page scrolling (jumping to the bottom of whatever you're in).

This was one of the things that drove me nuts on my Hackintosh, luckily, there is a way to fix it with some tweaks. And yes, it's why some people rarely use them.

There was a recent study that also showed that the right mouse key was rarely used, this too was because the study was Mac centric, despite the authors not really clarifying that. 

[fohat.digs]

There was a recent study that also showed that the right mouse key was rarely used, this too was because the study was Mac centric, despite the authors not really clarifying that. 

My wife is a Mac addict, and I can't see it, on the mouse perhaps more than anywhere else.

I use my right button and the scroll wheel constantly, although I don't use other side buttons, etc.

[Blaise170]

My wife is a Mac addict, and I can't see it, on the mouse perhaps more than anywhere else.

I use my right button and the scroll wheel constantly, although I don't use other side buttons, etc.

I use my two side buttons constantly when I'm navigating through folders or webpages.

[Steezus]

My wife is a Mac addict, and I can't see it, on the mouse perhaps more than anywhere else.

I use my right button and the scroll wheel constantly, although I don't use other side buttons, etc.

I use my two side buttons constantly when I'm navigating through folders or webpages.

I bought the first generation razor naga back when it was released(suprisingly works fine still) because I was an avid WoW player back in the day and have grown accustom to use every mouse button I can for macros and such. I even have multiple shortcuts for the 12 buttons on the side just for daily use. It may not be the best mouse but it hasn't caused me any problems this long.

[Steezus]

...Oops I made a mistake 

[jonathanyu]

for me is scroll lock and pause. 

[jacobolus]

And apparently the Delete key doesn't do much on a Mac either?  I always have to right click a file to "send to trash" - why doesn't Delete...delete...it?

You want command + delete (that is, backwards delete), which has been the shortcut on Mac OS since before MS Windows even existed.

Command + shift + delete to empty the trash.

One way to see these and other shortcuts is to look through the menus at the top of the screen in any application. The command to move something to the trash from the Finder is File -> Move to Trash. While you’re looking at a menu, try holding down the Option key to see additional actions.

Hoff: you should just learn the Mac shortcuts, which are in my experience more complete, more logical, and at least as convenient as shortcuts on Windows or Linux. Complaining that they’re different with little eyeroll emojis, because Microsoft picked different shortcuts in Windows 1.0 in 1985 or later versions of Windows than Apple was using since 1984 (or maybe earlier on Lisa or Apple II) just seems silly.

But if you really want some Windows keyboard behaviors to transfer over to OS X text boxes, try dropping this file in
~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict

https://github.com/jrus/cocoa-text-system/blob/master/KeyBindings/Windows%20Bindings.dict

For more, see my (now slightly out of date but still mostly transferable) 2006 article about this:
http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/site/cocoa-text.html
http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/site/selectors.html
http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/site/system-bindings.html

Beyond that, you can add your own shortcuts for menu items (either across applications or in a specific application) from the Keyboards section of System Preferences.

[jacobolus]

My wife is a Mac addict, and I can't see it, on the mouse perhaps more than anywhere else. I use my right button and the scroll wheel constantly, although I don't use other side buttons, etc.

I almost exclusively use a Mac and use scroll wheel and right button constantly (or on a trackpad, two-finger scrolling and two-finger click). What’s your point?

What really sucks is that there’s nothing in the USB spec about pixel-precise scrolling, or scrolling in 2D instead of just up and down. As a result, all third party mice, which are designed for Windows-style coarsely chunked linear scrolling, kind of suck on a Mac. (They suck on Windows too of course, but since all mice have that behavior on Windows it isn’t as noticeable.)

I sure hope it’s possible to reverse-engineer whatever proprietary extension to USB Apple is using for precise 2D scrolling when I make my own trackball someday. I suspect it will be possible, but it might be a pain to figure out.

[Macsmasher]

I'm surprised at the keys deemed useless by some. Granted, as a coder, I live on the nav cluster for jumping around in code to edit / cut / copy / paste. Reaching for the mouse is just a waste of time. But I'm surprised non-coders who are still heavy computer users that don't utilize these keys more. Excel, email composition, etc. is just a lot faster with nav keys.

F keys I couldn't do without:

Alt + F4 to close windows is something I use every minute of my work day.
F2 to rename a file or folder.
F11 to full screen a window. Handy when running one display in portrait with project notes.)

I do swap Caps Lock and Control on my keyboards of course. But I still use Caps Lock when writing a lot of SQL statements.

Anybody not utilizing Home and End must have way too much time on their hands...

[jacobolus]

I'm surprised at the keys deemed useless by some. Granted, as a coder, I live on the nav cluster for jumping around in code to edit / cut / copy / paste. Reaching for the mouse is just a waste of time.

You know what’s also a waste of time? Reaching for the arrow keys, F keys, etc.

If you have programmable firmware on your keyboard, you can do so much better.

[HoffmanMyster]

Hoff: you should just learn the Mac shortcuts, which are in my experience more complete, more logical, and at least as convenient as shortcuts on Windows or Linux.

