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I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys

184 points by speckx

by __s

5 subcomments

I've switched to programmable ergo keyboards where there's a whole slew of options (https://precondition.github.io/home-row-mods just covers home row mods)
I've always hated stateful control. Always ripped out caps lock key from my boards (or later figured out remapping), same for insert mode
That's carried over, even with options like one shot mods, & cutting down to under 40 keys (& playing with 28, yesterday received a https://github.com/kilipan/zilpzalp), I still don't find stateful control necessary. More layers, combos, & tap-hold go far

by CarVac

9 subcomments

Speaking of "natural scrolling" it is horrible because most scrolling is downward and "natural" is an ergonomically inferior pushing action instead of pulling.
It's only natural on the actual display itself.
Anothe affront to nature by Apple, along with killing the headphone jack.

by Aachen

2 subcomments

Missing the zeroth option in the "doing Fn right" suggestion list: don't use Fn.
I have a keyboard here with a handful of extra keys at the top which do all these functions that the author is showing as Fn functions on their keyboard. Isn't that simply the right option?
Also on laptops: yes, I want to change the brightness regularly, but also I use the function keys in applications that support them. There's already like 100 keys on there! How much do the extra ones cost? I don't buy the cheapest laptops anyway, I'll buy what I think will work the best. No manufacturer offers this option though. Even Framework has only half-height escape and function keys shared with Fn triggers :(

by elric

5 subcomments

Thinkpad laptops thankfully have a BIOS option to revert the behaviour to normal, where F1-F12 perform their nominal functions. I'd probably pay an extra €50 for a laptop that didn't come with a stupid Fn button at all. Might want to throw some more money at a few more keyboard modifications: my bottom row is Fn CTRL Win Alt Space AltGr PrtSc Ctrl; that PrtSc button clearly has no business being there. Arrows & PgUp/PgDown are too small. Backspace is too short. Etc.

by kerblang

0 subcomment

Important keyboard design note the author would agree with but didn't point out: Function keys are supposed to be divided into groups of four with a distinct gap between each group. This makes it much easier for the wayward touch-typist to find things.
BTW I've gone back to wired keyboard because most companies assume people who prefer wireless prefer as many unnecessary bells and whistles as possible to the point of compromising the design. There is no concept of some features being better than others, just a black/white everything/nothing.
Also refer to automobiles, tv's, all modern design...

by kanemcgrath

1 subcomments

One of my favorite things about my custom mechanical keyboard, is being able to remap the entire key set in the firmware with VIA. I have fn+arrow keys for media, fn+space for play/pause fn+end for calculator, and a bunch of random others. It is so useful I could never get another keyboard that doesn’t have a similar functionality.

by nickcw

1 subcomments

> And so, because I don’t want to hold Fn every time I want to press an F-key for its intended purpose, I used the arcane shortcut Fn+Caps to “lock” the keyboard into “standard” mode, where multipurpose F-keys remain multipurpose F-keys unless I hold down the special magic button that transforms them into rarely-used single-purpose special function keys.
> But here’s where the problem occurs. If the batteries get changed, or if the keyboard gets turned-off for an extended period, or sometimes – seemingly – just randomly… that function-lock gets switched off.
I have this problem with my Microsoft Natural keyboard; my favourite ever Microsoft product which helps me keep my RSI at bay.
Every now and again the Fn lock key gets pressed by accident. I then look very confused for some time as to why none of the Fn keys are working before I remember the dratted Fn lock key.
The Fn lock key is next to F12 so well in the range of accidental presses.
Maybe not many people drive their setup with function keys any more, I don't know.

by jraph

0 subcomment

The HP Elitebook laptops get this right.
You can configure whether you prefer the standard behavior or to use the actions assigned to the F keys by default, I think in the BIOS, and then you can use fn lock to switch at runtime. That's nice in itself but that's not all.
In the latter mode, holding a modifier key like Alt makes the F key act standard, so Alt+F4 works in any mode as expected.

by mmsc

1 subcomments

A missed opportunity to say you 'Fn' hate the Fn key :)

by acheron

1 subcomments

I know laptops have a bit of a different standard, but for real keyboards, IBM perfected keyboard design in 1985 and all deviations from that are a mistake.

