Okay, so I’d been annoyed by the fact that the up-arrow key was wedged in between the ? and Shift keys. It got so obtrusive that when I typed, I would often overwrite the lines above when I accidentally hit the UP key.
So I decided to try the key remapping hack detailed on Eeeuser.com. That meant remapping keys to switch between the UP and SHIFT key, and between the DOWN and RIGHT keys. I then copied over the switching script to my KDE startup folder, so it gets executed every time I boot up Xandros.
Along with this, I decided to actually interchange the buttons themselves. So using a small screwdriver I carefully popped out the keys to switch them across.
So my arrow keys looked like this:
? SHFT UP
LF RT DN
So far so good. Better typing experience, I thought.
But then my navigating experience severely suffered. I was so used to the old layout:
UP
LF DN RT
So I decided to remove the script and return the keys to where they originally were.
Now I’m more used to the peculiar SHIFT key position, and my typing efficiency has improved. In fact, I’m so used to the Eee keyboard that it feels awkward to type on my regular laptop keyboard!
I still miss the SHIFT key sometimes, with disastrous results. But there’s nothing that UNDO or Ctrl-Z can’t fix, right?
I think I better practice using the left SHIFT key instead.