On Keyboards
So my keyboard at work just broke. Doesn’t happen often, but one of the keys just stopped y’know… putting it’s letter on the screen.
So I got given a replacement from somewhere.
Here’s the thing – the layout is different. Any programmer or techie or otherwise-nerd will know what I mean when I say that it’s FREAKING ANNOYING!!
Now, there aren’t any big changes really. I mean, all the letters are in the same place, and the F-keys are still above the keyboard and the number pad is the same, but there are enough differences to frustrate someone like me.
The Home-End-PgUp-PgDown-etc. chunk of keys is different.
This is what I used to have:
Here’s what I have now:
What that means is that I keep hitting Delete instead of End. Because it’s right below Home now.
I only have one Windows key
And it’s on the left – the one I don’t go for when I’m locking my computer with Win-L as I stand up to go somewhere.
The F-keys are grouped in threes
Seriously, in threes? F5 is by far the most common F-key I hit, and now it’s in the middle of a cluster instead of on the left. I have to look at my keyboard now to hit it.
My right Ctrl key is slightly to the left of where it was
Not a big deal you’d think? Well truthfully it doesn’t affect me much – I still usually hit it first go, but it’s been moved left to make way for the arrow keys. So when I don’t hit Ctrl, I hit the left arrow key. That’s confusing.
So you’re probably thinking, “Oh, you poor little baby! Would you like some cries with your waa-burger?” And yes, yes I would.
Seriously, it’s frustrating. I know it’s only temporary – I’ll get a new one soon with a normal key layout. But my keyboard is by far the most frequently-used tool in my arsenal. Small things like this slow me down.
Ok, I’m finished complaining now. You can proceed with your day.
I understand your pain, sat down to use a desktop here the other day and the euro keymap is a bit different… \ is actually part of enter (it’s vertical long instead of horizontal), ‘ is # and | is on ~, nfi where ~ is….
These might sound like minor things until you try to write a unix script, also RDPing into a windows server becomes interesting when your keymap is US:intl and theirs isn’t… g’luck finding those keys!
If i ever get a desktop over here I’m going to get someone to forward me a US:intl keyboard.
Man, that’s a huge annoyance of mine too. It’s very difficult when purchasing keyboards online to know exactly what the layout will be. A slightly different-to-expected layout can be a major productivity killer, especially if you’re working with different keyboards (and hence can’t get used to one).
I have the same layout preference as you it seems. Logitech has always done me right in the past in this regard – you should take a look at their keyboards.