I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys

kgwxd

I have a bin full of pristine keyboards that never see the light of day because of Fn, arrows, Home, and/or End placement. I used to work on 3 different laptops, so I kind of got used to thinking about every stroke using those keys, but I never want to go back there, it's so mentally taxing.

swyx

> I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys (danq.me) > 11 points by speckx 13 minutes ago | flag | hide | 1 comment this is currently #1 on HN gaining 11 points in 13 mins. never seen this before.

chrisandchris

Some models do have physical switches on the back witj which you can enable / disable this behaviour. One of the many cases where physical buttons/switches are superior to software-only options.

croisillon

constantly lowering my luminosity instead of refreshing my page :(

mmsc

A missed opportunity to say you 'Fn' hate the Fn key :)

CarVac

Speaking of "natural scrolling" it is horrible because most scrolling is downward and "natural" is an ergonomically inferior pushing action instead of pulling. It's only natural on the actual display itself. Anothe affront to nature by Apple, along with killing the headphone jack.

tom1337890

I totally agree and I feel you.

piekvorst

Instead of using a single menu bar icon “volume control,” I have transferred the lessons of the keyboard to the GUI and placed two buttons in my menu bar: volume down and volume up. I have been using them all the time for about half a year now. The benefits of this approach, to my knowledge and estimation, include: no waiting for a slider to appear; no nested actions; no need to read the current value; each click does not depend on the current state; Fitts’ Law muscle memory boost (the buttons are effectively infinite-height targets); discoverability compared to scrollwheelable icons.

jraph

The HP Elitebook laptops get this right. You can configure whether you prefer the standard behavior or to use the actions assigned to the F keys by default, I think in the BIOS, and then you can use fn lock to switch at runtime. That's nice in itself but that's not all. In the latter mode, holding a modifier key like Alt makes the F key act standard, so Alt+F4 works in any mode as expected.

__s

I've switched to programmable ergo keyboards where there's a whole slew of options ( https://precondition.github.io/home-row-mods just covers home row mods) I've always hated stateful control. Always ripped out caps lock key from my boards (or later figured out remapping), same for insert mode That's carried over, even with options like one shot mods, & cutting down to under 40 keys (& playing with 28, yesterday received a https://github.com/kilipan/zilpzalp ) , I still don't find stateful control necessary. More layers, combos, & tap-hold go far

kanemcgrath

One of my favorite things about my custom mechanical keyboard, is being able to remap the entire key set in the firmware with VIA. I have fn+arrow keys for media, fn+space for play/pause fn+end for calculator, and a bunch of random others. It is so useful I could never get another keyboard that doesn’t have a similar functionality.

pknomad

> It was nice that they gave dedicated keys to volume control/toggling muting. I know it's not an option for certain keyboards (and laptop keyboards) but I appreciated not having to use Fn keys and use physical volume dials like Das Keyboard 4. https://www.daskeyboard.com/daskeyboard-4-professional

kps

“I don't like the keyboard I bought.”

elric

Thinkpad laptops thankfully have a BIOS option to revert the behaviour to normal, where F1-F12 perform their nominal functions. I'd probably pay an extra €50 for a laptop that didn't come with a stupid Fn button at all. Might want to throw some more money at a few more keyboard modifications: my bottom row is Fn CTRL Win Alt Space AltGr PrtSc Ctrl; that PrtSc button clearly has no business being there. Arrows & PgUp/PgDown are too small. Backspace is too short. Etc.

Elfener

I hate the missing home/end/pgup/pgdn keys more (which is the case on basically all laptops, and you obviously can't just buy a different keyboard for a laptop).

tylerflick

Ah WASD keyboards :(. Does anyone by chance have the manuals for the v1 and or v3 coding keyboards from them?

bethekidyouwant

Cant remember using a function key.. but i believe there are programs that do. More curious.. are there people that use the caps lock key? Its great real-estate…

mindslight

The article doesn't even touch on the fact that on these types of keyboards, the F-keys often have bastardized keycaps rather than the regular profile. For example on the Microsoft keyboard example, they're much smaller and probably have crappier travel. The fundamental problems here are the product design pushes to make everything smaller and also to add gimmicky features that seem like they'd be useful but with the constraints just end up taking something else away - note that the examples of good keyboards are made from standard full size keycaps. The rise of bespoke keyboard designers that using off the shelf switches/keycaps is a constraint that pushes away the other two trends. I'd think you can get mechanical keyboards with reasonable wireless functionality these days. If the range isn't long enough, run an active USB extension cord around the room and put the receiver under your couch. Laptops are of course the age-old space where keyboards are scrutinized to death.

nialv7

Just get a keyboard that supports custom firmware and go wild with it. You can do whatever you want.

tedggh

I didn’t know how many keys I didn’t need until I switched to a 50% ortholinear, and I would dare to say even a 40% should be enough for most people.