+1 It's been ages since I last tried Emacs but one of the main reasons it didn't resonate with me was the constant hand contortions required for key chords. I'm pretty sure I tried evil mode as well. Projects such as Combobulate, Vertico, etc. being mentioned in this thread weren't around back then and seem intriguing. Curious to learn about any other projects or workarounds that help with ergonomics.

Rebind Capslock to act as Ctrl when held and Esc when pressed, use a modal editing package like evil or meow. There's also devil-mode which does some smart heuristics on your semicolon so you can press it instead of holding Ctrl or Meta (Alt).

That's pretty much it without delving too much into specifics, it's important to note that most of Emacs' functionality can be called via M-x (the original command palette) and selected or searched for easily. No need to play piano with hard to remember key chords for rarely used stuff.

I type Dvorak and I use the opposite modifier key to whichever key I want to modify. So, for example, for Control+A I would hold the right control key and press a. Aside from that, an active hobby with plenty of stretching and strengthening for the entire body.

I'm using a QMK split keyboard, remap the Left Space key as Ctrl key so that I can press it with my left thumb finger.

r/emacs on Reddit has many discussions about this.

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