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Am I the only one that thinks we should have dedicated buttons for copy/paste on keyboards? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 2 months ago by AstralPath@lemmy.ca to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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I was just reading this thread... https://sh.itjust.works/post/23476261

...and it got me thinking about something that I've wanted for a long time. Why is it that keyboards have not evolved to have dedicated copy/paste keys left of the main board? I'd love to see an additional column of keys left of Esc->Ctrl configurable as macros at least. I do a lot of copy/paste for work. The current shortcuts arent terrible or anything but they're not exactly comfortable. I'd rather move my whole hand to the left for a macro key than contort to hit the current shortcut.

What do you think?

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[-] x00z@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

Just buy this

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[-] datavoid@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 months ago

When I started my current job, I thought I was getting a repetitive stress injury from the hundreds of copy pastes I was making daily. Eventually I got used to it, but my hand still hurts occasionally.

I am 100% behind the idea of dedicated buttons!

[-] beeng@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 2 months ago

Look into autohotkey or a mouse with extra buttons you can map to these functions.

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[-] orcrist@lemm.ee 6 points 2 months ago

I think that everyone who really wants that will spend a half an hour learning how to remap keys.

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[-] Binette@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 months ago

One of my computers has a clipboard key that's for pasting.

Except I'm totally used to ctrl-C ctrl-V, so I never use it.

[-] umbraroze@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

(Adapted from XKCD)

There are 5 zillion hotkeys.

"5 zillion hotkeys? Ridiculous! We should add dedicated buttons for common operations."

There are now 5 zillion hotkeys and "media buttons" nobody uses.

...

Seriously though, a lot of old keyboards in ye olde computers had dedicated buttons for a lot of things, but then people figured out software defined, remappable key commands are actually pretty neat. You don't need a dedicated "Help" key if it's usually mapped to F1. Moving back to dedicated keys is, ummm, sometimes unwarranted?

[-] HipsterTenZero@dormi.zone 4 points 2 months ago

Mm, I wouldn't hate it. It could take the place of the scroll lock and pause break buttons on my keyboard, two keys i've literally never used.

[-] Toes@ani.social 4 points 2 months ago

Back in the day there were 12 more keys that could be bound to that but they decided to get rid of them.

[-] sanguinepar@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

I can see the benefit, although personally I'm too attuned to ctrl+c,v,z,x

A key I'd really like to see on computer keyboards is a shift key that behaves the same as on a phone, toggling between lowercase, Title Case, and UPPERCASE.

It'd be so useful to be able to select text you've already typed and change the format. Phones have done it for years, why not computers? Could be a much better use for the Caps Lock key.

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[-] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 months ago

Logitech G910 has a bunch of extra keys that you can create macros for and on mine I've got three of them set just for that

[-] victorz@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

I'm pretty happy working as a developer where I can choose my own editor. (Neo)Vim, Kakoune, now Helix, they all just have one single key used for copying (/"yanking") text to a register: y, and it's bloody fast. I can't even use VS Code without a Vim or Helix or Kakoune emulator extension. But of course I prefer to use the faster, pure terminal applications.

To be honest I'm not really that great with Vim actions anymore. Even if I was using it for about a decade. The Kakoune and Helix model just made too much sense.

[-] Beryl@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

It's true they would probably be more useful to the average keyboard user than say the scroll lock key, or the fucking copilot key. But to be really useful, they would have to be easily accessible without moving you bands, or else it'd just be faster to use a shortcut. Keyboards with macro keys do exist so maybe get one and map them to CTRL+C/V

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this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2024

229 points (85.0% liked)

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