For the tabs Ctrl+tab/Ctrl+shift+tab is the standard on Windows and Linux, so i can see how some apps can forget about macOS' specialness.
In contrast, the Ctrl keys are usually located such that they're best accessed with your pinkies. Who thought that making people use their weakest fingers for the most common shortcuts is a good idea?
Could you remap your keys to have Ctrl keys under the thumbs in Windows / Linux? Yes, but then:
1) It will become hard to use Ctrl-based text navigation shortcuts (such as Ctrl+left to navigate one word left) with one hand, and
2) Ctrl+Tab will now use the same physical keys as Alt+Tab used to, and your brain will never heal from this (at least mine refuses to).
but otoh ppl have strong opinions for the exact same reasons (hand/finger dexterity) by assigning ctrl to caps lock
less weird-pinky/hand-rotation does feel like a win, though
Why would it be any different than on macOS?
> 2) Ctrl+Tab will now use the same physical keys as Alt+Tab used to, and your brain will never heal from this (at least mine refuses to).
So why not switch this also? Where's the problem?
At least on Linux there are no issues. It's mostly clicking one checkbox, and changing "Alt-Tab" to "Ctrl-Tab".
Because in MacOS those arrow-based text shortcuts are Alt-based, not Ctrl-based, and right Alt is already located right next to the arrow keys where it's most convenient for those particular shortcuts. It does not need any remapping since in MacOS the Alt key is not used for most other system shortcuts, unlike the Ctrl key on Windows/Linux.
> At least on Linux there are no issues. It's mostly clicking one checkbox, and changing "Alt-Tab" to "Ctrl-Tab".
Been there tried that, on Ubuntu, last attempt a couple years ago. Does not work, many apps have Ctrl+tab hard coded to switch between their tabs, so if you make Ctrl+tab the system shortcut for switching apps, you can't switch tabs in those hardcoding apps anymore.
Where's the problem to tick a checkbox and change that?
> Been there tried that, on Ubuntu, last attempt a couple years ago. Does not work, many apps have Ctrl+tab hard coded to switch between their tabs, so if you make Ctrl+tab the system shortcut for switching apps, you can't switch tabs in those hardcoding apps anymore.
Once again, that are GTK problems.
Just avoid GTK (v3 and later) and Electron and there are no usability issues. Simple as that. But I'm repeating myself.
What checkbox do you mean? (I understood the one about ctrl+tab, but not this one)
I'll give KDE a shot next time, but I think some apps I use heavily are actually GTK apps (such as Firefox), we'll see how it goes.
Maybe I'm confused, but I have an right Ctrl and a right Alt. Both keys are left to the arrow keys. I thought you wanted to switch around also those two keys. That would be ticking a checkbox in the keyboard config afik.
> I'll give KDE a shot next time, but I think some apps I use heavily are actually GTK apps (such as Firefox), we'll see how it goes.
I also use Firefox. It uses GTK. But this makes no difference as Firefox does its own thing anyway. It uses GTK only under the hood.
The two most annoying things with Firefox are solvable: You can use custom.css to switch around the OK / Cancel buttons in dialogs (thankfully they don't use "real" GTK dialogs but some XUL, otherwise you would need to patch the GTK libs) and one can have proper file-dialogs by now through the desktop-portal interface. So Firefox remains its own thing but at least the GTK parts don't creep up anymore.
Oh, and global menu does not work in FF (even it works for "normal" GTK apps). Also they still didn't manage to make keyboard shortcuts configurable. But that are FF issues on any desktop or OS…
Same layout here. I want the key that's used for arrow-based text navigation shortcuts (Alt on MacOS, Ctrl elsewhere) to be physically the rightmost key, right next to the arrow keys, then I can press it with my index finger and press the arrow with another finger. Otherwise, if that key is farther from the arrow keys, I find it hard to press those shortcuts. At the same time, I want the key that's used for most system shortcuts such as Ctrl+N / Cmd+N to be under my right thumb because it's the strongest and otherwise underused finger.
So, on non-MacOS systems I end up wanting right Ctrl to be in two different places at once, since those systems use Ctrl for both types of shortcuts mentioned above. So unless I have a big enough keyboard to have two *right* Ctrl keys on my keyboard, I can't just remap the keys to solve this.
Whereas on MacOS it's fine as-is because it uses Alt for arrow-based and Cmd for other system shortcuts respectively, and those keys are already where I want them to be.
Anyways, this is getting too much about me, I doubt it's interesting to anyone. Cheers.