Am I the only one that thinks we should have dedicated buttons for copy/paste on keyboards?
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?
CTRL-C / CTRL-V too much? ;)
Right???
It's a bit awkward to do a basic action
Is this a joke? It's so easy. What would be better?
Not everyone has the same hands.
Well sure, some people have no hands and need a completely different way to input keys. But I figure we weren't talking about the exception, and you didn't actually answer the follow-up question.
Not exactly. Its just awkward for a bunch of repetitions, especially on MacOS keyboards. CMD+C/V is even worse on those.
Honestly I LOVE being able to have Ctrl and Cmd be different modifiers.
Ctrl-C is break, Cmd-C is copy. And so on. All the Unixy stuff respects Ctrl and ignores Cmd and vice versa for the Mac stuff. Honestly it’s the best keyboard setup I have experienced and the only one which never manages to irritate me.
(Personally I am fine without a dedicated copy/paste key; the only ones I like having dedicated keys for are things like volume up/down for which I’m not aware of a universally understood key combination for)
Here here. Whenever I work on a Linux machine, I really miss having a separate command button for all of the commandline stuff. I keep missing it and have ti remember to hit Ctrl instead.
I kind of agree with all this, except I find it super annoying switching between OSes and always having to recalibrate to command/control being the standard modifier.
MY PEOPLE! I’m so used to the CMD key that I made this shitty AutoHotkey script that makes things mostly work the same in Windows. It’s glitchy and imperfect, but it’s better than changing my muscle memory.
If anyone has any recommendations to improve the situation (besides recommending that I switch OSes), then I’m all ears.
Personally since I use touch typing being able to hit ctrl-c,v without looking works best for me. Anything else would require me to shift my hands too far away from the “home row” and slow me down.
As opposed to taste typing??
Some people never learned touch typing.
Never heard it called touch typing before... Always just "typing"
Before millennials, touch typing was a specialized skill on your resume, since “typing” would include hunt and peck, which itself is still fairly common among earlier generations.
I'm a millennial and I learned touch typing on a typewriter in school, specifically for my resume.
Wow, that did not feel great to say.
I’m a bit younger but remember typewriters being around. Did your school have the old non-electric kind or the kind with a plastic box? The electric ones were nice because the keys were easier to press and they could buffer the input to avoid jams. The really nice ones let you type a full line on a digital display before printing.
99% sure it was a plastic box, but this would be like 400 years ago, so I can't recall exactly, haha. I definitely don't remember ours having the digital display. We actually went straight to computers the next year, which obviously was much nicer.
Are you an older millennial? I'm a younger millennial and I've never even so much as seen a typewriter in person let alone typed on one. We were taught to type in school though on computers.
First, fuck you, hahahha, second, yes. Born in 1981, which AFAIK is the literal dividing year between Gen-X/Millennial.
Ah yeah ok haha. The generation divides are only so accurate as to life experiences!!
With 35 years of computer experience I can say that anything except Ctrl+Insert/Shift+Insert is worse.
By that I mean, we all need to adjust our brain to be fluent on which ever ecosystem we are currently logged on to, and become native users of key combos on all we use. I have used MacOS daily since 2004, and linux, Windows and DOS all longer than that. It takes practice, a lot of practice, but in the end I don’t even realize I sometimes use Ctrl+c, other times Cmd+c, and yet again Ctrl+Shift+c. It all comes naturally, by some miracle my brain knows which one to use. Granted, the DOS one I use so rarely these days I need a double take on the Ctrl+Insert. Last time was still around 6 hours ago today.
I guess what I’m saying is keep doing it, you’ll get there.
To paste in Linux:
Ctrl + shift + vin terminal.Ctrl + uin nano but nano doesn't use the same copy buffer but you can also useCtrl + shift + vbut only to paste something copied from outside nano.To paste in vi(m)
:?!&///<¥₱!Pretty much everywhere else, eg file manager, any GUI, browsers, etc. is
Ctrl +vI also just love that it is beyond simple to create any key combo shortcut for absolutely anything on Linux.
Make that menu key work for the real estate it occupies.
In some terminals. urxvt for example just uses the selection buffer. And either is reasonable, because
Ctrl + Cto send sigterm predatesCtrl + Cto copy.Some terminals use weird combinations like Shift + Insert, which is ridiculous, because it requires me to take my right hand off the mouse to hit the insert key
Wut? Is this a joke that it's difficult to paste in Vim? Because it's literally just
p.You do need to be in command mode, so alright, there is some complexity there, but you won't get much closer to just a single key, as OP wants.
