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Comment by jalk | Hacker News Reader

I have it the opposite way. Moving my right hand from the keyboard to the mouse doesn’t save me time - so as with most things: YMMV

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Having mouse paste as an option doesn’t remove the fact that keyboard paste is also an option, so that’s really immaterial to the topic.

Are you sure? Have you actually timed this, or are you just using your subjective impression of time.

In Human factors engineering we have known for decades that some things that seem faster are really slower when you time it. We are taught early to never trust what someone says about time, always find an objective way to measure it.

It is why I (right-handed) was tфught by my first boss on first job in 2000s to use left hand for the mouse: secondary hand for secondary task (I'm not designer, artist or pro-gamer, so keyboard is primary tool).

Now I have a big problem with this: there is no good left-handed mouses on the market anymore, and symmetric mouses has right-handed buttons (and no thumb buttons like forward-backward or left-handed side). Buttons can be swapped in OS, but it messed up remote access like VNC or RDP to systems without swapped buttons... So, buttons must be swapped physically. No luck.

I would kill for a true ambi five-button mouse to replace my old Microsoft Intellimouse, but I've run into the same problem, they just don't seem to exist anymore. All five button mice on the market either have both buttons 4 and 5 on the left side for righties, or have a grotesquely unbalanced design in some other way.

> I would kill for a true ambi five-button mouse to replace my old Microsoft Intellimouse, but I've run into the same problem, they just don't seem to exist anymore.

I was going to say Steelseries Sensei but it looks like those have been discontinued.

not enough buttons maybe but these have a version called "L LEFT"

https://www.logitech.com/en-us/shop/p/m650-signature-wireles...

It has one problem: buttons not swapped physically! Yes, leftmost button is primary one (first), and rightmost is secondary (third).

I have this one and use it, with software swapping, but each time I login to remote computer via RDP I need to un-swap in settings again and then back :-(

It is striking, that Logitech forgot how to make proper left-handed mouse. Their older models (discontinued for long time) were perfectly Ok!

Also, it very small for my hand. But better than nothing.

Fwiw this is how cars work when you change to a country that drives on the other side of the road. It seems like mirroring the car would make sense. But really everything is shifted to the opposite side as a translation without reflection. It's easier to manufacture, but as many of you will know and is apparent to all rental agencies, adapting doesn't take long for the average driver, even on manual transmission.

There is one good lefty (not symmetrical) mouse now: 3D Connexion CadMouse Pro Wireless Left, but it costs 144€ in Europe (with VAT). Madness.

My trouble is I really do want an ambi mouse, not a lefty mouse, since I like to switch back and forth (and always game right-handed.) Maybe I should just get one of each..

I could live with (rather big) ambi mouse. But typically ambi mouses are very budget ones :(

Looks like Steelserise Sensei Ten is ambi, symmetrical, with two additional buttons on each side. But not on a cheap side. If you can find one. It is still present on site, but I cannot find places which sell it.

Most of the useful keyboard shortcuts are chordable from the left hand. Left mouse is inconvenient for that. I'm lefty and stuck using left mouse periodically due to injuries and I don't love it but it's tolerable. For the mouse situation I just stick to symmetric 3-button mice and never swap buttons so I can change hands or have a coworker use the mouse uninterrupted.

I also mouse left-handed, but it never occurred to me to swap the buttons from the right-handed configuration. It's always been a practical thing. The only mice I'm likely to have within reach at any point are probably right-handed, so I just had to learn that way. Left click with middle finger, right click with index.

Well, I usually use the mouse to select text. And then I usually use the mouse to put the cursor precisely where I need to paste. So even in a Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V workflow, I'm using the mouse as much.

If you're using something like vim or emacs then yeah I would agree with you but for something like docker commands, there's just no easy way to copy a specific container ID without using the mouse (if there is let me know lol).

My logic is if your hand is already on the mouse, it's going to be faster to paste with a mouse than your keyboard.

> for something like docker commands, there's just no easy way to copy a specific container ID without using the mouse

Some terminals have a mode where you can move the cursor around the history, and allow searching / copying / pasting. Alacritty and tmux come to mind, others may also implement something similar.

It’s still annoying to move. The only way it’s practical is if you can store a regex to match container ids or whatever, and quickly fetch it

I do something that, but just parse the output of `docker ps` or whatever. Since each line has the same format it's very straightforward.

oh heh I do

    docker ps -a | grep image_name_or_whatever | awk1 | pbcopy (or xclip on linux)

(awk1 is an alias for awk "{print $1}" and I just have awk1-10 or whatever)

to grab the container id and put it on the clipboard

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