Yes.

Great, I will give them a try. Thanks. I’m sure one day I will have to evolve beyond just changing keycodes in X :)

This is just for wireless? I still prefer to use USB. I will try to find something similar, thanks.

Custom layout was only part of my answer. Most vim users don’t use custom layouts and second point still holds.

I could just as easily say it’s better to remap wasd to the arrow function and have the FN key toggle it,

Great idea. It would give you like 5% of what vim offers but 5% is better than 0%.

much higher number of people already have that navigation method trained into muscle memory

All vim users have hjkl trained into muscle memory. No one is saying that it’s automatically better. vim has a learning curve. When you know how to use it it’s simply better than traditional editors.

Sounds interesting. How do you set this up in Linux? I’m just remapping keys on X level now.

First, as I said, I remapped ESC to TAB key. Tab is very close.

Second, it’s different to hit ESC ones than to use arrows keys to move around. To go back to home row after using arrow keys I have to feel around the keys trying to find “j” again. Or look at keyboard. I don’t have to do that after hitting ESC once.

No, it’s a key stroke, not hand move. I don’t have to reposition my hand to hit ESC. You do have to reposition your hand to use arrow keys.

Also, you usually move the cursor by more than just one character. It’s one extra keystroke to reposition the cursor, not to move it by one char. You have shortcuts to jump to end of file, specific line, end of line or even create and jump to bookmarks. All this with just standard keys, without repositioning your hands to use the mouse or arrow keys.

Yeah, sorry. I have:

Esc -> Caps lock (useless so far away)

Caps Lock -> Tab (the most useful so closest)

Tab -> Esc -> second most useful

I had it for so long that I forgot which one is which :)

Why would you move your hand to arrow keys when the letter are already under your fingers?

ESC, use-letter-to-navigate, i, type, ESC, navigate, i, type

Really simple. On my keyboard I re-mapped ESC to TAB so I don’t even have to move my hand to switch between navigate and insert modes.

That was over 20 years ago. That was when the first movies came out. Was she saying any controversial back then? I don’t remember anyone boycotting the movies.