[SulphurCrested]

This is going to be controversial, but what saved me was abandoning a keyboard-intense environment (emacs + command line) for Apple’s Xcode. I do still build much of the time at the command line, but editing code and switching between windows is mouse-heavy.(You can use Xcode as just a text editor if you like.) I cut and paste by selecting with the mouse where possible. I have a gaming mouse with a button programmed for macOS’s “Exposé” so I can find windows back – and I use a single screen, a 27″ iMac.

I have an Apple trackpad which I use to give my hand a break from the mouse, but I find that if I use it heavily for a day or two I get sore fingers. I use a mechanical keyboard. That too tends to cut up my fingers, and I’m on the lookout for a better one, or at least better keycaps.

I’ve been doing this for 45 years now, since age 19. Along the way I’ve used punchcards, line mode editors, TECO itself and two TECO-inspired full screen editors, various full-screen editors like DEC’s EDT, and emacs. I know vi, and will by habit drop into it when editing config files and so on, but don’t subscribe to the view that it solves the RSI problem. So I do know how to edit efficiently using keyboard shortcuts, but now think it’s the wrong thing to do.

I went through a stage where I used emacs and a Happy Hacking Keyboard, and was very sore at the end of it.

I am not slow with my mouse. I can churn out ~2000 lines of good C++ in a day. (But I am not a fan of the language from a typing point of view!)

[phero_cnstrcts]

Having to use the mouse frustrates me. Have you tried an ergonomic keyboard?

[SulphurCrested]

Ask yourself why it frustrates you. Perhaps you can’t see exactly where the click will be – a high res screen makes a difference. Perhaps you haven’t learned all the mouse shortcuts. Two on macOS are: triple-click to select a whole line; and click, scroll down using PGDOWN or mouse actions, then SHIFT-click to select everything between the two. Perhaps it’s just a bad mouse.

I use a tenkeyless keyboard, which doesn’t have the calculator block at the right. The ones which have it I find put the mouse too far off to my right. It’s very important to me that there are OPTION and COMMAND keys on both sides of the keyboard, so that the opposite hand is doing the shifting; I’m never pressing two keys at once with fingers from the same hand. I’ve never used an ergonomic keyboard.

[ustad]

Whats the keyboard you have?

[SulphurCrested]

Filco Majestouch 2 TKL with Cherry MX Brown switches. I configured macOS to swap the OPTION and COMMAND keys and physically swapped the keycaps using the supplied puller.

This is a Japanese keyboard with German switches. I’ve had it for quite a while. The Cherry patents have now expired so there are now several third parties making copies of the switches, and many makers of much cheaper mechanical keyboards. However, most of those I’ve seen lack OPTION and COMMAND on both sides. The Filco has OPTION, COMMAND and CTRL on both sides (and, of course, SHIFT).

On that last point, I worded my earlier post wrongly. What I should have said was that you never had to press a key and its shifts with the same hand if the shifts are available on the other side.