The Art of the Bodge: How I Made The Emoji Keyboard
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN links it as a charming defense of bodging and of AutoHotkey, and as the go-to example when custom keyboards or hotkey hacks come up.
What it is
Tom Scott explains how he built his emoji keyboard, which turned out to be a series of bodged-together tools including AutoHotkey and LuaMacros. He tells stories about the value of quick-and-dirty solutions.
Recommended by 4 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2018 to 2024.
What Hacker News said
Recommends modernerd · 2020-05 · on “In Praise of AutoHotKey”
AutoHotKey (in addition to WSL and VS Code) was enough to make me Windows-curious and eventually try a Windows laptop again after 10+ years on Mac. I first found out about AHK via Tom Scott's similar ode here: [this video] He describes it as “a bodge that helps you make other bodges”, which is beautifully put. [For those outside the UK, a “bodge” is a clumsy hack or repair.]
Recommends jedimastert · 2020-05 · on “In Praise of AutoHotKey”
Fun AutoHotKey abuse: Tom Scott's emoji keyboard[0]. It's every single emoji (at the time of recording) on 14 full keyboards with 1,000s of hand-placed bespoke stickers. He goes into more detail here[1], but it's beautiful. [0]: [LINK] [1]: [this video]
Recommends dijit · 2020-08 · on “Jira Is a Microcosm of What’s Broken in Software Development”
Never underestimate the art of the bodge, it's quite literally keeping the world ticking over, perfection has a place but it is rare and fleeting. I saw a good talk on it from Tom Scott some time ago[0] which I think is relevant. [0]: [this video]
Recommends lcnPylGDnU4H9OF · 2022-09 · on “Software I’m thankful for (2021)”
I can't disagree, even if I would prefer something else. Easily the most compelling argument I've heard for Windows is Tom Scott's: [this video] .
Cites Kagerjay · 2018-08 · on “Setting up a second keyboard for more shortcuts in Emacs”
With lua + autohotkey scripts in windows this is definitely possible the last time I checked. You run a luascript on another keyboard mapped to a generic key, luascript inputs that as the proper text-based language There's a tomscott video on it [this video] Checkout Teran van Hemert (linustechtips editor) for some potential ideas too. He's got crazy macro schemas, I've used a couple of his and there great. All windows based as well though. [LINK] Mac, I can only assume its something you would write in applescript. But maybe you find some interesting ideas there. I found something called " [LINK] that might be of interest to you
Cites modernerd · 2018-10 · on “How IBM’s ThinkPad Became a Design Icon (2017)”
Yes, there is the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), which is a compatibility layer for running Linux binaries natively on Windows: [LINK] [LINK] [LINK] I haven't switched to Windows 10 full-time yet, but WSL works remarkably well whenever I've tried it. Cmder ( [LINK] ) and ConEmu ( [LINK] ) are pretty decent terminal emulators and Terminus ( [LINK] ) looks promising too. (It's hard to beat iTerm, though.) My other concern with Windows 10 was security and viruses. Last time I used Windows every day (~1999!) that was a huge concern, but it seems to be less of one now. Most seem to consider using the standard Windows-supplied virus checker just fine if you're not torrenting dodgy stuff and op
Cites jedimastert · 2021-05 · on “Windows Terminal Quake Mode”
Auto Hotkey is surprisingly powerful Here's Tom Scott talking about how he used AHK and Lua to make a keyboard for every emoji [this video]
Cites avidseeker · 2024-08 · on “Emotional about X11: I'm creating a pure X11 “emoji keyboard””
Reminds me of Tom Scott's "Art of Bodge up" video where he attempts to make an emoji keyboard on Windows. [this video] It's funny at the end he says "and don't ever suggest me I use Linux, just don't." I felt he expected it to be really hard project on Linux, while iterally his project is a single keyboard layout file.