[feeela]

Can someone, who uses one of those tiny keyboards, elaborate how to work at all (let alone effectivly) without the Home/End/Page up/Page down block or arrow keys? How do you mark a word? How do you jump between lines or beginning and end of the line?

(And I don't even want to think about having no F-keys - which would require even weirder key-combinations in many cases.)

[OskarS]

You don't really need those keys for that, there are almost always various chords that do that. macOS, in particular, has "Emacs-light" keybindings in most edit fields: Ctrl-A goes to the beginning of a line, Ctrl-E goes to the end, Alt-Backspace erases a word, etc. Of course, if you use Vim-style keys, you use normal mode for all that stuff.

In general though, custom mechanical keyboards have firmware that can be programmed with "layers": hold down a certain key (or toggle) and layers get activated which changes the meanings of keys. This is the way those very minimal keyboards (which doesn't even necessarily have a number row) can work for daily use. If you want the keys badly, just program your firmware appropriately.

[kitsunesoba]

Yep, for me the home/end/etc keys rarely got use because I’ve been using the macOS text navigation bindings instead (though I’ve been using Cmd-arrows in place of Ctrl-A, Ctrl-E, etc for moving to start/end of doc, line, etc).

[tremon]

I use a 70-key Redox, not sure if you would classify that as a tiny keyboard. I have all the navigation keys available in my primary layout. Since I'm a vim user, I mark words exactly as I would on a normal-size keyboard: using vW.

I do not have F-keys in my default layout, and I don't miss them as I rarely used them on a normal-size keyboard anyway. But if I do need them, they're just one layer shift away: Fn+1 gives me F1.

Do note that layers can be activated permanently, not just through chording. In my layout, tapping Fn twice turns the right half of the keyboard into a numpad layout so I can do quick data-entry. And in that layer I also have a Tab key under my right hand so I can do both horizontal and vertical data entry. On a normal keyboard, the missing Tab key always forced me to keep both hands on the keyboard when using the Numpad.

[SxC97]

I never understood why people needed keys like home and end until I had to switch from MacOS to Windows for work. Turns out, MacOS has some (IMO) more sensible key bindings for those operations involving either the Cmd or Opt key + the array keys.

[mattlondon]

They have "layers" so you can do some shortcuts and the extra keys become active - so e.g. activate a layer and now U, I, O, and P are home, end, insert , delete etc. Change layer back to normal and off you go.

[aikinai]

There are shortcuts for all of those keys that I use even if I’m on a full-sized keyboard that has them.

MacOS has two sets actually, one with command and arrows and one with control using Emacs shortcuts.