by piekvorst

1 subcomments

Instead of using a single menu bar icon “volume control,” I have transferred the lessons of the keyboard to the GUI and placed two buttons in my menu bar: volume down and volume up. I have been using them all the time for about half a year now.
The benefits of this approach, to my knowledge and estimation, include: no waiting for a slider to appear; no nested actions; no need to read the current value; each click does not depend on the current state; Fitts’ Law muscle memory boost (the buttons are effectively infinite-height targets); discoverability compared to scrollwheelable icons.

by kaelwd

1 subcomments

Traditional keyboards are dead to me, get something programmable with zmk or qmk and a bunch of extra thumb buttons so they can do something more than just the spacebar. I have ctrl and alt in the outer column inline with letters so they're super easy to press without reaching, and shift, return, backspace on thumbs as well as layer switch for function keys, symbols, numpad, and arrows all accessible from the home position. Bonus points for split too so your wrists aren't at a weird angle.

by chrisandchris

1 subcomments

Some models do have physical switches on the back witj which you can enable / disable this behaviour.
One of the many cases where physical buttons/switches are superior to software-only options.

by Dwedit

1 subcomments

Sleep key is scancode E05F
In registry "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout"
Create Binary value named "Scancode Map"
Put in there: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 3E 00 5F E0 00 00 00 00
That changes scancode E05F (Sleep key) into scancode 3E (F4 key).
Then logout or reboot for the change to apply. I actually looked up what would be necessary to do this change without a reboot, and it turns out that only WinLogon.exe is allowed to make the Scancode Map change.

by pknomad

1 subcomments

> It was nice that they gave dedicated keys to volume control/toggling muting.
I know it's not an option for certain keyboards (and laptop keyboards) but I appreciated not having to use Fn keys and use physical volume dials like Das Keyboard 4. https://www.daskeyboard.com/daskeyboard-4-professional

by amelius

1 subcomments

What I hate about keyboards is that you have to select your key layout when you setup your OS. Why isn't that information simply accessible over the USB protocol? Yes, I know why, because they didn't think of it.

by maybal

1 subcomments

At least your keyboard has a Fn lock shortcut. Mine doesn't, so I'm stuck either taping down the Fn key or living in constant fear of accidentally sleeping my PC. Real first world problems but still

by rswail

0 subcomment

While we're on the topic, I've got an aging WASD that I created the keycaps for, made them fully Mac but an ISO layout.
Why are en_US ISO 105-key layout keyboards so hard to find?

by 3form

1 subcomments

Something that I'm missing from both the article and the comments - I would remap the sleep button to F4 at OS level. Repeat analogous steps for other keys.
Granted, you'll lose these functions, and likely switching to another keyboard will drive you mad, but I guess this is a good stopgap software based solution.

by ilaksh

0 subcomment

I have a mechanical keyboard also and like tactile feedback. But I think what we really want is just a touch screen with some kind of next level programmable haptics. Then we can have whatever keys we want
Products like Tactus or Tanvas were going in the right direction.

by zzo38computer

0 subcomment

I had thought of that in the past too, and also thought that the additional functions (if needed, which it usually isn't, in my opinion) should be the secondary function and not the primary function.

by Glyptodon

0 subcomment

In general there aren't many great couch keyboards. FN keys aside, some keyboards have dedicated power, sleep, or other keys that are just annoying and dangerous for a couch keyboard.

by brianwmunz

0 subcomment

I have had it with these mother Fn keys on this mother Fn keyboard!!

by olidb

0 subcomment

I would really love to see the state of the fn key on the screen, preferably in the task bar. Maybe that would reduce the times I accidently change the volume and brightness.

by mjmas

0 subcomment

The builtin keyboard on Asus StudioBook laptops also gets this right.
When holding Alt, the F4 key always acts as that rather than its special action (backlight brightness down).

by tartoran

0 subcomment

My Lenovo Carbon X1 daily driver has an option to disable or enable fn keys and uses blue led to indicated the status.

by mindslight

0 subcomment

The article doesn't even touch on the fact that on these types of keyboards, the F-keys often have bastardized keycaps rather than the regular profile. For example on the Microsoft keyboard example, they're much smaller and probably have crappier travel.
The fundamental problems here are the product design pushes to make everything smaller and also to add gimmicky features that seem like they'd be useful but with the constraints just end up taking something else away - note that the examples of good keyboards are made from standard full size keycaps. The rise of bespoke keyboard designers that using off the shelf switches/keycaps is a constraint that pushes away the other two trends.
I'd think you can get mechanical keyboards with reasonable wireless functionality these days. If the range isn't long enough, run an active USB extension cord around the room and put the receiver under your couch. Laptops are of course the age-old space where keyboards are scrutinized to death.

