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Comment by dcolgan | Hacker News Reader

I have reduced a lot of unnecessary hand movement by moving the Control keys to either side of the space bar where the Alt keys normally are, and moving the Alt keys to the keys next to those where the Windows keys usually are. With this I can hit all of the modifier keys with my thumbs.

I also have CapsLock mapped to Backspace, and use the Dvorak keyboard layout. All of these combined minimize strain on my pinkies and the rest of my fingers, reduces the need for hand contortions, and lets stronger fingers do more work.

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I don't understand how caps lock has been able to maintain it's prized real estate for so long. I understand the inertia behind why hardware manufacturers are loath to move it, I just don't get why there are still otherwise reasonable people who don't remap it. I map mine to control and also use some of the lesser known C- combo replacements (C-h = backspace, C-[ = escape). I'm a vim user, so dvorak is a bit of a non-starter (hjkl gets all goofed, and once you try to un-goof it, you goof up other commands).

My CapsLock got fired a long time ago and is now a backspace-delete key. One of these days, I plan to finish the job and turn my 'delete' key into a proper forward delete, which my laptop keyboard lacks.

I used to remap CapsLock to Backspace, but gave up because I had one machine -- a 1998 PowerBook (this was obviously before OSX) -- on which I didn't know how to remap it, and changing back and forth was a pain. Once I got used to Backspace in the upper right corner, I no longer had much motivation to change back again. And I don't bother remapping CapsLock to Control because I already have two Control keys.

Also, on most full-size keyboards, I swap around the modifiers so that I can press the Control and Alt keys with the sides of my palms. This works very well. (I put Control on the inside and Alt on the outside, the reverse of the usual PC layout.)

So while I don't consider the standard position of CapsLock to be ideal, in the end it hasn't proven worth the trouble to move it.

My favorite Caps Lock rant: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.peeves/browse_thread/thre...

"With this I can hit all of the modifier keys with my thumbs"

This might sound crazy, but this is my favorite feature of macs. The apple key is next to the space bar so I can use my thumb as you say, and it's used for all major key combos. I also use it with aquamacs for my most common emacs functions.

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