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Steampunkdemon1 year ago(+1)

I can't see a way to remap the arrow keys within MacOS but I found an app called Karabiner Elements that can do it. Of course remapping the arrow keys to WASD means they no longer function as arrow keys and so can't be used to navigate menus. In Godot navigation between UI elements is set-up by default to use the arrow keys, so that normally works in all Godot games even if the dev didn't specifically intend it to. I'm not familiar with how Unity and other game engines handle keybinds but I guess they don't have similar defaults set.

Using ESDF would make more sence for touch typists but I think many computer users aren't trained to rest their fingers on the home keys. For whatever reason WASD became popular and now we're stuck with it!

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redonihunter1 year ago

Actually, I think wasd-f makes more sense. I can reach more additional keys with the index fingers. Pinkies are shorter and less dexterous.  Do people think it is better to use their 3 strong fingers for movement? Is this a domination thing for fingers, instead for hands? It should not make a difference, if you are left or right dominant. You hands do whatever your train them to. And typing with 10 fingers already uses the fingers of both hands quite equally.

Maybe it was because the devs of old thought they needed to use keys such as tab or shift. Maybe it was so that the thumb was nearer ctrl and alt.

Remapping your arrow keys should work without a 3rd party tool, if you do it system wide. There seem to be tools that can do that per app, but not all those things are free.

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Steampunkdemon1 year ago(+1)

If the Wikipedia page Arrow keys is to be believed then WASD was widely adopted after first person shooter players gravitated towards using it for movement along with mouse look. It left the spacebar accessable with their thumb and the shift and control keys within reach of their pinky. Apparently older computers had limitations on the number of alphanumeric keys that could be recognised as being pressed at the same time, so that is why modifier keys were used for some controls.

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mid1 year ago (1 edit)

That exact paragraph also doesn’t feature a single citation. I have no idea what they’re talking about. On PCs the PS/2 interface sends signals as keys are pressed and released, leaving key rollover to the operating system itself.

It’s actually USB’s standard keyboard interface that only allows 6-key rollover, because the buffer of pressed keys is stored in the keyboard, at least on the simplest setting (the boot protocol).

I don’t think I’m missing anything else, though I could be wrong.

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Steampunkdemon1 year ago(+1)

This thread from back in 2010 covers the reasons why many keyboards of the time only effectively allowed 2 key rollover:

https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/6669/how-do-i-remove-the-limit-on-pc-...

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redonihunter1 year ago

Interesting history lesson.

Once again, historical reasons and cheap tech made people use and stick to the inferior solution. Pinky usage gives me cramps. I can press a and the keys above and below fine, but when I try to rest with index on d, my pinky hovers somewhere between keys or is cramping up trying to find the shift key. While not "natural" I am used to press and find keys with index on f. There is a nice bump on that key to find it while not looking.

Key bindings should be an essential and trivial part of all game engines, so devs would not have to think about it or spend time implementing it themselves. One should think. But apparantly that still is not so.

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mid1 year ago

That thread doesn’t explain anything, and again, nobody there differentiates between USB and PS/2 keyboards.

Looking it up, however, it looks like not all keyboards took advantage of PS/2’s superiority.

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Steampunkdemon1 year ago (1 edit) (+1)

I think you are missing the point. It doesn't matter how many keystrokes the interface can send if the keyboard itself can only detect 2 keys being pressed at a time. The thread explains that many keyboards at that time could only detect 2 simultaneous key presses not counting modifiers. At the bottom it covers the technicalities of why that was, i.e. keyboard manufacturers going from having each key individually wired to using a grid system to cut costs and having to impliment anti-ghosting due to the grid system's limitations.

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mid1 year ago (2 edits)

Yeah.. that’s what you get when you focus on writing drivers instead of the real hardware for too long..

Still, I don’t like how the Wikipedia article doesn’t have a citation. Even if it were obvious today, it definitely won’t be ten years from now.

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