DEV Community

Discussion on: Hand position for Ctrl key?

Collapse
 
algj profile image
Alg

For me it's super hard to reach how it was shown in the post above.
My most unused keys are: cap locks, right alt, right shift, left alt.
You could, for example, do this:

  1. If ALT key is easily reachable with your thumb, swap CTRL and ALT. It is hard to learn using it.
  2. Cap locks - backspace
  3. Right shift - I have it as ESC because I was using VIM a few months ago
  4. Right alt - make it act like some FN key, e.g. holding it and pressing WASD would make them work as arrow keys, or maybe Home up/dn, Page up/dn?

If CTRL/ALT/Shift is a huge problem for you, and you don't play video games, you can try home row modifiers:
there's Super/ALT/CTRL/Shift on both sides of your keyboard and when you press a key shortly, it will act as a key press, not a modifier. If you hold it and press any other key, it will act as a modifier.

Collapse
 
j143 profile image
Janardhan Pulivarthi

Hi @algj update after 3 months,

It was a bit uncomfortable to use the position in this post, but now I am smoothly able to press Ctrl+R, Ctrl+Shift+~, and Ctrl+ .

If ALT key is easily reachable with your thumb, swap CTRL and ALT. It is hard to learn using it.

I started using ALT key with thumb nowadays.

thanks