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Comment by sliverstorm | Hacker News Reader

There's a big middle group, people who generally touch-type with the best of them, but couldn't touch-type an Fn key to save Manhattan.

They just aren't that useful for many people, and so the muscle memory never forms. (They are also really far from home row on some keyboards)

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> They just aren't that useful for many people, and so the muscle memory never forms.

I'd be surprised if the majority of touch-typists on Windows don't have muscle-memory for Alt-F4, at a minimum.

> They are also really far from home row on some keyboards

Fair enough; helps that I exclusively use and prefer laptop keyboards, to the point of having a USB ThinkPad keyboard/mouse combo on my desk.

But there is no commonly used Mac shortcut that uses the function keys.

escape key being the one exception. That is in my muscle memory.

Esc, play/pause, mute, volume down, volume up, Cmd+option+eject (sleep)

Show desktop.

I pretty much only use ESC, F11 (show desktop) and F5 to reload the browser + the occasional f6 to jump to the browser address bar. I've also reversed the standard mapping so F11 is triggered without the fn-key.

show desktop: I use the trackpad gesture

reload: cmd+r

jump to browser bar: cmd+l

I have no idea what Esc does, I never use it.

Esc: cancel dialog

Function key shortcuts have never been a significant Mac paradigm, and for good reason. Apple certainly would never put something OS-centric like 'close window' on a function key. They use contextually-relevant letter keys for shortcuts, and have been on a decades-long crusade to destroy the F-keys entirely. They haven't shipped a system with function keys that defaulted to function keys in 15 years; it's third-party software and the odd legacy text-based UI where you find them. The controls these are used for by typical users (volume, music, brightness) are not really things you need to be able to hit without looking, and exactly why I can see this succeeding on the Macbook where it was a frustration on the X1.

fwiw, I regularly use the back/forward/play buttons on my mac keyboards, and I can touch type them.

That and option-shift-volume buttons to move volume up/down quarter ticks which is super helpful with earbuds that get way too loud otherwise.

I can touch type F1, F2, F11, F12 because they are brightness and volume up down. At F7-F10 there are music controls, I would assume I hit them with 80% accuracy or less if I try to hit them directly.

Really sad to see them go, as well as the esc button.

I'm still on a 2008 macbook, and it was just kicked off from new OS updates (just updated to El Capitan) and the "next" device I look at and like is like 2013 model or something.

I am using Linux on a white Macbook from 2008 with an SSD. I still get OS updates, and while not a beast, it does a decent job for what I need (code editing, browsing).

Oh yeah, I have almost no qualms about using this old one, well except for the fact that it is officially not receiving new OS versions - which eventually will become an issue.

The small resolution, no battery life, slow processor are only minor annoyances to me. It is fast enough for me, I do iOS development/browsing/movies.

Even though I have a general sense, I always look to check, as I don't want to do something crazy, eg press alt+f4

I used to be pretty good at touch-typing to them back when lots of games used the F keys (Mechwarrior series, Dark Forces II, X-Wing, that sort of thing). These days just mashing in the general area of F4/F5/F6 (quick save in many games) is all I can manage without looking.

I've also gotten worse at the number row now that few games use more than the first 3-4 for quick slots or weapons.

I would be surprised if any developer who regularly used an IDE hadn't memorized the various function keys for debugging etc

Believe it or not, but there are touch typists who aren't developers. Quite a lot, in fact.

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