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34 Responses to “Home Row Computing”

Casey on December 15th, 2008 2:45 am

Why not map the arrow keys to match Vi? It would make using gmail and greader easier since they use the same mapping as well.
C.M on December 15th, 2008 5:56 am

Yeah, I agree totally with Casey. (I want vi key bindings everywhere…) Otherwise, thanks for the tip.
Gustavo Duarte on December 15th, 2008 9:11 am

Absolutely, if you’re a Vim user HJKL is the only way to go.

The reason I didn’t start out that way is because I didn’t use Vim when I first set this up. Once I started on Vim I thought about changing, but I like the fact that the arrow keys match exactly my right hand fingers too. And since it’s transparent, I can use it on Vim as well, so it just sort of stayed.

If anybody makes a HJKL variant though I’d be happy to host or link to it.
Joe on December 15th, 2008 11:13 am

hjkl bound like Vi is the first thing that I would change too. (But GREAT idea).
Amjith on December 15th, 2008 11:18 am

I use emacs keybindings for this and there is a wonderful tool out there to achieve this http://www.cam.hi-ho.ne.jp/oishi/indexen.html easy to configure.
Gustavo Duarte on December 15th, 2008 11:31 am

@Joe: thanks

@Amjith: HAH, that’s cool! I knew there would be some other fanatics out there doing this as well I’ll mention this in the post.
Simon Scarfe on December 16th, 2008 7:50 am

Hey thanks for this, it’s ace.

I’ve whipped together a Vim-compatible one here: https://dl.getdropbox.com/u/314700/homerow-qwerty.ahk (that should work, email me if it doesn’t, I’ve never gone public on dropbox before).

All I’ve done is map h,j,k,l onto left, up, down, right respectively, and switched page-up and down around to mirror the new bindings (home and end feel “right” where they are).

Again, this is awesome, keep up the good work!

Si
Simon Scarfe on December 16th, 2008 7:52 am

Oh one more thing, I moved del onto G so that it doesn’t interfere with the new H.
Gustavo Duarte on December 16th, 2008 9:11 am

@Simon: cool, thanks! I’ve added a link in the post.
Valery Tolkov on December 30th, 2008 8:18 pm

Caps lock key is super-convenient as a language/layout switch key. Of cause, only when you have to type bilingual texts.
Andrew Pennebaker on January 13th, 2009 8:42 am

You nerds! Go back to pen and paper!
Paul on January 25th, 2009 10:29 am

Would anyone care to provide a file or a guide to implementing this cool scheme in Linux, perhaps using xmodmap or xkb?
Gustavo Duarte on January 25th, 2009 9:23 pm

@Paul: I’d love to have that on Linux as well. I don’t know of a way to get the setup working the way I have it on Windows though.

If you figure something out, I’d appreciate if you let me know.

I’ve thought about writing a kernel module to do this. This would have the advantage of working _everywhere_, even on a console tty. If I ever switch to a Linux desktop, I’d do this.
Paul on January 26th, 2009 6:46 pm

Okay, I got it working on my Linux laptop, if not supremely elegantly. Evidently there is some overlapping of tasks between xkb and xmodmap under Xorg, so just setting the settings in xmodmap wasn’t doing the trick.

First I made an ~/.Xmodmap file to turn my Caps Lock key into a modifier:
clear Lock
keycode 66 = ISO_Level3_Shift

Then I modified the first stanza of my /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/us file to add the keymappings I wanted:

key { [ h, H, Left ] };
key { [ j, J, Down ] };
key { [ k, K, Up ] };
key { [ l, L, Right ] };

I saved both files and activated the changes with
setxkbmap ; xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap

And it works great! Thanks for the idea — it’s a real time-saver.

I don’t think you’d need a kernel module to make it work on the console; I think the built-in loadkeys can handle that.
Gustavo Duarte on January 27th, 2009 12:47 am

@Paul: thanks! I’m going to update the post to include your solution. This is awesome.
Claes on February 3rd, 2009 3:11 pm

Inspired by this excellent idea I added some keybindings to a fork of xkeyboard-config. See

http://github.com/claes/xkeyboard-config/tree/master

With this fork installed, a similar layout as described here can be installed with the command

setxkbmap -layout “se+movement+level3(caps_switch)”

(replace as suitable). “movement” adds the movement keybindings, and level3(caps_switch) adds ISO_Level3_Shift to Caps Lock.

