Show HN: shortcutFoo is an effective way to learn shortcuts (Vim, TextMate, etc)

https://www.shortcutfoo.com

by watterssn • 14 years ago

86 35 14 years ago

vasco• 14 years ago

Don't show us a register box, show us the product right away.

lomegor• 14 years ago

Exactly. I was hoping to try it out to see if it worked, but when I got the 'please give me your e-mail' I just tuned out.

Edit: Just wanted to say that besides that, the landing page looks really nice, and it can be a useful product, albeit with a small market.

ragmondo• 14 years ago

Sorry to say "me too" but "me too". At least let me play with a few screens before the nagging starts. Shame. Looked like a good idea and I'm always trying to tie my fingers in knots with the next emacs C-S-M-repeat-last-interactive-regexp-update

sequoia• 14 years ago

I know the email thing is a put off but if it's any consolation, the email isn't (immediately) confirmed, nor is the password. Just use a dummy email (try yopmail), you can probably change it later.

I agree on principal but this tool is cool enough that I think it's worth hopping the gate for.

bsimpson• 14 years ago

There should at least be a demo mode that doesn't worry about persisting history across sessions - just shows the product. If you insist on making an account for everyone, permit something like Facebook Connect so I can control how much data I give you and don't have to think about making yet another account.

watterssn3• 14 years ago

Thanks for the feedback. I agree a demo on the front page would be nicer. I'll work on getting that done!

mrgoldenbrown• 14 years ago

Why does there need to be a sign in page at all? How does that benefit the user? Shouldn't I be able to come to the page, choose a topic, and start practicing? If I want to save progress, or customize something, then I might want to create an account.

sparknlaunch12• 14 years ago

Interesting. Landing page looks clean and professional. However hesitant that there is much of a market for this. Do people actually want to learn shortcuts like this? Most learn directly in the application and/or refer to a cheat sheet reference?

drsim2• 14 years ago

As a Visual Studio developer, what I'd really like is a plugin that can reveal shortcuts as I use the app in a usual way. So pop up a message if it sees I've done something through the menus: 'hey, you've just pasted in some text: use CTRL+V'

toyg3• 14 years ago

IntelliJ products (IDEA, PyCharm etc) have a plugin that does exactly that.

Cilvic• 14 years ago

We work on exactly that: http://www.veodin.com/keyrocket unfortunately Visual Studio is not in yet, but Excel, Outlook, Word and PowerPoint are!

rex64• 14 years ago

using chrome, xcode New empty file shortcut opens a new windows

andr3w321• 14 years ago

Tried it out for a bit. It's a little confusing and not a great way to learn shortcuts IMO. The first time I tried it I had no idea what was going on and got every one wrong despite knowing the shortcuts. These results were then saved and I'm not sure how to delete them after I figured out how it worked. Interface looks nice though and you obviously spent a lot of time on this.

davidjhamp• 14 years ago

like the idea but I was hoping to be able to use it for eclipse.

jpitz• 14 years ago

He says he's going to add Eclipse.

cstuder• 14 years ago

You might try MouseFeed, it's a funny plugin which actually disables mouse commands once you've learned the keyboard shortcut: http://www.mousefeed.com/

(Horrible website though, and I haven't tried it with a current Eclipse version.)

pajju• 14 years ago

The concept is really good! And lots of things can be explored from here.

1. Bring all the cheat sheets, Best Practices and Gamify them.

2. Bring Linux command line Drills, Best practices and Command line shortcuts(I will pay $$ for this!)

3. I miss typing tests and drills. Something better than typeracer competitions?

4. Show the product right away in your landing page, and not asking for registrations.

5. Finally build a platform and Crowdsourced community around. Let others decide what Practice they want and also challenge others.

Thanks, I will be your customer and definitely pay for such a service!

solutionyogi• 14 years ago

Looks good.

For VIM, please show the shortcut in lower and upper case instead of showing everything in uppercase and distinguishing actual upper case with a shift key. It was very confusing.

