Comment by smj-edison 2 days ago
Another question to all those who use emacs, what do you do to avoid emacs pinky? I've been hesitant to start using emacs for that reason, since I've had pinky pain quite often in the past two years and I'm pretty sure emacs would push me over the edge...
+1 It's been ages since I last tried Emacs but one of the main reasons it didn't resonate with me was the constant hand contortions required for key chords. I'm pretty sure I tried evil mode as well. Projects such as Combobulate, Vertico, etc. being mentioned in this thread weren't around back then and seem intriguing. Curious to learn about any other projects or workarounds that help with ergonomics.
Rebind Capslock to act as Ctrl when held and Esc when pressed, use a modal editing package like evil or meow. There's also devil-mode which does some smart heuristics on your semicolon so you can press it instead of holding Ctrl or Meta (Alt).
That's pretty much it without delving too much into specifics, it's important to note that most of Emacs' functionality can be called via M-x (the original command palette) and selected or searched for easily. No need to play piano with hard to remember key chords for rarely used stuff.
I type Dvorak and I use the opposite modifier key to whichever key I want to modify. So, for example, for Control+A I would hold the right control key and press a. Aside from that, an active hobby with plenty of stretching and strengthening for the entire body.
No need to be fast with Emacs. You can just input chords with two hands.
But I’ve remapped caps to control and use the side of my pinky instead. My hands are big though.