Sunday, June 8, 2008

Control-F on a Macbook Pro ?

Generally speaking, I am enjoying the new Macbook Pro. As expected, I am adjusting to the keyboard, not an easy feat considering my enduring love for my ancient, bacteria-laden Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro.

However, I have noticed that when using vi on the MBPro, that I am at a loss as to how to form the Control F key. For reference, look at the Wireless keyboard at the Apple site (click here).

Right now, I'm using an inelegant, ridiculous gesture: left-thumb on Ctrl and and right-index on F. It is like a novice pianist trying to play a Chopin piece. Or like an Emacs user trying to do, well, anything. (I am convinced Emacs was originally a set of isometric exercises for guitarists and pianists alike.)

How do you type Ctrl F ? It seems like a beast for the left hand. Left-pinky on Ctrl ?

5 comments:

R. Mark Volkmann said...

left pinky on ctrl and index finger on f

Michael Easter said...

I guess that's the only thing that really makes sense. I'll give it a shot.

As an aside, I thought this post would be much more popular. It is a fascinating thing to see how various posts fare.

Anonymous said...

I swap caps-lock and control which (after a small amount of re-training) makes key commands in vi and emacs (and anything that uses control a bit) a lot easier.

Rockhopper said...

You're correct. As an Emacs user I can do anything.

Macintosh said...

cool