KeyboardLayouts

HomePage | RecentChanges | EditorIndex | TextEditorFamilies | Preferences

Showing revision 5
KeyboardLayouts vary by TextEditorFamilies.

Layout methods include:

Layout by spacial patterns (WordStarDiamond, or HJKL in the ViKeyboardLayout)
Layout by mnemonics (EmacsKeyboardLayout, SlickEditorKeyboardLayout)
Layout by prefix-keys to group related commands (WordStarFamily, EmacsKeyboardLayout)
Layout by function key (WordPerfect, XEDIT, CuaKeyboardLayout)
Layout by mode (think PCWrite which used repeated sequences of the same key to progress through the modes on that function.)

HJKL for cursor motion comes from the fact that on some early terminals, the left-arrow key sent CTRL-H (backspace), the down-arrow key sent CTRL-J (linefeed), the up-arrow key sent CTRL-K (vertical-tab), and the right-arrow key sent CTRL-L (formfeed). These are easy to remember if you're familiar with the ASCII code, and they make a nice left-down-up-right pattern on the home row.

Note: This page needs to be combined with KeyboardLayout