"The Vim Clutch": a footpedal for the code-editor Vim

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/03/12/the-vim-clutch-a-footpeda.html

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Yup, put me in cat A. Squeee!

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my mom could type >90wpm, and used a pedal to speed or slow the transcription tape. Reminds me of that.

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Take that, you emacs-lovin’ sunzabitches.

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“D” deletes to the end of the line… “d$” is what the noobs use.

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Are you mad? The last thing Emacs needs are more modifier keys.

And now simply push C-S-M-Footpedal-X to engage Xyzzy mode, and…

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the Emacs version is more of a Dance Dance Revolution affair.

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kick starter dot com

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For Emacs I hear they are coming out with a new model Antagonistic Undecagonstring (you’ll have to have an extra set of arms grafted on)

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Can we call it a “Piettal” since you press it to go into command now?

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Only way to code.

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How does one pronounce vi, anyway? An instructor called it “vee-eye” so that’s what I called it for about 14 years. Then I worked with a guy who used vim and he pronounced vi “vih,” apparently thinking that “vim” and “vi” should have the same vowel. More recently, a coworker (who still codes in Fortran) rhymed it with “why.”

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Emacs has had these for decades since in addition to Control, Shift, and Alt it’s got Meta, Super, Hyper (and esc).

See http://xkeys.com/XkeysFootPedals/index.php for instance

Or if you want to get fancy, http://www.howardism.org/Technical/Emacs/kinesis-footpedal.html

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If you get a footpedal that acts as the Control key then you can drive around in WordStar pretty easily too. (or WordTsar for osx/linux/windows)

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And, of course, the Butterfly command:

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You pronounce vi as ‘vee eye’ - it stands for ‘visual’, but it sounds dumb (and confusing) to just say ‘vih’. The guys who created it pronounced it that way, so it’s official. Your fortran guy is using Yet Another Custom Pronunciation to try to get around the ‘vih sounds dumb’ problem, but it just leads to confusion. It’s only two frickin’ syllables to do it the right way!

On the other hand, once you go to Vim, you pronounce it ‘vihm’ since ‘veem’ sounds dumb. This is in the official Vim docs, so again it’s official - and the capitalization is official as well.

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There’s an Emacs version as well.

It’s not as bad as it looks: for keys outside of the main set you just use your little fingers.

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“vi” pronounced “why” is probably from the name Violet, which has a diminutive form of “Vi”.

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Vhy you do dis to me?

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Normally I hate to be that guy, but this is honestly the perfect thread for it, so:

Vim has THREE modes. Not two.

Pressing : in “Normal mode” puts you in the third mode.

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