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?
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.
Same on windows. Works in most applications except some Microsoft Office apps (like Excel and Word) that have a separate “past as text” option.
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
Just buy this
Not so subtle dig, but I’ll allow it. 😉
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.
text you’ve already typed and change the format. Control (shift) + F3 used to do that in MS word. Highlight your text and Toggle Through The POSSIBILITIES.
Control (shift) + F3 used to do that in MS word.
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
Emacs has commands for converting either a single word or any arbitrary range of text to upper case or to lower case.
Thanks, will check that out.
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.
We do. ctrl+c / ctrl+v
Most people would use dedicated single copy/paste buttons more than page-up/down or home/end.
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.
Win+Pause/Break opens properties of your PC (on Windows obviously).
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.
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.
page-up/down or home/end.
I don’t even think about those keys
Well, they don’t think about you either.
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.
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…
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.
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
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.
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.
Come to the vim side, we have
yfor copy (yank) andpfor paste. We even havedfor cutWtf is vim
The best text editor in the world. With the best training manual.
https://vim-adventures.com/terminal text editor
mcedit over vi(m)
Timmy, no
It’s v. But improved. Vim.
I’m laughing way too hard at this thank you
Only the best bathroom cleaner ever made.
Tidbit: some command windows let you paste by right-clicking the mouse in the window. They know we ain’t typin’ all dat shit
Now that you’ve said it, it does seem like an obvious improvement.
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.
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 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.
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
in a hyprland config i used to use win+v had a clipboard history thing pop up wherever your cursor was
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
Some keyboards have media keys for that. Some user environments also allow you to remap those keys to other functions.
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
Ctrl + Ins
Shift + Ins
Usually much easier than the usual combo
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.
