Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Troll? if not:

These keys are easily replaced by ctrl-a ctrl-e or alt-arrow keys. Moving your hand all the way over there to the arrows and 6key cluster is for the birds.

That said, I agree, google seems dead set on making these machines for "normal people", and that they are lacking in a few ways that keep the "normal" folks away (not the least of which is that you can't just walk into a best buy and pick one up), but not having home/end/delete is probably low on that list. Not a single Mac laptop has those on single keys and they seem to be selling ok.



Not a troll, sorry to not be clear. I would think a lot of people would prefer the 6key cluster, but thats very possibly just my own bias.

I've honestly never heard of ctrl-a ctrl-e or alt-arrow keys to do those tasks. They certainly don't work on Windows Chrome or Sublime Text 2 in Windows so I've never used them in my daily routine.


I haven't used a chromebook personally, but:

ctrl-a (home)

ctrl-e (end)

ctrl-n (next line)

ctrl-p (previous line)

ctrl-f (forward/right)

ctrl-b (back/left)

are all traditional Emacs key-bindings, and they're supported throughout all of OSX; it's one of the very few features I actually miss when I'm on other OSes...


How does that interact with Ctrl+a being select all?


Since macs rely mostly on the 'command'/'apple' key for that stuff (instead of Ctrl), on OSX Select All is just cmd+a, like how Copy/Paste are cmd+c/cmd+v respectively, so it doesn't interfere.

And on Emacs you start getting into multi-key combo finger dances for that (e.g. "Ctrl+x h" = highlight all), which OSX doesn't emulate for various reasons I'm sure...


I did an image search and it doesn't look like the chrome books have the extra meta/command/apple/super/windows key on them. Do they just not have a select all?




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: