Basically I have two modes two use my hands. Quake mode, when my hand is on
the left side of the keyboard and my right is on the mouse, and coding
mode, when both my hands are on the keyboard. In the latter it isn't easy
to change to mouse and in most of the programs it is causing me a
considerable discomfort, because typing has a priority in this mode. To
change between the two is just a bad option.
I'm using Visual Studio and Eclipse on regular basis, and I have an almost
100% coverage of short cuts within these IDEs. I don't see why a GUI IDE
should lack of the most important feature for a programmer, to be able to
use with keyboard only. In addition, emacs is an IDE, I would argue, that
one of the coolest IDE I ever seen because of its almost infinite
expansibility. It's a complete shell you know...

On 25 April 2012 01:58, F i L <witte2008@gmail.com> wrote:

> Robert Clipsham wrote:
>
>> There's far too much mouse usage in IDEs for me. You mean I have to move my hands away from the keyboard to do a find and replace? Pfft :<
>>
>
> MonoDevelop has a Vi mode, and most functions in IDE's are mapped to keyboard shortcuts anyways. Ctrl-F for find/replace, Ctrl-K-C/U for commenting, etc... there's probably even keys do navigate the project overview.
>
> I don't see what's so bad with moving your hands around a bit anyways. Don't you have to move your hands away from "home position" to use the arrow keys to move around with a keyboard anyways? The muscle memory for moving to the mouse feels very similar to me.
>

On Wednesday, 25 April 2012 at 06:31:36 UTC, Mirko Pilger wrote:
>> Don't you have to move your hands away from "home position" to use the
>> arrow keys to move around with a keyboard anyways?
>
> text navigation is done in the command mode via the h, j, k and l keys.

I see, that makes a bit more sense. Though, you still have to move your hand to Esc to exit input mode, though admittedly, that's not as far a reach (idk about on non-US keyboard layouts). Or maybe there's an alternative key for that as well that I'm not aware of.

Gyula Gubacsi wrote:
> I'm using Visual Studio and Eclipse on regular basis, and I have an almost
> 100% coverage of short cuts within these IDEs. I don't see why a GUI IDE
> should lack of the most important feature for a programmer, to be able to
> use with keyboard only.

I agree, this seems to be overlooked in IDEs. I think something like Right-Ctrl + W/A/S/D keys or something equivalent for navigating would be a simple fix to this.


> In addition, emacs is an IDE, I would argue, that
> one of the coolest IDE I ever seen because of its almost infinite
> expansibility. It's a complete shell you know...

Never used Emacs. I've only really been using Linux and FOSS tools for ~8 months now, so I haven't had time to explore everything. Also, I don't have a lot of reason to use Emacs; I don't write C/C++ code on a regular basis. I use GEdit/Notepad++ for web work (for their built-in FTP functionality), and VisualStudios/MonoDevelop for C# and D.

> Though, you still have to move your hand to Esc to exit input mode,
> though admittedly, that's not as far a reach (idk about on non-US
> keyboard layouts).

yep, that's a small usability glitch with historical reason. early keyboard layouts featured esc in the place where we expect the tab key today.

On 4/26/12 1:08 AM, F i L wrote:
> On Wednesday, 25 April 2012 at 06:31:36 UTC, Mirko Pilger wrote:
>>> Don't you have to move your hands away from "home position" to use the
>>> arrow keys to move around with a keyboard anyways?
>>
>> text navigation is done in the command mode via the h, j, k and l keys.
>
> I see, that makes a bit more sense. Though, you still have to move your
> hand to Esc to exit input mode, though admittedly, that's not as far a
> reach (idk about on non-US keyboard layouts). Or maybe there's an
> alternative key for that as well that I'm not aware of.

Many people have the shortcut jj as an alternative to Esc. You never move your hand from the keyboard. :-P

(and I never needed to type jj anyways...)