You can just move the modifier keys around. I have Caps Lock as Ctrl and Ctrl as CMD.
I use caps lock a lot for stuff, so that probably wouldn’t work well for me, but I’m glad you found a solution that works for you
I also have Caps Lock als Ctrl, but I leave Cmd where it is by default, and I just disable the Ctrl key.
I find cmd c so much easier that ctrl c. I can hit it with just my thumb. cmd V is basically the same as ctrl C/V
The Control key is just badly placed on present-day PC keyboards. I swap Caps Lock and Control.
On Windows, it was always farthest left button + C.
Mac, it's the Apple button + C.
Ive changed that because I hate it. You can change your hotkeys to fit your needs, as well as create macros that trigger events.
Having grown up on chiclet Mac keyboards, you should try a mechanical keyboard. It's such a much better experience
Your first mistake is using apple products
Can't help it when your job supplies it to you.
I've got Graphene on my phone and Fedora on my desktop.
We do. ctrl+c / ctrl+v
Most people would use dedicated single copy/paste buttons more than page-up/down or home/end.
I 100% agree with what you are saying. Not to be contrary, but just because it amuses me, I use page up/down and home/end all the time. You're still right.
No and yes. If the copy and paste buttons would be at the position of page-up/down, I think many people would still use Ctrl+C because it is quickerto reach.
If the keys would be at easily reachable positions, then sure.
Home and End are useful and I can still see a use case for PageUp/PageDown. But I'm pretty sure I've never pressed the Scroll Lock or Pause/Break button even once. I don't think Pause/Break actually does anything anymore and I don't know what scroll lock does but I've never needed it.
It disables scrolling. I'm sure there's a use case but mostly it's annoying. I don't think every program/OS respects it anymore either.
Personally I prefer chording with the arrow keys for home/end pageup/down. One of the actually useful things about condensed laptop keyboards with the Fn key. Fn+Arrow.
Win+Pause/Break opens properties of your PC (on Windows obviously).
I don't even think about those keys
When you want to select a section in a long document or webpage without dragging the mouse and waiting for animations you hold click from where you want the start point to be and page up/down.
When you are trying to select multiple icons from a file browser using your keyboard, shift + arrows gives you item by item, shift + page up/down gives you pages of them.
When you are in a long document or webpage and are trying to scan the text for something and use your mouse to do something on the page, page up/down is often faster than the scroll bar and your mouse if free for pointing and selecting.
Page up/down works as previous/next in many media applications.
When you write text, see that you made a mistake in the middle of the sentence, correct it and then hit home or end to jump to the beginning/end of the sentence in one action.
When you want to select text pressing shift + left/right selects letter by letter, shift + ctrl + left/right selects a word, then shift + home/end selects the line.
In a browser home/end will bring you to the beginning/end of a page. Especially useful for long pages. In a text editor it does the same by adding ctrl to the mix.
Games and specialized software like 3d and cad use these keys all the time for all kinds of functionality.
They may not be the most glamorous keys, but they are very useful in many situations.
Well, they don't think about you either.
But... That's on the right side of the keyboard. I guarantee it's faster to press Ctrl-C/V since my left hand is already there than it would be to move it or my mouse hand to Home/End.
But I realize there are left-handed people and other use-cases...
Oh man, you were born too late for the wild 90s era of experimental keyboards
While it doesn't have a copy and paste key, my omnikey ultra is certainly wacky.
You mis-spelled "clacky"
I was young, but definitely using computers in the 90's. I remember some wacky stuff.
I disagree. [Modifier] + C & [mod] + V works just as good as a dedicated button and you are using the space more efficiently by having multiple uses for one key.
Keyboard already has a lot of buttons. We should be considering which to remove, not any additions
I don't think we need to remove anything. I mean if you really want a smaller keyboard that badly you could get one of the ones that removes the number pad.
But as someone who was a cashier long ago before GS1 codes on produce, we got fast at 10-key typing by touch. The thought of doing a spreadsheet or extended number-work without the number pad is unthinkable to me...
I support the number pad as well. I type in numbers into spreadsheets often enough that it's useful for me.
