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Some sites cause Carpel Tunnel Syndrome. Surely not PerlMonks?

by monkeriffic (Novice)
on Oct 14, 2006 at 00:47 UTC ( [id://578239]=monkdiscuss: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??

Hi, Great site, very popular around the world. I am new here and grateful to be here. I have one question:

Is there a way to post in a conventional manner - such that I don't have to add line breaks - and paragraph marks

where the site just accepts my text in a way that other sites do, ie. it basically posts what I wrote with no additional coding needed?

After coding all day, I suppose I would be happy not to code questions about my code...if you know what I mean.

I think I'm getting carpel tunnel syndrome, and yet Microsoft and some sites want to add keystroke upon keystroke and sometimes I ask, "Are all those extra keystrokes necessary?"

Human bodies do wear out after all. Ask around at those who are at the computer all day if extra keystrokes matter or not.

I could be wrong...but I think they do and curse apps that love to add them.

Of course, peace and love all around here...because surely there is a way to avoid the extra keystrokes? How hard would it be to accept text as typed as default but allowing users to choose the Carpel Path if they desire that?

Thanks!

Love,

Leslie

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Some sites cause Carpel Tunnel Syndrome. Surely not PerlMonks?
by GrandFather (Saint) on Oct 14, 2006 at 01:03 UTC

    Well, work is progressing on PerlMonks Editor. The first cut is available for download from CPAN at http://cpan.perl.org/authors/id/G/GR/GRANDPA/PMEdit/PMEdit-001.000104-1.pl. The next version will be available 'real soon now' and cleans up a bunch of rendering bugs and adds some of the features from the 'must have before release' list that didn't make the early alpha that is currently available.

    Apart from that I have a template setup that includes my typical reply format - paragraph, code, "Prints:" paragraph and another code block followed by my sig. Since many of the posts I make include sample code, 70% of the time I don't need to add any markup. The another 20% of the time it's just delete the inappropriate markup, and for the rest I use PMEdit ;).

    You can set up a template using Signature Settings.


    DWIM is Perl's answer to Gödel
Re: Some sites cause Carpel Tunnel Syndrome. Surely not PerlMonks?
by shmem (Chancellor) on Oct 14, 2006 at 11:22 UTC
    Is there a way to post in a conventional manner - such that I don't have to add line breaks

    What do you deem is a conventional manner? TIMTOWTDI, from various wiki markup formats over javascript based tag inserting to plain text. In either way the text has to be marked somehow. Here at perlmonks the conventin is just HTML, see Perl Monks Approved HTML tags.

    Your Carpal tunnel syndrome certainly doesn't come from perlmonks. Get a better keyboard ;-) The markup needed here for a decent post is very little. I rarely use line breaks, mostly <blockquote>, <code>, <c>, <i> and rarely <b> tags. If you're using vim - here's the relevant block in my .vimrc which does the formatting whilst typing with Alt key bindings and abbreviations:

    " all those ^[ and ^M created with <Ctrl>V<Key>, [ being Esc, M Ret " insert blockquote block ab <B <blockquote>^M^M</blockquote>^[ki " insert code block " (reverse the edoc, it's like that to not break the formatting :-) ab <C <code>^M^M</edoc>^[ki " Alt-i: wrap the current word with <i></i> whilst typing " leaving the cursor at the closing tag in insert mode map! ^[i ^[bi<i>^[ea</i>^[2bi " Alt-c: wrap the current word with <c></c> whilst typing " leaving the cursor at the closing tag in insert mode map! ^[c ^[bi<c>^[ea</c>^[2bi " Alt-l: wrap the current number with [id://<number>] whilst typing " leaving the cursor aftert the closing ] in insert mode map! ^[l ^[bi[id://^[ea]

    Some emacs, anybody? :-)

    --shmem

    update: looked up carpel tunnel syndrome .)

    _($_=" "x(1<<5)."?\n".q·/)Oo.  G°\        /
                                  /\_¯/(q    /
    ----------------------------  \__(m.====·.(_("always off the crowd"))."·
    ");sub _{s./.($e="'Itrs `mnsgdq Gdbj O`qkdq")=~y/"-y/#-z/;$e.e && print}
Re: Some sites cause Carpel Tunnel Syndrome. Surely not PerlMonks?
by monarch (Priest) on Oct 14, 2006 at 14:53 UTC
    Welcome, monkeriffic. Glad to have you aboard.

    Like any new editor or environment we have to get used to there is always some pain at the beginning.