I should!  I totally forgot to read that, to be honest. 

Complaining that they’re different with little eyeroll emojis, because Microsoft picked different shortcuts in Windows 1.0 in 1985 or later versions of Windows than Apple was using since 1984 (or maybe earlier on Lisa or Apple II) just seems silly.

Are are absolutely correct.  I was definitely more implying that the people essentially saying "throw away those keys" were being silly for not considering their applications in other OSes. 

[Macsmasher]

I'm surprised at the keys deemed useless by some. Granted, as a coder, I live on the nav cluster for jumping around in code to edit / cut / copy / paste. Reaching for the mouse is just a waste of time.

You know what’s also a waste of time? Reaching for the arrow keys, F keys, etc.

If you have programmable firmware on your keyboard, you can do so much better.

Still faster than a mouse, but a very good point. Lately I've been using my HHKB exclusively, which allows navigation without moving from home row. My RF 87Us don't see much use these days.

[Blaise170]

Still faster than a mouse, but a very good point. Lately I've been using my HHKB exclusively, which allows navigation without moving from home row. My RF 87Us don't see much use these days.

I use those keys just as much as any programmer but you aren't really saving all that much time reaching for your mouse. Arm fatigue maybe.

[Macsmasher]

Still faster than a mouse, but a very good point. Lately I've been using my HHKB exclusively, which allows navigation without moving from home row. My RF 87Us don't see much use these days.

I use those keys just as much as any programmer but you aren't really saving all that much time reaching for your mouse. Arm fatigue maybe.

Honestly, from an RSI prevention standpoint, reaching more is probably better for me anyway.

[Oobly]

I'm surprised at the keys deemed useless by some. Granted, as a coder, I live on the nav cluster for jumping around in code to edit / cut / copy / paste. Reaching for the mouse is just a waste of time.

You know what’s also a waste of time? Reaching for the arrow keys, F keys, etc.

If you have programmable firmware on your keyboard, you can do so much better.

I've tried both, TKL and 60% (and a 48% with arrows and a 40% without) for a reasonable length of time. I currently exclusively use 60% and smaller, but that's still the one thing I miss from TKL layout. It's definitely faster and easier to use dedicated arrow keys than Fn layer arrows, despite the extra hand movement. It's a fast movement and easy to do "blind" since the position and areas around them make them super easy to index to.

But I love the compactness and aesthetics of a smaller board, so it's really a compromise. It also depends where you locate your Fn key and arrows on the layer. Here's my favourite layered layout:







So, as you can see, I have trimmed off a lot of "useless" keys, but all the keycodes are still generated when needed (Print Screen, Scroll Lock, etc are on the blank caps in the EDIT layer). It's designed primarily for prose writing, but I've used it for coding, writing GH posts, etc and although it's taken a couple of hours of use to get used to when to press the Fn key, it's a real joy to use.

[Macsmasher]

I almost sold my HHKB until I set the left Opt key to be a Fn key. Now my right hand stays on home row while left hand slides over and operates Fn, Shift and Control. That made the layout work for me. I also have Alt keys next to Spacebar.

[Voltasalt]

Scroll Lock/Pause Break isn't useless! They're useful for binding to stubborn programs that can't bind to mouse buttons. I have my G502's thumb button bound to Pause Break, and Pause Break bound to Push to Talk in Skype/Mumble.

Also, the Pok3r only has one useless key, Pn. Who thought that was a good idea? With the Poker 2 you could at least program it but now it's completely useless for everything except quitting programming mode (which can EASILY be done by another key)... damnit vortex

[cheebs]

Hey OP, have you heard of this thing called key remapping? 

[chyros]

Pause Break bound to Push to Talk in Skype/Mumble.

Wait.... how does it know when you've released the key? Oo

[dustinhxc]

Windows key UNLESS my steam game is frozen. Lol

[TopreFan333]

Yep!  You're right.  I actually complained about that very functionality on MacOS in the Bothering thread.  )  So I suppose if you use a Mac, I can understand not needing that key.    And apparently the Delete key doesn't do much on a Mac either?  I always have to right click a file to "send to trash" - why doesn't Delete...delete...it?

In the Finder, Command-Backspace (which most people think of as Delete, I guess) deletes the file. Command-Delete really ought to be mapped to that too, but for whatever reason, it's not. I usually find myself reaching for the Backspace key pretty much everywhere I need to delete something. Generally OS X doesn't use the Delete key as much, although in text editing, it does a forward delete, which is useful.

[samhwang]

I would say Menu, Scroll Lock and Pause/Break off the bat. Menu and SL would be useful if you use Excel and Pause/Break would be the equivalent for coding in terminal, but I don't feel the necessities for it. Must be because I don't use Excel a lot ?

This was Windows, by the day I moved the Mac, the Scroll Lock and Pause/Break button adjusts the brightness of the screen so it got a teeny tiny bit useful again. As for the Menu key, if possible I would just change it into an Fn key, and I believe there are a lot of brands that are doing this already.