If we were to delete, I'd say get rid of the F1 keys, get rid of Home / End, get rid of Num lock, etc.
Meh, Ctrl+C Ctrl+V works well.
What I really would like is a Compose key.
The concept is brilliant, you use it with a special key combination to "draw" a special character or symbol.
If you wanted to type a copyright symbol you would hold the Compose key and press O and C in order, then release the compose key.
Here is a list of a few characters with their compose key combinations, every combo is pressed in order while holding the compose key.
To get the letter Ä use " and A
To get the letter Å use o and A
To get the letter Ö use " and O
To get the letter Æ use A and E
To get the symbol ¿ use ? and ?
To get the symbol ¡ use ! and !
To get the symbol ® use O and R
To get the symbol ™ use T and M
To get the symbol € use C and =
To get the symbol £ use L and -
There are plenty more combinations....
I have never used a computer with a compose key, but I love the concept of drawing other characters like this.
Yes! 100% this. The closest thing I've seen is Quick Accent in Power Toys for Windows. But something like what you've described is what I've always wanted.
I also thought about mapping this to Auto Hotkey, but didn't bother after finding Quick Accent.
Other than already working like that for accents in spanish keyboards, what is with the euro combination??? C + =?? What kind of unhinged British person are you, not to think it would be like the pound, E + - ??
To be fair, you can use E= to get a euro symbol as well, I just found that C= demonstrated the whole drawing characters from other characters very well.
As for the L- for £ that came from a different page titled "Compose Key Sequences" at a personal website, but when I look at the main page of the site it seems like mostly refer to HTML, with little explanation.
The Swedish keyboard works the same as the Spannish kayboard with regards to accent modifiers.
Fun fact, at one of my earlier jobs we aquired several international offices and didn't have any corporate laptops with a Spannish keyboard, so I was asked to modify a laptop and make a spannish keyboard using Dymotape.
It worked well enough, but we never ended up using the concept.
At the same job, I got to type on the following keyboard layouts:
Swedish/Finnish
Danish
Norwegian
UK
US
German
French
Turkish
Japanese
Dutch
Spannish
I am probably forgetting one, it was almost ten years ago...
Most linux distros allow you to set a compose key through a gui. For Windows there's (or at least was) WinCompose. I know fuck all about MacOS, so I can't help you there.
On windows at least, that sort of already exists. You can hold down Alt and use 3 numpad numbers to "compose" any ASCII character you like. It's fun!
I do know about that, but that is just picking a number from a list, the clever part of a compose key is that you can sort of figure it out on your own; if you are on a US keyboard and need to type the letter/word "Å" it makes sense to try with compose+Ao but when that didn't work you tried compose+oA and got it.
No need to look it up in a big table.
Yes, finally someone else who appretiates compose key!
I use Linux, so I remap it on every PC I use, when I have right context key, I remap that, otherwise I remap right Ctrl to compose.
It's so good, specially for using US keymap to write in other european languages. At first it takes a bit, then it's second nature.
Come to the vim side, we have
yfor copy (yank) andpfor paste. We even havedfor cutWtf is vim
I'm laughing way too hard at this thank you
The best text editor in the world. With the best training manual.
https://vim-adventures.com/
Timmy, no
terminal text editor
mcedit over vi(m)
It's v. But improved. Vim.
Not to be that guy, but on Linux if you highlight text you have already copied it to a different clipboard than the CTRL-C/V one, and can paste it by a middle click. This has been the default in Linux since before I used it (I'm 17 years in with Linux), but CTRL-C/V are so in my head that I usually forget to do it.
I was told that this would go away with Wayland, but I just tested it in a Plasma6 Wayland session and it clearly has not gone away.
cool trick, works for me. Thanks for sharing
Any time!
I think that's because KDE has just reimplemented it to work on Wayland, but it's not there by default. This is a feature of X.
Hey, I'm also 17 years in, with Linux! I started with, I believe, Ubuntu 7.04 or 7.10, Feisty Fawn or Gutsy Gibbon, I can't remember which.
Which was your first distro?
I had been trying it for awhile off and on, but told myself I'd jump in with two feet when I could get wifi working with no troubleshooting. As you know wifi was rough back then sometimes, and I had absolutely no capability to troubleshoot linux. But I figured as long as I had reliable wifi, everything else was just a google away. Oddly, that was not Ubuntu (I probably also tried 7.04 - I expected Ubuntu to be what did it) - it was a now defunct slackware based distro called Zenwalk.
