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Comment by keyle | Hacker News Reader

I wasn't aware of the Ultimate Hacking Keyboard. Thanks for broadening my horizon and probably robbing me of some savings.

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I have a brand new one I can sell you for less of your savings, if you're interested! I was an early backer but I tried it for about an hour before I realized the lack of F-keys and the lack of Esc were just unacceptable for me.

Oh whow. Thanks for pointing that out. I am so confused, "Ultimate hacking keyboard" implies for me that you're a hardcore vim user. How can this have been developed without an ESC key?

You get the "key cluster" module and put it under your left thumb, as is common in other split keyboards.

How many 'hardcore vim users' use the actual physical Esc key for that (back to normal) purpose anyway? It's so awkwardly positioned I thought that was often among one's first bindings.

(I don't have a UHK and though I looked before I don't think it's for me, just saying.)

As a “hardcore vim user” I need it pretty regularly on fresh servers for example

I started using ^[ years ago and haven't touched Esc since.

Caps lock is a common one for example, and would require an OS-level binding, so remote use fresh or not would work fine, it'd see the same key code as 'real' Esc.

True, I have caps lock mapped to control. Even that gets me sometimes though on a fresh raspberry pi for example, if I’m plugging in a keyboard.

I use capslock for super key but this one has some "mouse" button there, wasting prime real estate

Everything is reprogrammable using the UHK app (and it actually reprograms it on the firmware, so it's OS-agnostic). I had a special layout for Factorio for a while.

I have jkj mapped to escape

I might just be over-caffeinated, but I would accidentally chord that all the time. I am continually bouncing up and down text when I am noodling on an idea.

In that scenario you’d already be in normal mode, no? It’s likely OP’s mapping is only for editing modes.

escape is mapped to thumb-hold + tilde. Your hand already opens up to push esc, so it's not even an inconvenience in my workflow.

The function keys are a bit more of a pain, but once again it's a thumb press + number (1->F1 etc). I'm more inconvenienced by eclipse and visual studio not having the same button for debug-step-over than actually pushing the thing.

The usual position of the esc key is terrible ergonomically for vim users, but then vim was not designed for the IBM model M keyboard.

I have the top left button without modifiers remapped to esc, it's no problem at all. All your muscle memory works just fine, no retraining needed (UHK since 2018/2019, on of the first batches, and Vim user since late 1990's).

Well, because Ultimate Hackers use emacs, doh

I'd miss FX keys too, I use them a lot in window manager desktop switching.

Hardcore vim user with UHK here. I actually love that the caps lock key is remapped to esc in the firmware, so I always have the Esc where I expect it on any computer I plug it in (this is not unique to UHK of course). In fact on the UHK, there is no "caps lock" key, it reads "mouse".

Hardcore vim users use ctrl-[ instead. : )

Despite being two keypresses, this is usually faster to type, or at the least to return to home position from, and those keys are probably more consistently placed than the ESC key between vendors / models.

If you use "home row modifiers" (holding down f/d/s/a or j/k/l/; acts as Shift/Ctrl/Win/Alt), then it's less reaching for ctrl.

Although I'd also recommend making Esc available on a thumb cluster.

This feels messier, partly because it's easier to fudge accidentally, but very much mostly because it relies on your configuration being propagated. I understand that may work in some shops, but generally it can't be assumed.

ctrl [ works everywhere vim is installed - no customisation required at all.

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