Why is Emacs pinky a problem when keyboards have Ctrl both sides?

Which thumb do you use to hit Spacebar? Which shift key do you hit harder? Which leg gets tired first? Which eye can see better? If you had a non-`nil` answer to any of those questions, you may be at risk of Emacs pinky. Congratulations, you are a normal person.

In my whole life, I don't think I've ever used the right control key. Or the right meta, for that matter. I'm also not at risk for emacs pinky, thanks to evil.

I remapped my left Ctrl key to the one on the left of spacebar. And I hit both left Ctrl and spacebar with my left thumb. (The bottom-left key is remapped as Super, and I hit it with my trapezium.) Why I don't use right Ctrl? Because I never need to with my setup...

I wonder why emacs pinky is a problem when everyone has palms which work much better for ctrl pressing.

I've never had any trouble with it regardless.

Weird, always though it is just me who is the weirdo in the room, doing it the same.

MacBook has Ctrl only on one-side.

How sure are you that it's not an apocryphal problem?

You should, so that you never press 2 keys at the same time with the same hand.

Yeah. So true. I don't know if I can learn to do it at this point though. Honestly, I have had my cap lock key mapped to escape for years and used vim or evil all the time. Haven't even learned that. Pretty sure I don't press space bar with my right thumb either. That thumb is just there for decoration.

How do you know Emacs pinky is really a problem?

I have ctrl on capslock on the left, but I use ctrl on both sides. Never any problems.

Agree, I think I use my palm the majority of the time.

Do palms really work well to hit the ctrl key on laptop keyboards? The laptop keyboards have such low profile that I worry that by trying to contort my wrist to barely manage to touch the ctrl key with my palm, I might create some other issues in my wrist.

Get better keyboards (kinesis advantage or similar). The editor isn’t to blame for keyboards getting worse. If your editor isn’t modal then it has to use modifiers, I don’t see anyone complaining about <insert-any-other-non-modal-editor>-pinky.

Every keyboard has ctrl in the same place. Every program uses ctrl as its main modifier. No one talks about "windows pinky". Need confirmation that "emacs pinky" /is/ a problem.

I use both left and right, ctrl key, meta key. I was learned to type in old mechanical typewriters with qwerty keyboard. I use both thumbs to push space bar, it depends last key pushed before. I mean, if the last key was A, I push space with right thumb, if last key was L, I push space with left one. Same idea with modifiers. <ctrl a>, right ctrl key. <ctrl o>, left ctrl key. Same with meta but with thumbs. I really don’t feel any issue with my pinky.

I've done vanilla emacs for a long time, but it never felt really comfortable. I've tried **all solutions** people give here, but none worked for me. That includes using both Ctrl keys. I've never had pinky problem specifically, but I also never found a setup that worked comfortably for me in a regular keyboard. The only time I felt comfortable with vanilla emacs was when I used a keyboard with split spacebar, which I used for Ctrl and Meta. That felt right at home. I'm sure I'd feel even more comfortable with a proper ergonomic keyboard with keys made to be used with your thumb. The problem is that whenever I had to use a regular keyboard (to help my wife with something, or working in my laptop or whatever) I struggled a lot cause my muscle memory wasn't there anymore. So I went back to just using a regular keyboard. After a while, I tried VIM, liked it, and moved to it. For a regular keyboard I find evil-mode to be much more comfortable for me than vanilla emacs.

Oh, come on. I agree on "need confirmation", but "Windows pinky" argument is ridiculous. You don't just jump around the file with your pinky on Ctrl on a regular key layout. You use arrows, etc. for that.

Comment op is just a emacs user getting defensive

I normally press Ctrl with the palm of my hand almost in the wrist.

This must only work for some particular hand sizes and shapes. I see it suggested fairly often yet I really can't imagine how I can get my palm to a ctrl key. At most I can reach it with the underside of my pinky's knuckle if I claw up in a *very* awkward way.

I *really* wish there was something other than anecdotes available. I have my own opinions, but they're no more than that. But most of what I see asserted as absolute truth is also just naked opinion too, often directly contradicting my experience. Standard Emacs keys have literally never caused me problems or difficulty, and not because I have some tolerance for stress, but because I don't feel there's any stress involved. I've always tried to maintain relaxed hands and posture and nothing Emacs keys makes me do forces me to do anything that isn't relaxed.

I actually never used the right modifier keys until someone on this subreddit mentioned it in one of my posts. It's so much convenient, I even use Right Ctrl + C for copying.

So do Model F keyboards.

> Every keyboard has ctrl in the same place. No. > Every program uses ctrl as its main modifier. Also no.

That and I use a custom built keyboard that is arched not flat with mechanical keys that are a little lifted.

I refuse to not use an external keyboard. But yeah I could see how laptops would have an issue.

i just have a keyboard with ctrl and meta in the thumb clusters.

When I had to switch on Mac, I actually remapped Mac keys (it is available in standard preferences), so they are Command-Option-Control (and same sequence on external keyboards) instead of default Control-Option-Command. I found out this way I made less critical mistakes on keybindings (and most general shortcuts like Ctrl+C works the same way) when switching between Mac and Windows. As a bonus, I have a right Control key on my MacBook keyboard instead of the right Command key.

I have no evidence to share about a permanent injury. But my hand sometimes feels bad ("hurt" would be too strong) when I have to contort it while holding the left control key down and do some multi-step sequence using index and maybe middle finger. It's not hard to see how a bad feeling turns into pain when repeated often. The reason to press all those keys using only the left hand (or any one hand) is speed and convenience. The right hand might even be far away, operating the mouse. The left control key placement is an unfortunate feature of PC keyboards. Amiga had it where PC's caps lock is, and my understanding is that the unices on which emacs was developed on also had it there. Remapping the PC caps lock as a yet another control key solves the problem (bad feelings). Even if the keys needed for a sequence are clustered together, the hand remains in a healthy posture.

You are right! The same as typing A, right Shift key, and O, left Shift key.