There needs to be a cool word for people who started with Linux in the same year lol. 🙂
Cool stuff!
Seems to me like it's a very much alive project still?
Yeah! How about:
This was hard...
It looked dead to me, but the domain still works etc so maybe I'm wrong. Last blog post looks to be a year old FWIW.
I think I like Linwins, despite the unintentional Windows reference there. 😁
You came up with better ones than I would have though. :)
😄 I personally like Linlings, I think... Anyway, thanks for sharing!
The thing with Wayland is that it's not anymore built into the display server itself, like it was with X.org. So, this works on Plasma, because KDE implemented it themselves. On other Wayland compositors, this may not get implemented.
But yeah, we'll have to see. If there's a way to make it work for all wlroots-based compositors, that would give it pretty wide support, again.
no, never. 34 keys is all you ever need
Could you screenshot this again but showing what each key maps too?
Christian Seleg (not sure if spelt correctly, but the Apollo for Reddit dev) has a recent video on his channel about making a keyboard very similar to this shape and it looked really cool but again couldn’t quite understand what key each is.
I configured it using ZMK, it's a firmware for wireless keyboards. The keyboard is "wireless", I'm just using USB cables for power while I'm waiting for the batteries to arrive. The keyboard you saw might be the Ferris Sweep, which mine is based on. Well, based on is probably the wrong word, I copied the layout, rotated the pinkies a bit and did the PCB myself using Ergogen and Kicad.
This is my default layer:
I use the Colemak mod DH matrix layout. Colemak is a common alternative key layout, mod DH is a certain modified version of it, and matrix means that the keys aren't row staggered. You can also see that some keys have some more stuff on them, those are homerow mods (red) and dual function layer keys (blue). Homerow mods is the name for a common practice on small keyboards where you place modifier keys in the homerow along with the normal keys. Holding them turns them into the modifier and pressing them is just the normal key.
Holding A or O is like holding CTRL R or I is ALT S or E is Shift T or N is the Windows key The keyboard is split so they're mirrored on the two sides (also useful for when you want to do CTRL+A for example)
The layer shifts function similarly, pressing them results in the normal key (tab, space, enter) and holding them shifts me to a different layer (layer 7, layer 1 (its 0 indexed), and layer 2). Layer 7 has function keys, layer 1 is for navigation and layer 2 has my symbols.
layer 1:
(here you can see that I technically have a "numpad", just that it's always directly under my hand instead of off to the side
layer 2:
layer 7:
I have 11 layers in total, but the other 7 are just special layers for games. I use this keyboard for everything, including programming and gaming without any issues.
edit: not sure why people downvoted you, it's an awesome question and I'm glad you gave me an excuse to spam you all with info about my keyboard. Also, Ben Vallack got me into all of this, he kinda inspired this layout. He has some AWESOME videos about keyboards like this, look him up if you're interested! You don't have to go as far as I did.
Mechanical keyboards like this are often fully programmable. I have a ZSA Moonlander and routinely modify the function of each and every key. Everyone’s workflow is a little different, for example I have a
Del Wordkey which deletes entire words, but is really a macro of the OS key + Backspace.Thanks.
Surely you don’t change A-Z though? That seems like it would be unworkable.
Also, never knew OS Key + Backspace would delete a word. Thanks for sharing.
It’s totally workable, there’s significant movements to get away from the QWERTY layout and at least several alternative keyboard layouts. Personally I got on board with Colemak-DH; there’s also Dvorak, AZERTY, Workman, and so on.
Learning a new layout comes at a short term price if all you’ve ever used is QWERTY, but there are long-term gains to reductions of RSI, and typing comfort.
The OS key differs between OSs. Macs are Command+Backspace and I believe windows is Ctrl+Backspace.
Very hard to imagine after 30 years of qwerty muscle memory. Not sure I could change even if I tried.
It’s definitely a challenge. Colemak has a progression called Tarmak which transitions you to Colemak by changing only a few letters at a time. I did it over the course of about a month.
You can make them what you want. Also with layers , much like the shift layer, but now you can have 4 shift layers if you want.
Thanks. I guess there is an optimal setting for A-Z is why I was asking for OPs setup.
