Testing tip: Make your keyboard fast

I believe every modern operating system allows you to set the key repeat rate and the delay before first repeat: By default, on a Mac, the initial delay is 500ms, and the key repeat rate 1000ms. You can adjust both: Initial delay goes from 250ms, to as long as 2s. Repeat rate goes from 2000ms (once every two seconds) all the way to a whopping 33ms (30 times a second). On a PC, the shortest values are exactly the same, but Windows 11 only allows up to 405ms between key presses, and 1000ms of initial delay. My suggestion is to make them both as short as possible for testing. Why would that be helpful? There are two reasons. First, it’s good to test whether your keystrokes behave well when repeated. Occasionally you might want your interface to suppress repeating, or do something special if the key is held longer. Second, it’s a good test not just of repeating, but just the user pressing keys really fast. It’s very important for the UI to never make you wait for any animations or…