    I'm one of those who would possibly rather not type <p> at the beginning of every paragraph, rather have a blank line in between paragraphs like twiki. But in a lot of ways I like the perlmonks interface too.

    You'll get used to it :) In the meantime have fun here!

    PS the best way to avoid repetitive strain injury (RSI) is, in my opinion, type hard on the keyboard with force.. micro movements are the cause of problems, so make your movements with macro and gusto!

      Hmmm....push hard, use force and gusto...and that will help RSI? Never heard that but am trying to B R E A K my keys as we S P E A K!!!

      thanks for that tip :)

Re: Some sites cause Carpel Tunnel Syndrome. Surely not PerlMonks?
by quester (Vicar) on Oct 14, 2006 at 23:27 UTC
    This may be a little off the topic of the Perlmonks markup, but Carpal Tunnel is not to be taken lightly.

    Seven years ago a coworker showed me his wrists after surgery. It looked just as though he had been nailed to the cross. I decided to take the Dvorak plunge and haven't looked back. YMMV, of course.

    You might want to look at Introducing the Dvorak Keyboard and think about it. Any decently recent Linux distro or any version of Windows since 2000 will already have the keyboard mapping. I can recommend (ABCD) as a good set of starting exercises.

    Best of luck.

      YMMV, of course.

      I agree that Carpal Tunnel is not to be taken lightly. I also agree that mileage varies with the individual.

      I've seen a guy out of university trying every technique to look after his sensitive wrists, including standing with a neck strap attached to his keyboard (much like a guitar).

      As for me, like I said, I make sure I hit each keystroke with a reasonable amount of force. I've only met one person who types at the same rate as me with the same high accuracy. And I've been doing it for about 12 years seriously. My wrists are fine. Actually the most screwed up my wrists ever got was in high school doing final exams with a pen and pad.

      All I'm saying is look into whatever technique you find suits you best. Dvorak is a solution. But either way you're going to be doing a lot of keystrokes in your career - and trying to absolutely minimise the amount of typing you'll have to do (e.g. saving 5-10%) isn't necessarily the best answer.

      ... but Carpal Tunnel is not to be taken lightly

      Jamie Zawinski's experience with typing injury is a great read on what can go wrong and some things one can do to combat the problem.

      If you don't mind my asking, quester (and any other Dvorak users), I have a question unrelated to typing injuries: do you actually think you type faster (not "in a healthier manner") using a Dvorak layout than you did when you (presumably) used a QWERTY layout? I ask because there's a lot of both pro- and anti-Dvorak propoganada and I can't make up my mind. (Also, when coding, did you re-learn new positions for the non-alphanumeric characters, such as braces, or use the "usual" ones?)

        Hmm... actually I never measured my typing speed before and after. I think it's roughly the same for me, but then I never typed very fast anyway. I would guess that that's true of most people who type more code than text.

        As far as I can see, trying to use the existing positions for nonalphanumerics is going to get awfully involved, because the Qwerty keys assigned to some of those characters, ",<.>/?;:" in particular, are used for letters in Dvorak, "wWvVzZsS". If you try to avoid moving the "[" key you will need to move "/' elsewhere...

Re: Some sites cause Carpel Tunnel Syndrome. Surely not PerlMonks?
by jkva (Chaplain) on Oct 16, 2006 at 14:55 UTC
    Perhaps it would be an idea to have some kind of setting (for now, until GrandFather's perlmonks editor is done) like "Conventional mode" in which it is "WYSIWYG" as on most message boards? Just a thought...
      Hey now...I'd be down with that :)

      Thanks everyone for the GREAT LINKS about protecting the wrists over the long Haul. I have some reading to do!

      Love,

      Monkeriffic

Re: Some sites cause Carpel Tunnel Syndrome. Surely not PerlMonks?
by brig (Scribe) on Oct 20, 2006 at 22:15 UTC

    Hmmm...

    1. Keep your wrists straight.
    2. Do Not put your palms down on your desk or keyboard.
    3. Use a high quality keyboard that requires little force to trigger the keys.

    Correct typing form looks and feels very unnatural at first, kinda like playing guitar or piano or riding a bicycle. The same things are true with mice.

    Cornell has done alot of research on this topic:
    12 Tips on Ergonomics

    I can type very fast (80+ WPM) and have been doing it for years (I'm 40) and the only problem I have developed is bad astigmatism (LOL).

    CTS is generally the result of bad habits, but no one wants to admit that because we like to sue everyone.

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