Re: a ergonomic emacs keyboard shortcut layout

hi David,

you mentioned some concern about the need to have a large user base  
for the command frequency study.

I think in the context of a simple ergo shortcut design, it doesn't  
matter that much.

Because, the ergo shortcut set i designed only remap the major cursor  
moving commands and the major editing commands. (e.g. copy/cut/paste/ 
kill-line...)

So, even without a command frequentcy stat, it's obvious that these  
group are used most frequently.

For example, in text editors other than emacs, the shortcuts related  
to editing are more or less just the above and nothing else. (the  
cursor moving are done by arrow with a modifier, and with shift down  
to select. Together with xcv for cut copy paste and a undo and that  
covers just about ALL text editors or IDEs out there)

without going into elaborateness, i think vast majority of text  
editing users will have a big ergo ease by simply make the arrows  
keys under the right hand as a inverted T.

i.e. in qwerty

   i
  jkl

or in dvorak:

    t
   htn

with a modifier down.

For those of you emacs users, this is just 4 lines of code! It'll  
make your life far easier than the Cntrl+p, Cntrl+b, Cntrl+n, Cntrl+f.

  Xah
  xah@xxxxxxxxxx
∑ http://xahlee.org/



On Aug 11, 2007, at 2:44 PM, David Reitter wrote:

On 7 Aug 2007, at 18:01, xah lee wrote:

> Good point. Thanks for the input.
>
> can you add to the data point? :)

The way to get a random sample of all users would really be to bundle  
your code with a distribution and do the study with a large number of  
users. Adding a sample here and there, especially if you ask users  
like me, doesn't make sense methodology-wise.



But to be honest, one would have to talk about the goals of this  
endeavor first. Key bindings should be determined by what people are  
used to. My conjecture: it takes longer to remember an unfamiliar  
command than to type a familiar two- or three-stroke command. I could  
dig out some references from the memory access and UI literature. We  
could build an ACT-R model for it, or run a little study to prove it.  
(I have time for none of the options.)

But essentially, that's why Aquamacs sticks to (presumably) familiar  
Apple key bindings, which have probably been selected according to  
their general frequency. And that's also why Emacs sticks to its  
common key bindings, which do not match the use frequency, but which  
have been learned by its millions of users.

If you'd like to help, given the knowledge gained from your use case  
study, I suggest you help port something like Aquamacs to other  
systems (that is, Windows and GNU/Linux). That way, you'll ensure  
that short key bindings are available for frequent commands ( the  
ranking of less frequent commands will differ more between people,  
and their frequencies will have a much higher error in your study  
with n=1.)
If ported to all three major systems, moving it to a GNU variant will  
be a more realistic proposition. (RMS doesn't seem to object to UI  
changes in an Emacs variants. It's the fact that it's only available  
for the Mac that he doesn't like, and I have to agree with him.)

--
http://aquamacs.org -- Aquamacs: Emacs on Mac OS X
http://aquamacs.org/donate -- Could we help you? Return the favor and  
support the Aquamacs Project!




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