It is my intention to push this upstream when it proves stable. (I don’t know how to install it as a custom keymap only, unfortunately)
Gustavo Duarte on February 3rd, 2009 6:56 pm

@Claes: that’s really cool. thanks for your work.
Kai Grossjohann on January 7th, 2010 3:44 pm

@Paul: Does it work to select text with Shift + CapsLock + hjkl? I tried your method and couldn’t get it working. Basic cursor key movement with CapsLock + hjkl is working fine, though.

I also tried xmodmap and got CapsLock + hjkl working but again failed to get selecting text to work.
arley dealey on March 2nd, 2010 10:46 am

Simon’s vi keymapping file seems to be gone. I’ve made one available. Same remappings as Simon’s.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2338610/hrc-vi.ahk
Rossco on May 5th, 2010 1:21 am

Thanx for the work here, good stuff.

Important note:
If you mistakenly leave a key down in script (as the querty script link above is), you can get some issues.
I first noticed a problem when my drag-drop didn’t work.
add AppsKey + “key” up::SendInput {“key” Up}

Mods:
Added lines,
; Force reload when running file re-opened
#SingleInstance force

ikjl = up, down, left and right
uo = home, end
p; = page up, page down

e = esc
r = run
w = close window
h and n swapped (h feels more like reversing)

This layout works much better for me, and I’m finding it quite natural.
It will be interesting to see how long it takes me to try to use this on a computer not setup with it. Bet it won’t be long!
Yu-Chung Chen on December 30th, 2010 5:03 pm

After reading about the Optimizer Keyboard (http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=Island:9140), which basically implements this idea on a hardware basis, I looked for a way to do it by software. And I found this page which is exactly what I needed. Many thanks!

I’m using IJKL for arrows and adjacent keys for delete etc., but focused on selecting / deleting whole words. It’s just much quicker to move around the text by word (both in the navigational sense and in the recomposing sense).

When AppsKey hold:
Tab = Shift (so I can combine highlighting with the cursor movement comfortably)
j/l = Ctrl left / right (move a word left / right)
i/k = Up / Down
u = Delete
n = Ctrl Delete (delete a word)
Backspace = Ctrl Backspace (backspace a word)
0 / p = Page Up / Down
9 / o = Home / End

I still need to get used to it but already see the potential benefits. Looking forward to a bit of programming tomorrow with this layout.

Too bad that mapping the AppsKey on Capslock means Enso launcher (http://humanized.com/enso/launcher/) has to be moved somewhere else…
Mike on March 16th, 2011 12:39 pm

A while ago I had to move reluctantly to OS X from Windows. I say reluctantly because I did not want to live without home row computing!

To cut a long story short, in the end I did manage to get a somewhat workable, but not entirely satisfactory setup. It seems it is only possible to set mappings for cocoa apps, not all applications, and even then sometimes (annoyingly) they can have short cuts (I will hold my peace on the state of OS X shortcuts) which map override the bindings provided.

The files I am providing are for Dvorak. They also contain what I think to be improvements over the suggested mappings.

caps + querty g -> undo
caps + querty t -> redo

I also swapped backspace and delete around.

Cocoa mappings

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/229443/home_row/DefaultKeyBinding.dict

Save this file to ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict

There are other significant applications which are not cocoa, but some have in application support for this kind of remapping. For me the big ones were Eclipse, Open Office and Firefox.

For Eclipse

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/229443/home_row/keyprefs.epf

To import keyboard preferences do File->Import, General/Preferences

Open Office seemingly supports such remapping, but I did not manage to get anything working, so I gave up on that one. Firefox does not, by now my brain is used to this and I just automatically revert to the 3rd class short cuts and mousage (pronounced mouse-ij).

Usually disclaimers apply. I am far from an expert on OS X workings, and this was just a result of a day or so of me messing around trying to get various things working. It may well be possible to do better.

