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Ask HN: Increase Key Repeat rate on Mac OS beyond normal limits

5 points by ggerganov ↗ HN
Hey, I thought about asking here in case someone knows some hacky way to go beyond the Key Repeat limit of the keyboard on Mac OS.

I already know about the command "defaults write NSGlobalDomain KeyRepeat -int 1" but it is still not fast enough. Any ideas or suggestions?

For a video demonstration of the question check the videos in these 2 tweets:

https://twitter.com/ggerganov/status/1551619285943975937

4 comments

[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 20.5 ms ] thread
Cyberdog
This feels an awful lot like an XY problem, so forgive me for asking this, but for what purpose do you need the key repeat rate to be faster than the maximum?

Is it just a matter of wanting the speeds in macOS and Ubuntu to match up?

ggerganov
I'm just very used to the fast repeat rate on my Ubuntu workstation and recently started using my MacBook. I like having high repeat rate because it allows me to navigate much faster in my editor while developing stuff.
marcinreal
Can you learn to navigate by searching for the text you want to get to?[0] Or does your editor provide any facilities for jumping directly to the desired location?[1]

[0]: Beginner's Emacs tip. Should apply in other editors.

[1]: Example for Emacs: https://github.com/abo-abo/avy

ggerganov
I've been programming in Vim for a very long time and even though I use some of the available jump commands, I still find it very useful to have a fast key repeat rate. In most cases it's simply faster to start going to where I want to go, instead of calculating how many character to jump left or right, how many lines to jump up or down or find the closest unique pattern of symbols to search for.

It's just bizarre that Mac OS has such a small cap on the Key Repeat rate. Wondering if there is a way around this.

Edit: I do have a powerful plugin [0] for jumping which I often use, but still - in some cases I just want to scroll all the way there. Fast.

[0] - https://github.com/justinmk/vim-sneak