Emacs’ shortcuts and their role in RSI are a staple of Emacs commentary. Everyone, it seems, has their own methods for relieving stress on their hands as they use Emacs. Prot, for example, thinks that one-shot modifiers are the answer. Others recommend using a split keyboard or simply mapping Caps Lock to Ctrl.
A post over at meanwhiling has another suggestion: use your thumbs. That’s also familiar advice but the post goes into specific details. Those details, in a nutshell, are to map the two keys nearest to either side of the space bar to Ctrl and the two keys next to those to Meta.
That setup has the advantages that
- Both the Ctrl and Meta keys can be pressed with a thumb
- There is a Ctrl and Meta key on both sides of the keyboard so you never have to press the modifier and target key with the same hand.
The only remaining question is what to do about Hyper and Super. I use both of those, especially Hyper, all the time so I need them easily accessible. That’s made easier for me because I don’t mind using the same hand for the modifier and target keys. I still use Caps Lock for Ctrl and my thumbs for everything else. If my pinky ever starts complaining about Ctrl I’ll probably just swap Ctrl and Super. I’d do that anyway except for muscle memory and the fact that my hands don’t hurt.
I do think using your thumbs for your most used modifiers make sense and modern keyboards make that pretty easy to set up.