by djxfade

0 subcomment

On macOS, I use a free app called Fluor, that lets me auto switch the Fn key behavior based on which app is active.

by tylerflick

0 subcomment

Ah WASD keyboards :(. Does anyone by chance have the manuals for the v1 and or v3 coding keyboards from them?

by nialv7

0 subcomment

Just get a keyboard that supports custom firmware and go wild with it. You can do whatever you want.

by jakub_g

2 subcomments

Talking the "Sleep" button...
Back in 2000s, there were some popular cheap external keyboards with three extra buttons between the delete/end/pgdown row, and the arrows.
The first of those buttons was "power off" sitting just below "Delete".
Example: https://www.flickr.com/photos/hendry/330827330
It was pure madness because it was guaranteed to push this button by accident on a daily basis.
I can't imagine someone using computers for more than 5 minutes could have designed this.

by jabroni_salad

1 subcomments

For any lenovo enjoyers, know that you can swap Fn and Ctrl in the bios options.

by gavinsyancey

0 subcomment

FYI -- You can configure your system to ignore the sleep key (without disabling sleep altogether) by setting
HandleSuspendKey=ignore
in /etc/systemd/logind.conf
(No idea how if you're on Windows/Mac/Devuan but it's probably possible there as well)

by lejeanvaljean

0 subcomment

I totally agree, they should offer two versions of each keyboard

by croisillon

0 subcomment

constantly lowering my luminosity instead of refreshing my page :(

by phendrenad2

0 subcomment

This is an example of a spandrel, an evolutionary maladaptation that becomes self-reinforcing. The chain of events is as follows: Shaving 1.5" off the top of the keyboard and removing a row of media buttons saves the keyboard company $2 or something. So one budget keyboard company does it. Other companies see this and think "oh, they did market research and realized that people WANT a smaller keyboard more than they want media buttons" and suddenly you can't find a lightweight bluetooth keyboard with separate media buttons. The keyboard industry is blissfully unaware of their mistake until a brave soul named Dan Q blogs about it.
This kind of thing is usually quickly corrected, but in a niche like bluetooth keyboards with a touchpad (seriously how many use those other than nerds with jellyfin or a raspberry pi)

by Eji1700

0 subcomment

Another VIA/QMK/VIAL nerd, mostly with 40%'s (split or otherwise, Chiri CE and Mercutio being my favorites), I think the main things modern keyboards should flat out adopt:
1. Offer a layout that's swapped CAPS with Ctrl.
2. Split spacebar
3. Remapping on the board
The caps/ctrl thing is just so obvious once you daily drive it for a bit. I personally banish caps to another layer and think even on normal keyboards it'd be better on a function layer, but given inertia and people swearing up and down they NEED capslock in 2026, this seems like an easy compromise.
The split space just flat out gives you an extra button.
Most people hit space with one thumb or the other (and in shockingly consistent spots, I find i use the middle space of 3 key split, which is the 1u). That means the entire other half of the button is wasted real-estate and the thumb on your other hand literally or mostly does nothing.
The final one with on board remapping is where you can customize that extra space to be the function you want. I know some people who swear by tap hold, double tap, toggle, whatever. Even thought those are being yelled about in the comments here, whatever your flavor you can do, and you've got a button for it right there.
If you still want your standard "i need a button for everything layout" cool, fine, this changes nothing.
If one day you decide you want to at least try something new (and if you can already touch type i HIGHLY recommend exploring the space with something cheap), cool. Here's a leaping off point.
Personally, the epiphany for me was realizing during some testing that yes i NEED a numpad/function keys all the time. But instead of that being an argument for a fullsize, it was actually an argument for getting better access to another layer so my numbers/functions are under my fingers at all times (4/5/6 is J/K/L). About an hour after testing that I never wanted to go back, and it feels so much slower and arduous when i'm not on one of my boards (god especially things like vim which love their escape key)

by luqtas

0 subcomment

https://github.com/kmonad/kmonad - An advanced keyboard manager
enjoy

by tedggh

1 subcomments

I didn’t know how many keys I didn’t need until I switched to a 50% ortholinear, and I would dare to say even a 40% should be enough for most people.