Not sure why I took a downvote tbh for asking a question.
Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V have been so burned into my muscle memory, relearning to use just a single dedicated button might actually be more trouble for me than just using the standard hotkeys.
That's the first thing i learned using computers, and not something i'll ever forget.
I wish Ctrl + C wasn't the break command in Linux so I could map copy to that. It's harder to presa Ctrl + Shift + C
Maybe if you weren’t so floppy about it
I tried binding them to my MMO mouse keys once, and immediately removed them when I imagined how easy it would be to accidentally copy and paste something unwanted into a PowerPoint presentation. WFH and all that, you know. It’s good that it takes a tiny bit of intention.
I mainly used irssi via ssh to connect to IRC back in the day. And one side effect of right clicking in the putty window is that it automatically pastes. And if whatever you paste contains a newline, it gets submitted to whatever channel or person you have focused.
I accidentally pasted a nsfw link in a Teams reply to my boss. I didn't send it, but that was a closer-call than I'm comfortable with.
That's why I got a mouse with extra buttons on the side, so I can just copy and paste using my thumb.
Having keys to the left of ctrl is a fucking mess! Ine of my kids have a gaming keyboard with a extra column of keys there and it is a pain to use.
What should happen, is move capslock to the locks row on the tip right side. And give us a new meta key there instead! That would be a win-win
i rebind caps lock to control on all my machines.
it's much easier to hit comfortably in that location making it a better meta key, usually stupidly big on most keyboards making it even better, and i literally never need caps lock, ever.
Yes same, been doing that for 2 decades. About time keybords learned that.
it's where CTRL was originally!
https://deskthority.net/wiki/File:IBM_XT_top.JPG early IBM as an example
why they gave such valuable real estate to caps lock of all keys i will never understand
You mean like on a Sun type 4 keyboard, they had this since the early 90’s at least.
If you want this, you can try to find a Sun type 7 keyboard which has a USB connector. You should be able to get it to work on Windows with a bit of remapping of the extra keys.
It's glorious! Found my next keyboard, thanks 👍
You can also do this on any keyboard compatible with QMK firmware.
I generally think that chording is superior to single button presses, which is what is normally done, but if you want a single button, you can either set up some existing button on your keyboard that you don't use to do that or, if you want to keep those, you can get a macro pad, and set one of its buttons up for that.
https://www.amazon.com/macro-pad/s?k=macro+pad
EDIT: Apparently there are some macro pad manufacturers that cater to specifically your ask. Examples:
https://www.amazon.com/BTXETUEL-Select-All-Shortcut-Mechanical-Programmable/dp/B0BW135TW5
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09PKJMK6L
Have you tried the shortcuts for the other side of the keyboard
Ctrl + insert = copy
Shift + insert = paste
Shift + delete = cut
I find them much easier to use than the traditional shortcuts.
Man, if I had to shit every time I wanted to cut something I would have to do all of my programming on the toilet and not just some of it.
Where do you shit?
On the delete key!
Cut
This is cursed af but I can't explain why
Keyboards already have too many keys. Your fingers are extremely inefficient at certain distances so you should never even touch numpad with proper keyboard design. 10 fingers can combine a lot of keys.
Numpad is a MUST for doing quick calc, that top row of numbers always slows me way down.
Also, I need the full numpad in case I'm playing Arma 3, cuz I need to additional keymappings ;)
I have a mouse that happens to have two extra buttons off to the side and mapping those to 'copy' and 'paste' has been the best thing i've ever done for my productivity. Also mapping middle mouse button to 'screenshot to clipboard' but that's just a personal thing i happen to do a lot
Forward and Back is also nice to map on those buttons if you do a lot of web browsing or navigating through folders.
by default my computer interprets them as forward and back but i've got to be honest, it doesn't do it for me 😂
I use “forward” in my web browser about once a year
I have also been using wgestures which let me have gesture movements with mouse that serve "copy"/"paste" functions. Can't work without it
oh that's awesome!
If I was an evil peripheral manufacturer, I'd not only add keys to copy and paste, but I'd add them to the mouse too.
Then I'd have a small display in the keyboard that showed the last five things you copied, and let you select which one you'd paste.
That way users would get used to it, have to buy my gratuitously expensive peripherals with displays in them for no reason, and then not know how to use anything else.
Add monthly subscription fees just like Logitech is thinking of doing
Would you like to subscribe to PastePlusPro Premium?