My thanks go to Mr. Duarte for enlightening me.
Richard Gomes on September 27th, 2011 6:46 pm

IMHO, the Miniguru is absolutely perfect. See for yourself:\

http://www.guru-board.com/english/layout_en

Unfortunately, its not available and I was forced to by a dinno called Unicomp Endurapro, which is a professional mechanical keyboard with a trackpoint.

Once now I have the hardware for “Home Row Computing”, next step is emulate the way the wonderful Miniguru defines its Layer2 (as shown in the link above). Features in a nutshell:

* Caps becomes Control
* Both controls become additional function keys
* Swap both Alts with both Supers (or ‘Win’ keys)
* Do not overwrite other layouts you’ve loaded previously

In the example below, I load us-intl (with dead keys) and I choose miniguru:layer2 as an optional on top of it:

$ setxkbmap us(intl) -option -option miniguru:layer2

In order to make this work, copy the text below into a file named /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/miniguru

//
// Miniguru Layer2 layout
// see: http://www.guru-board.com/english/layout_en
//
// author: Richard Gomes
//

partial alphanumeric_keys modifier_keys
xkb_symbols “layer2″ {

name[Group1] = “Miniguru Layer2″;

key.type[Group1]=”ONE_LEVEL”;

// Caps_Lock becomes Control_L
// Control_L and Control_R become ISO_Level5_Shift
replace key { [ Control_L ] };
replace key { [ ISO_Level5_Shift ] };
replace key { [ ISO_Level5_Shift ] };
modifier_map Mod3 { , };

// Swap Alts with Supers
replace key { [ Super_L, Hyper_L ] };
replace key { [ Alt_L, Meta_L ] };
replace key { [ Super_R, Hyper_R ] };
replace key { [ ISO_Level3_Shift ] };
modifier_map Mod1 { , };
modifier_map Mod4 { , };
modifier_map Mod5 { };

key.type[Group1]=”EIGHT_LEVEL_ALPHABETIC” ;

key { [ NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, Escape ] }; // tilde
key { [ NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, F1 ] }; // 1
key { [ NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, F2 ] }; // 2
key { [ NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, F3 ] }; // 3
key { [ NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, F4 ] }; // 4
key { [ NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, F5 ] }; // 5
key { [ NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, F6 ] }; // 6
key { [ NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, F7 ] }; // 7
key { [ NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, F8 ] }; // 8
key { [ NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, F9 ] }; // 9
key { [ NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, F10 ] }; // 0
key { [ NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, F11 ] }; // minus
key { [ NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, F12 ] }; // equal
key { [ NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, Delete ] }; // backspace
key { [ NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, BackSpace ] }; // space

key { [ NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, Home ] }; // u
key { [ NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, Up ] }; // i
key { [ NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, End ] }; // o
key { [ NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, Previous ] }; // p
key { [ NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, Left ] }; // j
key { [ NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, Down ] }; // k
key { [ NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, Right ] }; // l
key { [ NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, Next ] }; // semicolon
key { [ NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, Delete ] }; // m
key { [ NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, Insert ] }; // comma

key { [ NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, Print ] }; // w
key { [ NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, Scroll_Lock ] }; // e
key { [ NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, NoSymbol, Pause ] }; // r

};
Richard Gomes on September 27th, 2011 6:52 pm

Some typos:

1. I was forced to buy, and not forced to by.
2. The correct command must contain quotes, like this:

$ setxkbmap “us(intl)” -option -option miniguru:layer2

Thanks

Richard Gomes
Richard Gomes on September 27th, 2011 7:02 pm

Oh… come on… the blog software swallowed parts of the text! too bad

Please download the file from here:\

http://www.jquantlib.org/ftp/rgomes/downloads/miniguru

Thanks again!

Richard Gomes
Richard Gomes on September 29th, 2011 2:16 pm

Putting everything together:

1. The Miniguru is a compact keyboard with trackpoint, excellent for those interested in the ‘home row’ concept. Have a look at its Layer 2, which provides IJKL and other niceties.

http://www.guru-board.com/english/layout_en

2. I’m providing a non-intrusive keyboard emulation for Linux. By non-intrusive I mean that the “miniguru(layer2)” option does not interfere with other keyboard configurations you may have selected. So you can have the Miniguru Layer2 on top of us-intl, for example. Well… mostly. Some configurations, like “de(neo)” (among some others) may be affected.