by Lammy

0 subcomment

Related to this is one and only thing I would say I hate about my Framework Laptop 12: its Airplane Mode key.
I keep Fn-lock enabled at all times and use the Fn/LCtrl-swap option in the UEFI just like the one on ThinkPads, but if I ever accidentally hit non-Fn-locked F10 the key code is interpreted by the EC instead of by the OS, so there's nothing I can do in the OS to disable it.
Even worse is that it's adjacent to PrintScrn, so it's the “oh fuck I wanted to take a screenshot and just dropped myself from the match” panic panic panic key.

by KolmogorovComp

0 subcomment

The real culprit is having the awkward alt+F4 used for closing an application instead of cmd+W or cmd+Q on macOS for example.

by tom1337890

0 subcomment

I totally agree and I feel you.

by Elfener

1 subcomments

I hate the missing home/end/pgup/pgdn keys more (which is the case on basically all laptops, and you obviously can't just buy a different keyboard for a laptop).

by liendolucas

1 subcomments

I hate laptops now shipping with the Office 365 logo. Apparently the Windows logo wasn't enough. How many more Microsoft symbols will keep polluting keyboards?

by mhb

0 subcomment

Better title: Fn Fn keys

by kgwxd

1 subcomments

I have a bin full of pristine keyboards that never see the light of day because of Fn, arrows, Home, and/or End placement.
I used to work on 3 different laptops, so I kind of got used to thinking about every stroke using those keys, but I never want to go back there, it's so mentally taxing.

0 subcomment

by carlosjobim

0 subcomment

I'll file this also under the category "unlimited grief and inconvenience".
Nobody suffer in this worldly existence as much as hackers do.

by nailer

0 subcomment

> every time I want to press an F-key for its intended purpose
Oh. I thought by "I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys" he meant the opposite - many people don't ever use F1-F12 for their intended purpose.

by bethekidyouwant

4 subcomments

Cant remember using a function key.. but i believe there are programs that do.
More curious.. are there people that use the caps lock key? Its great real-estate…

by sleepybrett

0 subcomment

buy a keyboard that support qmk or zmk firmware and remap it further than you might ever want.

by dfxm12

0 subcomment

"The default state is the traditional key function"
What is the traditional F-key function? Today, on my laptop, I probably use the media controls most, then the brightness controls, then fn+f5 to refresh a page.
Is it worth defaulting to some tradition from a time when computers didn't play media or have dimmable displays? How many apps recognize the full set of f keys anyway?

by kps

0 subcomment

“I don't like the keyboard I bought.”

by XorNot

1 subcomments

I definitely hate the G-keys on a Logitech G915 more though.
It's a perfectly good full size mechanical keyboard with low travel...and a row of keys on the left hand side which obliterates the typing ergonomics of it.
Meanwhile they stopped making the K740 which is basically the perfect keyboard (which I am now typing on after buying a replacement key - the Cherry Stream is good but man....this still just feels better overall - the key layout is just subtly right).
Meanwhile whoever at Lenovo thought to the put the function modifier key on the left outermost side, rather then Ctrl, has commited a serious crime against ergonomics.

by preethamrangu

0 subcomment

[flagged]

by bbzylstra

0 subcomment

[dead]

by fisherwithac

0 subcomment

[dead]

by Innittech

1 subcomments

[flagged]

by tqwhite

0 subcomment

Just use a Macintosh. You can simply tell it to be fn keys instead.

by swyx

1 subcomments

> I Hate (Most) Keyboard 'Fn' Keys (danq.me)
> 11 points by speckx 13 minutes ago | flag | hide | 1 comment
this is currently #1 on HN gaining 11 points in 13 mins. never seen this before.

by bee_rider

8 subcomments

The F1-F12 keys have always felt like one of those things where… it’s like, people who enjoy oldschool interfaces seem very attached to. And I love the terminal, so I feel like I ought to have strong opinions in their favor.
But the only time I need to use them is… what is it, ctrl-alt-F3 to switch to a console if my window manager has fallen apart. This is a very rare event, so I can’t find any strong feeling here.
What do people use these keys for? The volume/brightness keys seem much more useful. Maybe I’ll map the corresponding F-keys to brightness as well, so I can just never care about Fn.