Forum:Hjkl: two hands?

Hi everybody!

I'm thinking of starting to use the hjkl (yubn) keys, and I'm really wondering how I'm supposed to hold my fingers. I understand hjkl comes from the amazing world of vi and early terminals with no arrow keys, and hjkl is supposed to be oh-so convenient as you don't have to move your fingers from the home row.

But with nethack things are a bit different: not only are yubn outside the home row, b belongs to the typing zone of the left hand!

The question is: do you use the normal touch typing zones (both hands), or do you rest your right-hand fingers one step left of the normal typing position?

Thanks!

< Forum:Watercooler

I use normal touch-typing zones. Tjr 10:31, July 6, 2010 (UTC)

I rest my right hand one step to the left and don't put my left hand on the keyboard at all (so if I want to apply something, I usually hit "a" with my left index finger). A complication is that I use the number keys for vanilla, which I play on a native copy, and hjkl for SLASH'EM on Pallas, so I also get confused sometimes. Fortunately this hasn't killed me yet. Slandor 13:20, July 6, 2010 (UTC)

Thanks you guys for the answers; I'm now well on my way to mastering hjkl (yubn), with my fingers on normal touch-typing zones (I touch-type btw.) The only oddity is the 'b', but its starting to feel cool playing on this old laptop (Thinkpad 600X, no keypad). Level 7 knight with Grayswandir on its way to greatness :)