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Help Improve Keyboardminder: What Features or Changes Would You Like to See?

2 points by arock093 ↗ HN
Hey everyone!

I’ve been working hard on Keyboardminder over the last few months, and it’s time to plan where the project goes from here. I’ve already added features like config files, a basic installer, a GUI and fixed a bunch of bugs. Now, I’d love to hear your thoughts on what can make the project even better!

https://github.com/arock093/keyboardminder

Here are a few things I’d love feedback on:

1. New Features: What would make Keyboardminder more useful for you? Is there a feature you’re missing?

2. Usability: Have you run into any challenges using the tool? How can we improve the experience?

3. Documentation: Is there any part of the documentation that needs more detail or clarity?

You can drop your thoughts in the comments, open an issue on GitHub, or send me a message if you’d prefer to chat privately.

Your feedback will directly influence the future of the project, and I’ll give a special shout-out to those who contribute great ideas!

Let’s build this together—thanks so much for your input!

9 comments

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mech422
Not my thing - but looks like a nice project :-) I noticed your profile mentioned being an 'aspiring developer' - it's really cool to see people jump in and code tools/stuff that is useful to them :-)

I'm not a cpp coder, so I can't speak to the code - but I didn't notice any tests (sorry if I missed them). That might be a good addition ?

edit: I noticed you mention psychology in your profile. Might be interesting to hear your thoughts on UI design/interaction ?

arock093
Keyboardminder is part of my vision of a world where we have a better relationship with our devices. Having a device you can use to get your necessary work done as efficiently as possible is an important part of that.

With UI design/interaction my thoughts are while both are equally important, it is better to separate practical use with just for fun. Keyboardminder is meant to fill the practical side more.

mech422
Nice :-) It looks like a cool project ... My personal 'wish' would be a split keyboard with an 'electric eraser' setup as a thumb stick. Trackball/thumball would be second best. I agree having to reach for the mouse really slows stuff down...
eimrine
I love the Caps lock idea, but for me it would be more useful to prevent any mouse activity without that key because on some Windows laptop it is really hard to block the touchpad and it might change some focus "suddenly". As a keyboard lover and occational user of AHK I should try your software.
solardev
> on some Windows laptop it is really hard to block the touchpad and it might change some focus "suddenly"

FYI (if you didn't already know), some mouse driver config panels have a "palm rejection" setting that you can enable or tweak to help with this. There are also third-party tools like https://touchpad-blocker.com/download/

I found them indispensable when I used Windows

solardev
Rather than a "stick" (prohibiting me from using my mouse), I'd prefer a "carrot" approach: It observes the things I click on, in the apps I normally use (IDE, Slack, browser, etc.) and offers a gentle "Psst... next time you can push CTRL-CMD-ALT-F4-DEL to do that!" toast in the corner.

That would require app-specific keymaps and some way to monitor mouse clicks in foreign windows (accessibility permissions?), but I'd be more likely to use it than something that just blocked me from mousing. I already have one of those... it's called forgetting to charge my battery =/

arock093
That’s an interesting approach. I’ll have to look into it more.

It’s hard finding a balance between the carrot and stick approach. I tend to think of it more as a scale instead of binary.

For me, still having the mouse available and requiring the caps lock key to be pressed in order to use it, was the right balance.