Logitech's approach would be more like, please subscribe to our monthly service to use the copy paste buttons and history display
Got myself a cheap Chinese programmable foot switch with three switches that enables me to do exactly that without fucking up my normal layout. And it can be switched to other things depending on the application as well. Very useful.
No, it should be on the mouse.
Linux has its own weird implicit copy paste on the mouse - pressing the wheel pastes the last thing you selected.
It depends though - if you're copy pasting between programs, you're probably using your mouse already, so it's good that the buttons are there. But if you're writing or editing text, you probably have your hands on the keyboard, so you need the shortcut there as well.
I'm familiar with the primary buffer, yes.
I wish there was a dedicated hotkey combo that worked across all applications for paste plain text
on linux debian, it's ctrl+shift+v
Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + V is pretty much the norm. It works in everything I've used it in.
Thanks, it seems the support for it has improved since I previously gave up on it.
On mac it’s cmd-shift-v
Powertoys has a "paste as plain text" module that will allow the same keyboard shortcut across all of Windows
I don't know about that but I think we need two clipboards, standard. If we had the existing clipboard and a second with dedicated keys that would be very helpful.
I recently switched to Linux and I miss Win+V a lot. I keep pressing it expecting something to happen out of habit
I can do it on KDE!
Did you install something else? I'm using mint and I installed a clipboard manager but I haven't been able to bind it to win+v and also it doesn't work as well as the windows implementation
I think it's just a vanilla option, I have KDE on endeavorOS. It's not quite as smooth as the windows implementation but it's really nice to have
I only have windows at work. What does this do is it like a clipboard manager?
Yes, if you enable clipboard you can access it with that shortcut
in a hyprland config i used to use win+v had a clipboard history thing pop up wherever your cursor was
I love how the clipboard works on Android. It has a whole history you can copy a bunch of things and then select which instance you want to paste. I want that in Windows.
You can do that in Windows and on some Linux distro, at least on KDE. It might be a setting you have to turn on. Hit windows key + v to choose what to paste
That's been implemented many times on the Mac and Windows and Linux. It's generally referred to as a "clipboard manager", if you want a search term.
I'd also add that emacs has its own (more sophisticated) system, the "kill ring", and I'm sure that vi has an analog of some sort.
Linux has sort of two clipboards. There's the normal Ctrl-c/Ctrl-v one and also if you highlight a text you can paste that text using middle mouse button.
Yes! I use those all the time. It needs to be standard.
I do.
If you're using Linux, you can do this easily with custom key bindings.
is Ctrl c and Ctrl v too hard for OP? it's damn near universal with no extra effort to setup...
There are some work that requires me to copy and paste a lot of times, after a while, it kind of strains the fingers a bit.
autohotkey
point is, this already exists, no reason to add special keys when there are already work arounds for people that want it different.
Doesn't work in Linux consoles.
nearly every console requires including SHIFT if it doesn't work like normal, even truenas shell. add that to your toolkit, will be good.
CTRL + SHIFT + V also gives you paste options and paste without formatting, so it's already superior.
Yes, it's weird, but maybe he does a lot. For example, I use the superkey+space to change the keyboard layout about five times per minute, but I changed it to use the Caps Lock key to change the keyboard layout instead.
On linux middle mouse is traditionally paste, with just selecting text being copy.
This is one of the greatest features ever. I constantly use it. I always get screwed up if I end up on a windows system and select text and wonder why I can't paste it with a click.
AutoHotKey on Windows is very good also.
That button's name... Middle Mouse.
Middle mouse click is so much more useful as the navigation tool that it is. Using it for something completely unrelated like pasting is degeneracy.
Actually, any text manipulation assigned to the mouse is completely ignoring the functionality of the 2 normal input devices on a normal computer.
You're missing the point, in Linux middle mouse button works for the navigation that you're mentioning, and additionally it pastes the text you have selected (not the one you have copied, so realistically you can "copy/paste" two things at once). So you don't lose anything, you just gain functionality.
You lose the auto-scroll button, which I use all the time and it only makes sense to be on the scroll wheel. I dispise what Linux does to this button. 🤷
What are you talking about? auto-scroll works the exact same way
You middle click in a web page and it gives you the scroll orb instead of pasting text in the selected text box? Last time I checked that was not default behaviour, but possible with configuration.