Also, if my answer is wrong, pleas show me the 'incorrect' key I pressed along with the right answer. I want to know whether I mistyped OR I got the shortcut completely wrong.

watterssn3• 14 years ago

Thanks. A couple others mentioned this over olark. I'll definitely make a note of this.

pjmo• 14 years ago

I just used it a bit, and didn't really enjoy it too much. It's more of a way to test whether or not you know them, rather than teach you the shortcuts. I'm in the process of trying to learn more shortcuts, so I thought this would've been helpful, but there's a lot more refinement needed.

yurifury• 14 years ago

Learning shortcuts is very effective with Spaced Repetition Software like Anki or Mnemosyne. I learnt many useful vim commands that are still burned into my skull years later. For an example deck: https://github.com/amikula/vim_flashcards

The UI here is responsive and bouncy, but splitting it into several decks rather than spacing one deck is suboptimal.

toyg3• 14 years ago

Uh, no <title> tag in header?

brsim• 14 years ago

Using Chrome on the mac, the "New Project" shortcut open a private browsing window. I believe the browser shortcut issues are being addressed already though.

Overall I like the idea a lot, I've just began learning how to use VIM and this app seems a nice way to learn, but as has already been mentioned it seems more like a practise tool rather than actual teaching. The only way to learn the answer is by getting it wrong the first time. I think there needs to be more focus on the "shortcuts" tab, or at least integrate together with the main app.

existentialmutt• 14 years ago

I'm not too impressed by this product's teaching method.

I mentally store keyboard shortcuts as an association between key combinations and behavior I see in my editor. The name for the behavior is secondary.

This product provides you with the name of a behavior and asks you to type the keyboard shortcut that performs it. So it's building associations between keys and names of behaviors, not the behaviors themselves. That's a big difference for me.

I imagine this product's method could work for some learning styles. For me, I prefer to practice and apply keyboard shortcuts in an environment where I can see their results (like the actual editor!)

gms7777• 14 years ago

I agree. Using this tool alone won't make you effective at using the shortcuts.

I think it is a good first step though ,for people like me, who use VIM on a regular basis with a fairly limited vocabulary of shortcuts. To actively learn new shortcuts, I usually need to write them down somewhere next to the computer and then keep referencing them (especially when they are ones I don't use very often so they take a bit longer to memorize). Something like this is great because it will at least drill the shortcut into my head, so that while it won't become habitual to use it (and I'll need to make an effort to make it so) at least I'll be able to mentally reference it when I need it without having to look it up.

zafriedman• 14 years ago

Please keep doing this, and explore what else besides keyboard shortcuts can be learned best with the "drill method". I plan on giving you real positive feedback by voting with my dollar as soon as I get some work done today, but I suspect that for some people (I am one of those people) that the "drill method" is an excellent way to learn new things. I am a person who learns by doing, and as such repetition is the key to me becoming an expert with a new language, framework, IDE, etc. Talk about "making wealth" a la PG, this makes a lot of wealth for me, and I suspect there are more like me.

watterssn3• 14 years ago

Thanks I appreciate it. Expanding to other areas is definitely on the agenda. Hope you enjoy it!

pwan• 14 years ago

It would be better if maybe there was some ipsum lorem text that was updated based on the key compos. the text was acting on. That way if you get a drill item wrong, you get some more positive feedback wrt the key-combo, and if you get it wrong, you get some additional feedback wrt what that wrong combo does.

omgsean• 14 years ago

A lot of the shortcuts are being processed by my system before they get passed into your app (Chrome, OS X 10.7)

rufugee• 14 years ago

Doesn't work at all for me on Linux with Chrome. This is what happens when I start a drill: http://i.imgur.com/O5C9n.png

23david• 14 years ago

Great idea. The platform is awesome. Great idea and amazing design/execution so far.

I wasn't aware that I could create my own quizzes/training until I clicked on the upgrade link... Perhaps you can make that more clear to your visitors.

I agree with the idea others have mentioned here that not requiring an email/password initially would be a bit better, but it was so fast to get started I didn't mind too much. Congrats.

tylermenezes• 14 years ago

Tiny bug - Command+Enter for Mac Sublime is always registering as incorrect.

aptwebapps• 14 years ago

Nice.

A nitpick: I had never used C-X U for undo in Emacs before. I use C-/ and when I Googled it I found C-_. Not sure which one (if any) is canonical, but it'd be great if it allowed all versions.

Show HN: shortcutFoo is an effective way to learn shortcuts (Vim, TextMate, etc)

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