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Ask HN: Vim/Emacs users, how do you deal with non-qwerty layouts?

4 points by pvinis ↗ HN
To all the vim and emacs users, but also any other editor with some sort of keyboard shortcuts, how do you use your editor with non-qwerty layouts?

Specifically, for vim, do you press 'i' for insert mode, wherever 'i' is on your layout, or so you map the letter in the qwerty position of 'i' to be your go-to-insert-mode key? Do you use 'ctrl-x ctrl-f' to open a file on emacs with your layout's 'x' and 'f' or the letters in the qwerty 'x' and 'f' position?

11 comments

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informatimago
All the operating systems, since 1984, have let the user configure his keyboard layout. Therefore since 1984, on all the computers I've used, I've used the US-QWERTY keyboard layout.

Ie. this is a non-problem, solved since 1984.

pvinis
I know. I'm asking more to get some opinions on the choice people made. So only people using non-qwerty should offer answers depending on their use.
wprapido
you can change keyboard language in any OS. as of keycap labels, i couldn't care less about what they are like. developers touch type anyway. it's a non-issue, really
lnalx
I currently use azerty layout and learned vim on it. There is no big changes compared to qwerty at least for letters.

Qwerty is more reliable for development with more ease to reach special characters.

pvinis
aha. thanks for the answer. so when you do :wq, you press the azerty 'q'?
groundCode
I type on dvorak and use vim. I've not changed the vim keybindings at all. So when I want to switch to insert mode I hit the "i" key where it is on the dvorak layout. In qwerty terms, I hit the key where "g" would be.
mbrock
I've been using Dvorak with Emacs for more than ten years. No remapping, the key bindings are fine as they are, in many ways even better than with QWERTY.
Jtsummers
Emacs with dvorak is almost more natural than with qwerty. C-x, C-c using the left pinky for control and the right pointer and middle fingers for x and c (respectively) feels much better to me than using the left hand in a chorded arrangement like in qwerty.

There are others though I'd have to think for a bit longer to list them all. In many cases my hands just seem to flow better.

NB: I was a touch typist with QWERTY (got to about 60wpm) before switching to Dvorak (peaked around 120wpm, around 100wpm these days). I do not attribute the increase to Dvorak specifically, but to literally not being able to see what letter I was pressing so I truly become a touch typist.

joncol
I use the Colemak layout since a couple of weeks back. I'm also using Emacs with Evil mode (i.e. Vim bindings). I have thought about remapping "hjkl" for navigation, but haven't yet done it. Using the Colemak "hjkl" is not completely unnatural, but the habit of the qwerty positions for these characters is pretty deeply rooted.

So no remappings so far.

Lio
I've been a Colemak Vim user for several years now (5+? Can't remember).

When I started out I remapped the movement keys to give a more qwerty like layout. Eventually I decided to revert back to the standard Colemak layout.

The main reason was that I use vi movement keys everywhere that I can and whilst it was possible to remap hjkl in the shell (readline based apps can be remapped via ~/.inputrc) it's IMHO easier to adapt to the standard Colemak placement, then they'll work everywhere you do.

One thing that I do remap is <C-e> which is on home row, to provide a better ':'

map <C-e> : imap <C-e> <esc>:

If you remap anything in Vim you should know what you're loosing. In this case default <C-e> scrolls the screen down by 1 line and I think I can live without that to get to command mode quickly. It makes :w so fast especially when combined with Caps mapped to control and <C-m> as an alternative to the return key (provided as standard by the terminal)