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Comment by bbojan | Hacker News Reader

Because I'm down the rabbit hole of highly customized keyboards, at one point I did a frequency analysis of the keys I use the most.

Guess what was the most frequently used key? Cursor down followed by cursor up.

For example, cursor down was pressed ~2.5x more times than space, or ~4 times more than letter E, which is was the most frequently used letter.

Guess what are the smallest keys on a Mac-type keyboard (the layout also used by the Framework laptop). Cursor up and down. Madness.

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Keep in mind this is likely unique to CLI users. The vast majority of users have little use for arrow keys - nudging the text cursor a few chars left/right and making tiny moves in graphics software are about the only two I can think of.

Even then. If you're strictly CLI you should likely prefer Ctrl+b, Ctrl+n, Ctrl+p, Ctrl+n, etc etc

Not just CLI but also browsers when you don't want to get bitten by infinite scroll adjustments moving your scrollbar cursor placement and then pressing down before noticing and accidentally scrolling past 50% of the page you were just trying to read.

I love the ThinkPad with the Arrow Key and PgUp/PgDown all next to each other.

Rejoice, Lenovo is introducing a ThinkPad that finally lets them scrap this excellent setup for a mainstream rectangular keyboard: Z13 and Z16. Doubly sad because those look like a kick-ass AMD Ryzen implementation otherwise. Trippy sad because they also found a way to get rid of the physical TrackPoint buttons and still call it a ThinkPad.

The writing is on the wall, just wait for Lenovo to finally extinguish their ugly step-child of asymmetry and deprive us of the last good arrow key layout left in portable laptops.

I am on a Mac for over a decade and I don’t understand what’s the issue with the keys. Well, they are smaller, but it’s not a problem for me, not at all.

Do you scroll with the arrows keys?

You don't?

Either that, or PgUp/PgDown

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