Yes, all you have to do is not click on a text input area. It's not the default behavior anywhere because the feature is disabled by default on most browsers (even on Windows) but enabling the auto-scroll feature on the browser makes it work exactly as you would expect, i.e. middle-click on a text area inputs the text, and on the majority of the page it gives you the scroll orb.
Auto-scroll by middle click is not disabled by default in windows and never was. Not in browsers, not I'm PDF apps, not in file explorers, not in word processors. If this were a disabled by default feature no one would use it. It's in linux that you have to muck about with configuration to get it back to normal, which is using a navigation button on your pointing device to work for navigation instead of text manipulation. You shouldn't have to configure something to make it make sense.
Ok, I was wrong, for some reason browsers have a different default for that setting depending on OS, for example Firefox docs:
https://kb.mozillazine.org/About:config_entries
In any case this is not a Linux problem, for some reason Mozilla (and probably Google as well) decided to use a different default depending on OS, so if you want the other behavior you need to change it, it has nothing to do with Linux, tomorrow Mozilla could decide to invert this setting, and it wouldn't be a Windows problem that the default is off.
Which is different from the middle-mouse paste which is a feature of X window manager, therefore one could make the argument that it is a Linux feature.
It's a Linux problem in the sense that like you say, the X window manager hijacked the middle mouse button for a different functionality way back in the day and the browser developers, and others as well, just respect that decision by default, even if it never made any sense. Many people are now used to it and prefer it like this so there was always resistance to changing it to how windows does it and just drop the whole mouse wheel does text manipulation thing.
If and until that changes to the sensible way, at least people like me have the configurations to fix it so I guess it could be worse.
There's no dropping the text manipulation thing, the setting on Firefox is completely under Firefox developers control, and has nothing to do with what the button does somewhere else. That's like saying it's a Windows problem that a shortcut is different by default on a given program, complain to Firefox devs if you think the default should be enabled.
Also you're making a huge deal out of something that's two clicks away, middle mouse button works as a navigation tool on Linux just like it does on Windows, additionally it provides extra features under some circumstances.
So to recap:
Honestly it's always the same, people claim Linux has a problem whenever a third party program does something. Linux is not perfect, but I have never seen anyone who doesn't use it actually list any of those problems, they always point at third party software as proof that Linux is bad.
Highlight text to auto-copy, middle-mouse to paste.
Smooth, fast and always accessible.
I'm sure there are newer ways to configure the mouse too.
Auto copy is a privacy concern and paste can be anything else but the middle mouse button, because it takes away the auto-scroll functionality which only makes sense to be on the wheel that deals with scrolling.
I guarantee I can hit ctrl-c faster than I can move my hand to a different part of the keyboard.
I think that everyone who really wants that will spend a half an hour learning how to remap keys.
True. My caps lock is already my mute button. Now I'm going to figure out which keys to remap as copy/paste cause that's an awesome idea
Nice. Also because it has a little light that's now on whan you mute things.
Exactly, and really, you can just hold shift with your pinkie if you need caps
My caps lock is ctrl and, in vim insert mode, my tab is escape
Just buy this
Not so subtle dig, but I'll allow it. 😉
At some point, the populace felt keyboard shortcuts were enough and they have everything else they need on a keyboard. It's the standard, other keyboard designs didn't really quite take off, and most people can barely use a full-sized keyboard anyway.
Some people prefer smaller keyboards, and are willing (and wanting) to have more shortcuts and function layers for ergonomic and desk space reasons.
(If you use a 40% or smaller keyboard, you're weird, and I love/hate you.)
Some other people use so many shortcuts that it becomes so infeasible to remember or press them all, so they get macro pads, or even entire additional keyboards to function as macro pads.
In the Before Time, there were physical keyboard overlays for specific apps. For example Wordperfect had an overlay that showed it's keyboard functions.
I really like the idea of the stream deck to have application specific shortcuts readily accessible with less memorization. I just can't convince myself it's worth $150 when I'd probably have to spend a bunch of time setting it up to be useful.
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!
Look into autohotkey or a mouse with extra buttons you can map to these functions.
I highly recommend mice with additional programmable keys, speech recognition, and programmable foot pedals. I use all three at work and they're great for splitting the workload across different body parts.
Mouse? The thing that sat on a pad next to a box of floppy disks?
