Fairly shallow learning curve on the switch since so much is cross platform electron apps these days.
BUT ... Good god the command vs ctrl behavior is driving me nuts! (even with tweaking using Karabiner etc.)
First, the ergonomics of ctrl (left pinky stretch) + any letter vs command (left thumb inversion) are night and day. ctrl for the win.
Second - windows is so much more consistent for what the ctrl key does vs the super (windows) does. ctrl is almost always the modifier, Windows key is always OS level. Mac, it's all over the place.
Am I just still on the learning curve and cranky, or does this seem like a worse user experience to any other dual wielders?
Can you imagine that other people who did the reverse may have a different opinion?
I’m firm in the “on most keyboards, the control keys are way to far out to be useful” camp, and don’t see how bending a thumb a tiny bit to hit the command key can be less ergonomic than sending your pink out on an expedition.
Command, on the other hand, is easy. It’s a one cm or so motion of the top of my thumb (whose natural resting position is at the edges of the space bar)
(I also think that, for the N=1 that’s ‘me’ “the stretching a finger in the direction it's pointed towards” is not a good description of reaching for the control key. With my fingers on the home row, the direction my little finger is pointed to is the Q. To reach the control key, I have to change that direction by about 30 degrees. I can’t easily reach it without also rotating my wrist and/or fold my little finger to hit it with my nail. For command, the ends of my thumbs rotate by about half that)
I've got to conclude that the reach between control and command are approximately the same, more than half the keyboard for me in any case at which point you should to switch using control or command on the right side of the keyboard, or using your other hand to press the second button.
Personally my biggest gripe with command over control is that a bunch of software still uses control on macos, giving a rather inconsistent user experience.
On Macs, Cmd is for GUI and Ctrl is for sending control sequences in a terminal, as originally intended by Unix.
As a Linux user, I found this separation fairly consistent and a good idea.
You need to either get used to using the opposite cmd key to the letters you are pressing or remap cmd to caps lock so you don't need to contort your thumb underneath your fingers. I learned this the painful way.
In the end I settled on using a Japanese HHKB keyboard with US layout keys for the symbols and a bit of on-device key remapping to find my ergonomic end-game that I can use on all platforms.
Do explore the key remapping in MacOS though, you can have it set up so you can copy, cut, paste etc with the ctrl key instead of the cmd key.
In macOS, if you highlight text, you can then paste it using Shift + Command + “v”.
Kind of like X Windows middle button.
I can do this with text highlighted in iterm. Highlighted text can be copied in other apps as well with Shift + Command + “v”. Or with terminal app, where the shortcut only works when used within terminal app itself.
My frustration is the function (fn) key placement. Just terrible.
IMO you should remap your keys: https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/
Every system will not be 100% to your liking, so make it work for you.
