Difficulty adapting to different keyboard shortcuts between Windows and Mac, causing frustration and pain while typing

Signals over time

2 observed signals across 1 sources, tracked for 5 days. Confidence: low.

What people are saying Observed

• “This is for a Macbook Neo, your mileage may vary: fn (globe) -> left_command gives you a Windows-like Ctrl key for most of your keyboard shortcuts. This works way better than changing it in the macOS settings. You can then left_command -> right_option, then use that "right_option" key in Raycast (to get PowerToys Command Palette fonctionality) and in AltTab (Windows-like multitasking). If you use Raycast, you can easily assign the Windows key+. to emojis and Windows key+V to the clipboard history, like on Windows. If you don't, you can also do it with the system tools in Karabiner. Moving between words was probably the thing that frustrated me the most, because on Mac it uses Option instead of Command, for some reason. Cmd+Left/Right -> Option+Left/Right gives you Windows-like word jump. Cmd+Backspace -> Option+Backspace allows you to remove a word using the Ctrl+Backspace keys, like on Windows. Same thing with Cmd+DeleteForward -> Option+DeleteForward. Unlike DefaultKeyBinding.dict modifications, which people online tend to suggest, it works in all apps (including Electron ones). In my Chromium browser (Edge), I like to remap Cmd+H -> Cmd”

  Hacker News · frustration

• “It hurts _all the time_ for me. I've used a Windows PC my entire life. 35 years of PC. I use my MBP M2 Pro when I travel, and for about 6 weeks every summer, and it's like pouring lemon juice into a paper cut the entire time. Specifically, my concerns are around this exact matter: I have such muscle memory attached to, say, slamming my pinky across L-Ctrl+L-Shift+left arrow in order to quickly select just the previous word from the cursor. This is something I do... I don't know, at least once a paragraph, as I very very quickly type and then realize I've introduced some basic typo that I need to nuke the previous word to address. Doing this on Mac keyboards is Shift + Option + Left Arrow and... it's hell. It's absolute hell. Mashing that extreme corner shortcut with my pinkie is so baked in that there's just... no reasonable way for me to reprogram my brain to do that on a Mac. Similarly, I have a stroke every time I try to mentally remap what things use control and what uses command. And while I could potentially remap the fn key on an MBP keyboard, I tend to use my Logitech K800 on both systems, so instead try to remap control to ALSO be command”

  Hacker News · frustration