On Wednesday, 25 April 2012 at 23:54:23 UTC, Ary Manzana wrote:
> Many people have the shortcut jj as an alternative to Esc. You never move your hand from the keyboard. :-P

Or the caps lock key, which I personally use. Can't believe how I managed to survive for years without rebinding it… ;)

David

On Thursday, 26 April 2012 at 17:00:25 UTC, David Nadlinger wrote:
> On Wednesday, 25 April 2012 at 23:54:23 UTC, Ary Manzana wrote:
>> Many people have the shortcut jj as an alternative to Esc. You never move your hand from the keyboard. :-P
>
> Or the caps lock key, which I personally use. Can't believe how I managed to survive for years without rebinding it… ;)
>
> David

...but what if you want to write in LOLCODE? Ha, See! Vim sux.

</trolling>

On Wednesday, 25 April 2012 at 00:52:22 UTC, F i L wrote:
> On Thursday, 2 June 2011 at 16:54:17 UTC, Bruno Medeiros wrote:
>> It seems to be article season, and I'm on a bit of a punditry mood, so here's a blog post I wrote recently:
>>
>> http://pureconcepture.blogspot.com/2011/05/emacs-or-vi-why-answer-is-neither.html
>>
>> It's not about D, but it's a software development issue that has popped up several times here in the NG... :)
>
> Good article. I completely agree with your conclusions.
>
> I really can't see how anyone would want to use a "text editor" over an "IDE".

Did you use any of them? Emacs already is an IDE, much better than many around. Yes vim is "the" text editor, if you are using command line screen/tmux, vim is awesome. If only it had a better gdb/debugger integration, then it would be complete.

> I mean, an IDE _is_ a text-editor + tools that help you manage projects and understand source structure.

There are tons of developers out there using vim and as it looks like they manage to do those somehow. No one forcing them :)

I used to be a Visual Studio user as well, then i t...

"I used to be a Visual Studio user as well, then i t..."

Nooooooo!!!!!! Your letter has been cut by the wire :)

On 1 May 2012 19:06, so <so@so.so> wrote:

> On Wednesday, 25 April 2012 at 00:52:22 UTC, F i L wrote:
>
>> On Thursday, 2 June 2011 at 16:54:17 UTC, Bruno Medeiros wrote:
>>
>>> It seems to be article season, and I'm on a bit of a punditry mood, so here's a blog post I wrote recently:
>>>
>>> http://pureconcepture.**blogspot.com/2011/05/emacs-or-** vi-why-answer-is-neither.html<http://pureconcepture.blogspot.com/2011/05/emacs-or-vi-why-answer-is-neither.html>
>>>
>>> It's not about D, but it's a software development issue that has popped up several times here in the NG... :)
>>>
>>
>> Good article. I completely agree with your conclusions.
>>
>> I really can't see how anyone would want to use a "text editor" over an "IDE".
>>
>
> Did you use any of them? Emacs already is an IDE, much better than many around. Yes vim is "the" text editor, if you are using command line screen/tmux, vim is awesome. If only it had a better gdb/debugger integration, then it would be complete.
>
>
>  I mean, an IDE _is_ a text-editor + tools that help you manage projects
>> and understand source structure.
>>
>
> There are tons of developers out there using vim and as it looks like they manage to do those somehow. No one forcing them :)
>
> I used to be a Visual Studio user as well, then i t...
>

On Thursday, 26 April 2012 at 17:00:25 UTC, David Nadlinger wrote:
> On Wednesday, 25 April 2012 at 23:54:23 UTC, Ary Manzana wrote:
>> Many people have the shortcut jj as an alternative to Esc. You never move your hand from the keyboard. :-P
>
> Or the caps lock key, which I personally use. Can't believe how I managed to survive for years without rebinding it… ;)
>
> David

I would be interested in your key bindings in general. In my opinion many of the keybindings are very uncomfortable with a german keyboard layout do you use another layout? (I know you are from Austria because of your website. I am too)
Do you use vim for D programming?

Thomas