Ask HN: Does anyone use keyboard/mouse extra buttons for coding?

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  • PowerToys

    Windows system utilities to maximize productivity

    Sometimes I get frustrated with the button combinations that I have to press over and over again.

    I don't do it every day, but creating a macro can help a lot in that situation.

    I have a lot of Razer gear and also a few pieces of Cooler Master gear.

    The real frustrations I have though involve disabling or changing buttons in deeper ways. For instance, I love the alacritty terminal, but it uses ctrl+shift+c and ctrl+shift+v to cut-and-paste. One of those buttons opens the dev tools on my browser, which I could tolerate if it didn't also scroll the browser to the top, losing my place. So disabling keys or remapping them in applications helps.

    Another pet peeve is that I fat finger the "insert" button on a laptop keyboard about once per minute so it is a candidate for disabling. Tools from the likes of Razer and Cooler Master only work with their gear, even Alienware's tools only work on the extra buttons and not on your existing buttons. So you need something like

    https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys

    As for the mouse the value of remapping buttons is more limited IMHO since the act of pressing a button will usually cause a little bit of motion and screw up the alignment of what you were doing.

  • noo

    Mouse and touchpad configuration for Mac OS

    I use a mouse with 3 extra buttons.

    2 are for copying and pasting.

    1 is for activating a programmable tooltip.

    Here are the apps I built for the above:

    1. Mouse config tool for Mac https://github.com/tanin47/noo

    2. Programmable tooltip for Mac https://github.com/tanin47/tip

  • WorkOS

    The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS. The APIs are flexible and easy-to-use, supporting authentication, user identity, and complex enterprise features like SSO and SCIM provisioning.

  • tip

    Programmable tooltip that can be used with any Mac OS app

    I use a mouse with 3 extra buttons.

    2 are for copying and pasting.

    1 is for activating a programmable tooltip.

    Here are the apps I built for the above:

    1. Mouse config tool for Mac https://github.com/tanin47/noo

    2. Programmable tooltip for Mac https://github.com/tanin47/tip

  • vim-clutch

    A hardware pedal for improved text editing in Vim

  • espanso

    Cross-platform Text Expander written in Rust

    Nah, no need-- I just use a text expander, but it's the same idea.

    Currently I like Espanso (mac) for its simplicity. Previously I used aText (mac) and PhraseExpress (windows)

    https://espanso.org/

  • Lily58

    6×4+4keys column-staggered split keyboard.

    How about other QMK users share their mappings in this thread? Here's mine[0]

    I've been on a minimally mapped POK3R (60%) for years (pretty much CL=l2mod, l2mod+hjkl=arrows). It's been OK but still can't touch-type properly and even after years as daily driver still prefer low-profile laptop style.

    Just switched this week to a self-built Lily58proc Choc[1] for better ergonomics and forcing myself to touch-type. My layout is still a work in progress, I still type very slowly, and would love to see other coders' mappings for inspiration :)

    [0] https://gist.github.com/3nprob/41bfaca6dd712de673a140b2b3be3...

    [1] https://github.com/kata0510/Lily58

  • kmonad

    An advanced keyboard manager

    I use KMonad for achieving QMK things on ordinary keyboards.

    https://github.com/kmonad/kmonad

    A couple of things

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    Power Real-Time Data Analytics at Scale. Get real-time insights from all types of time series data with InfluxDB. Ingest, query, and analyze billions of data points in real-time with unbounded cardinality.

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