How it works:

1. Download the file I’m providing at\

http://www.jquantlib.org/ftp/rgomes/downloads/miniguru
and put it into your folder
/usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols

2. Enter the command below, which selects layout “us(intl)” and puts option “miniguru(layer2)” on top of it:

$ setxkbmap “us(intl)” -option -option miniguru:layer2

That’s it. I hope it helps.

Richard Gomes
Nikhil on September 13th, 2012 11:07 pm

Thanks a lot Gustavo and all for such a time-saving compilation.

But instead of compulsion of keeping pressed caps lock ( and then press another key), can somebody please suggest a way to do this with caps toggle mode. I mean…
now , caps + h => gives you left arrow
but , caps(pressed once) and h => should give me left arrow and when i toggle caps back , h should give me normal ‘h’
This should save us a lot of time. Please somebody hack it this way and post here:)

Thanks.
Making the Caps Lock key (very) useful on Windows » Danik Games DevBlog on January 8th, 2013 4:33 pm

[…] an annoyance. But there are ways to make it more useful. I recently found a very nice script by Gustavo Duarte which maps Caps Lock as a modifier key that lets you navigate in text Vim-style using H, J, K and […]
Giles on January 13th, 2013 6:33 am

Is it just me? When I implemented this on Windows 7, I got the desired effect (and very nice too!) but with just one failing – caps lock was not mapped onto Application key, the Application key remained unmapped ie continued to do its usual dreary work, and so Caps lock was unavailable. Adding a second line, the ‘reverse mapping’ in Sharpkeys, the exact opposite of the one given, has precisely the desired effect as described in the blog, with application key now mapped as caps lock. Hurrah! But, uh, surely this must have been spotted before? Is not the last line in AHK script intended to achieve this effect, but seems not to do so? Or am I just being dumb here, misunderstood something? Any road up, thanks for a great post even after all these years, this is just a minor point.
Gustavo Duarte on January 13th, 2013 7:38 pm

@Giles: Were you able to use SharpKeys to do the key mapping? Or are you using only the AHK script?
Giles on January 27th, 2013 2:06 pm

I think I followed your guide exactly, using sharpkeys frirst, saving to registry, it works as expected, just I need to add a second line which as I said is precisely the reverse mapping ie from 00_3A to E0_5D. These together, when written to registry, work as expected. Then I use the AHK script you provide, compile to an exe, placed in startup, and all works fine. But without the second mapping, in sharpkeys, no caps lock. With the second mapping, just fine.

I’ve just had another look at your AHK script and the last two lines are:
; Make Windows Key + Apps Key work like Caps Lock
#AppsKey::Capslock

I’m puzzled by the hash on the last line, no other line has hash…? I suppose I could RTFM, but as is this last line appears not to be doing it’s job for me, I wondered if this is unintended?

But anyway, doing via sharpkeys works just fine so I really don’t have a problem – thanks again for sharing all this because it is pretty cool.
naxa on April 5th, 2013 6:42 am

great post as always!

this may be a bit off-topic, but I cannot acces the site due to limitations on my computer imposed by my anti-virus program:

ESET NOD32 Antivirus – Alert\

http://www.randyrants.com/sharpkeys/
Access to the web page was blocked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.
The web page is on the list of websites with potentially dangerous content.

is there any real potential danger in SharpKeys, or is this just a false-positive? Or maybe the site was attacked? (but I got this a month ago, too) Or (worst case) do they classify not-for-noob programs as viruses?
Gustavo Duarte on April 6th, 2013 10:25 am

@naxa: it’s always good to err on the side of caution, but in this case I think it’s a false positive. It could be that there is malware that uses Sharp Keys for ill intent, maybe remapping user’s keys to do key snooping or other bad deeds.
confounded on January 6th, 2014 5:00 am

Great post, I’m using this on both Windows and Linux. You’ve saved my wrists!

I did want to ask, however, is this supposed to disable the Apps key?

Mine (tyring to use either Caps or the original key) now seem to be disabled, which is a shame, as I do get some use out of it. This has only happened on Windows, on Ubuntu everything is working as expected.

Many But Finite

Tech and science for curious people.

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