Mac's command key is worse than Window's ctrl | Hacker News Reader

Mac's command key is worse than Window's ctrl

8 pointsvapemaster29 comments

Long time windows + occasional linux user. Switched to Mac for the M2 Mac Book Air. It's a phenomenal piece of silicon + hardware.

Fairly shallow learning curve on the switch since so much is cross platform electron apps these days.

BUT ... Good god the command vs ctrl behavior is driving me nuts! (even with tweaking using Karabiner etc.)

First, the ergonomics of ctrl (left pinky stretch) + any letter vs command (left thumb inversion) are night and day. ctrl for the win.

Second - windows is so much more consistent for what the ctrl key does vs the super (windows) does. ctrl is almost always the modifier, Windows key is always OS level. Mac, it's all over the place.

Am I just still on the learning curve and cranky, or does this seem like a worse user experience to any other dual wielders?

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So, you trained your pinky for years, possibly decades, so that it became second nature to exert enough pressure on the control key even though that requires a “pinky stretch”, while letting your thumb atrophy by only using it to press the space bar, and now are surprised that it is easier for you to hit control than command?

Can you imagine that other people who did the reverse may have a different opinion?

I’m firm in the “on most keyboards, the control keys are way to far out to be useful” camp, and don’t see how bending a thumb a tiny bit to hit the command key can be less ergonomic than sending your pink out on an expedition.

Personally, I think it's the stretching a finger in the direction it's pointed towards vs. bending a finger that crosses under other fingers. I find the first to feel much more natural. Although I've been a Mac user for years now and have gotten used to the cmd key, ergonomically, I think ctrl makes more sense.

agreed, the fold under makes me use the side of my thumb on command which is much less natural or tactile than stretching my pinky to use the pad.

Looking at the N=1 of ‘me’, I 100% disagree. I can’t reach the control key without also moving my ring finger away from the home row (just checked a couple of different keyboards)

Command, on the other hand, is easy. It’s a one cm or so motion of the top of my thumb (whose natural resting position is at the edges of the space bar)

(I also think that, for the N=1 that’s ‘me’ “the stretching a finger in the direction it's pointed towards” is not a good description of reaching for the control key. With my fingers on the home row, the direction my little finger is pointed to is the Q. To reach the control key, I have to change that direction by about 30 degrees. I can’t easily reach it without also rotating my wrist and/or fold my little finger to hit it with my nail. For command, the ends of my thumbs rotate by about half that)

With my pinky on left control I can reach from A to K. With my thumb on command I can reach from A to J. With my pinky on command I can reach from A to L, though reaching A contorts my wrist in a way where doing that too much is gonna get me a real sore wrist real quick.

I've got to conclude that the reach between control and command are approximately the same, more than half the keyboard for me in any case at which point you should to switch using control or command on the right side of the keyboard, or using your other hand to press the second button.

Personally my biggest gripe with command over control is that a bunch of software still uses control on macos, giving a rather inconsistent user experience.

> Windows is so much more consistent for what the ctrl key does [...]

On Macs, Cmd is for GUI and Ctrl is for sending control sequences in a terminal, as originally intended by Unix.

As a Linux user, I found this separation fairly consistent and a good idea.

except that you still use command to copy and paste in the terminal

Clipboard is provided by the X server, so it's still consistent with the separation.

touché

I have to use Mac, Linux and Windows for work.

You need to either get used to using the opposite cmd key to the letters you are pressing or remap cmd to caps lock so you don't need to contort your thumb underneath your fingers. I learned this the painful way.

In the end I settled on using a Japanese HHKB keyboard with US layout keys for the symbols and a bit of on-device key remapping to find my ergonomic end-game that I can use on all platforms.

Do explore the key remapping in MacOS though, you can have it set up so you can copy, cut, paste etc with the ctrl key instead of the cmd key.

I definitely agree about the ergonomics. When I first switched over to mac, it was so hard to adjust to the position of command key, especially for copy and pasting. For windows, I was able to copy and paste without moving my entire left hand down. Meanwhile for the command key, I have to move my hand downwards to reach the key. Although it's not that big of a movement, it definitely took me some time to adjust.

agreed, I'm almost to muscle memory with it so it's not the "i have to think about it" annoyance, it's that my whole hand has to move to make it work... noticeably slower than my windows workflows..

It is very easy to switch the keys using in Mac OS options. You can have them exactly as it is in Windows / Linux. I'm currently on Windows but please let me know if you won't be able to find it -- I will tell you exactly where it is, once I log to my Mac. That option is right there in the GUI but very few people know about it.

What I can't get used to is no mouse button paste in either MacOS or Windows. The X11 all-mouse copy-n-paste is so much more efficient.

Here’s one weird trick that will break the Internet.

In macOS, if you highlight text, you can then paste it using Shift + Command + “v”.

Kind of like X Windows middle button.

Is this copy/paste with highlight available globally or limited only to terminals?

I can do this with text highlighted in iterm. Highlighted text can be copied in other apps as well with Shift + Command + “v”. Or with terminal app, where the shortcut only works when used within terminal app itself.

Hmmm, seems like it is just within Terminal. It just so happens that is where I mostly use that functionality.

In other situations, often Command + Shift + ‘v’ is paste without formatting (which I wish was the default!).

Thank you for the insight! I'll try this!

I find the opposite. Use your thumb for the command key not your pinky finger.

My frustration is the function (fn) key placement. Just terrible.

but with the thumb on command, you have to contort your fingers to hit any of the alphabet keys.

Try Cmd-w (close), Cmd-X (Cut), Cmd-C (Copy), Cmd-V (Paste), Cmd-Z (Undo), Cmd-A (Select All), Cmd-Q (Quit) with your left thumb on Command and the left index on the other key. Try Cmd-P (Print), Cmd-, (Preferences) with your left thumb and a right finger. I'm using macOS and Windows since the 80s, Gnome and KDE later; I still think that Windows and Linux are generations away from macOS consistency and ergonomic...

Moreover: on macOS Cmd[-Option][-Shift][-Ctrl]-<key> is always about a menu item/command shortcut; [Option][-Shift][-Ctrl]-<key> is always about a glyph.

well [ctrl] + <down arrow, F4, F5> are used for window management by default

On a Mac keyboard, you have two Command and Option keys. That means you can combine your (left|right) thumb on the Command key and a (left|right) finger on another <key>. Moreover, you can naturally use Ctrl-<keys> as a Control-Character in a Terminal. Which is sometimes a pain on Windows.

I agree you still have to contort your hand but it is significantly less movement than using your pinky.

IMO you should remap your keys: https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/

Every system will not be 100% to your liking, so make it work for you.

I immediately had to get Karibiner to at least give me my home and end keys back on a external keyboard.

I've been to aggressively remapping that I don't then create a similar problem when using another machine I don't own but maybe I'll give in and go the more custom route

So, I don't remap keys anywhere. This is because I move between Linux, Windows, and Mac OS on both laptop and desktop and multiple external keyboards connected to montiors. No mapping actually obtains a sane behavior that is consistent across all platforms, terminal applications, and others. I've tried and it always ends up messing one of M- (meta key prefix) or control keys.

Cmd/Ctrl separation is the best thing what Mac invented IMO. It's hard for Windows/Linux to follow the key mapping from now

I've been mac-only for over a decade, and the first thing I do is swap CMD and CTRL. I could never get used to the default layout.

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