That's the one. We actually still use floppy disks in my industry.
Is it "Emacs pinky" possibly? Emacs is an editor with hotkeys for just about everything and a lot are based on CTRL.
I've gotten used to using an Emacs layout and eventually my pinky started to ache too bad so I remapped caps lock to be control and everything is much more comfortable now.
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.
(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?
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.
I like the mnemonics of c (copy), v (get in there), x (snip-snip), and z (bad idea) as much as I like the similar ones for bold and italics.
Yeah, so I've just been discovering after googling to see if anyone had asked before. Shame there's no systemwide method though.
https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Case.html
Thanks, will check that out.
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
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.
Back in the day there were 12 more keys that could be bound to that but they decided to get rid of them.
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
I used to have a keyboard with dedicated copy and paste keys. Never used them.
Now that you've said it, it does seem like an obvious improvement.
Do them 100000 times and see how comfortable they feel
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.
If you have a QMK compatible keyboard you can do that.
I've seen a few that do that, actually. Like a media keyboard with buttons for music controls, there are some that have additional functions like copy, paste, cut, double space, double enter, etc.
My keyboard has a column of configurable macro keys. My last one had two columns. I use them soooo much I have literally never bothered to figure out how to set them up on this one.
What keyboard is it? I'm curious.
Corsair
K60K95Edit: it is the K95 not the K60, the K60 does not have the macro keys.
I got one of those 8BitDo retro keyboards a while ago, the one with the FamiCom color scheme, and it comes with these two giant "a" and "b" buttons that you can map to macros. You could set one of those to CTRL+C and the other to CTRL+V and just bop either button when you need either function.
The only thing stopping me from getting that specific keyboard is a backlight feature. My son likes to play games in dim light
I have a mouse with programmable (ish) keys and I have some buttons assigned to copy paste. I like it.
Some of us... Do.
Mech keyboard nerds are laughing in QMK...
Barring that, for Windows there's Auto-Hotkeys or MKLC (Win10)/Keyboard Manager (Win11). For Linux, I use Input Remapper for remapping mouse keys, but it works for keyboards too.
Seems like it would be more useful macro'd to extra mouse buttons.
Keyboard only people are plenty comfortable with frequent shortcuts.
Some keyboards have media keys for that. Some user environments also allow you to remap those keys to other functions.
Get a VIA or QMK customizable keeb and you can make any key into any key you want.
I think this is a good idea though it would have to be easier to press than the current hotkeys. I'd also love to have two different clipboards so I could have two things copied at once.
It could use hotkeys for that! Like
CPYorPSTwould be regular copy and paste, butCPY+1orCPY+2would copy to that clipboard, then you could usePST+2if you wanted.Try out Copyq
Oh interesting, thanks!
Nah, my keyboard has too many buttons as is
Well I’ve found Mac key commands a lot more ergonomic since I can use thumb and index finger instead of pinky. I still end up mashing control c all the time in my terminal, but anything centered around the command key is way nicer. That said, inside classic editors like vi/vim and emacs, there are completely different copy paste commands that don’t use modifiers.
I copy paste a lot, but it feels natural- I also have to paste with modifiers a lot for things like “paste and match style”, paste as quotation, etc… a dedicated button would probably complicate that. Final thought- unless you move an existing button out of the way, a dedicated button would be hard to reach, where as command/control c/v are directly under fingers already.
Tidbit: some command windows let you paste by right-clicking the mouse in the window. They know we ain't typin' all dat shit
What you want is something like https://github.com/hluk/CopyQ.
My Cloud9 ErgoFS has dedicated keys for that. But, my fingers have known Ctrl+c/v for my entire life, plus they're more easily reachable, so I still do that.
My only problem is Linux at home and Mac at work with the same keyboard so I tend to accidentally hit super+c in Linux because that's the cmd key on Mac
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=keyboard+with+macro+keys&iax=images&ia=images
yes
No, because ctrl is so close to c and v
I think we should have MORE combination buttons! Typing should be like playing the piano imo
Even if we just had one more, it'd open up a huge new range of possibilities. Ctrl, Shift, Alt and now Var (or whatever)
As well as the 26 new Var + _ combinations you'd be able to have:
Hundreds of new shortcuts! As long as you could remember them of course :-)
Ctrl + Ins
Shift + Ins
Usually much easier than the usual combo