hjkl-keybindings VS kanata

I used to use an Ann Pro 2 keyboard. By default, h, j, k, l could be used as arrow keys when fn was held down. The fn keys also remapped '[]' to 'home' and 'end', ";'" to pgup, pgdown, and '/' to delete. It also had this feature where the caps lock key acted as a fn key when held down. I very quickly got used to holding the caps lock key with my left pinky to access all the keys I needed with my right hand. I became much more productive on this little 60% keyboard than on any full-sized one as I never had to move my fingers from the home row.

I've now switched to a qmk compatible Keychron V2 (65%) keyboard and remapped the keys exactly the same way. I'm very tempted to go back to a more compact 60% since I literally never use the arrow keys.

When I use my laptop on the go, AHK to the rescue. I found a script[0] that does almost the same thing, unfortunately, it fails when I use more than one modifier with the arrow keys. For example: shift + ctrl + left arrow to select one word to the left, which is shift + ctrl + caps lock + h in my case, doesn't work.

[0] https://github.com/AlexP11223/hjkl-keybindings/blob/master/w...

Gotta give a shoutout to kanata[1] which I have used daily for years at this point after giving up on QMK-powered keyboards.

QMK itself is great, but I was never able to find a non-columnar split ISO keyboard to use it with. Eventually I reluctantly settled on the Logitech K860[2] and I'm now happily using my favourite features from QMK with kanata at the software level.

[1]: https://github.com/jtroo/kanata

[2]: If I'm behind the times and there is now a QMK-compatible keyboard that looks like this, please let me know!

This is not in Emacs, but if I can't modify my keyboard's firmware (e.g on a laptop), I use Kanata https://github.com/jtroo/kanata. It works by creating a virtual keyboard in Linux (and uses a filter driver or process hooks in Windows), so it can work in any program as they just see a normal keyboard.

Besides the better caps word (by the way, you can have it in software in Win/Linux apps like https://github.com/jtroo/kanata/blob/main/docs/config.adoc#c...) you can also toggle capslock with e.g. a double tap while having on-hold functionality to the more useful Control, so you still wouldn't need to hold any modifier key

jtroo/kanata: Improve keyboard comfort and usability with advanced customization (github.com)

One particular approach that one might find it interesting is how the configuration is laid out (using S-expression from Lisps).

[0] https://github.com/jtroo/kanata/blob/main/docs/config.adoc

Kanata[0] is amazing. It support both Linux and Windows. But I'm yet to try it on windows because my majority work is on linux.

[0] https://github.com/jtroo/kanata