Is there an anti-Caps Lock movement?

[D-EJ915]

comic sans isn't as bad as unnecessary sarcastic posts

I like how the Japanese 109 has the caps lock key, as a shifted key, works great!  It's more like the original shift-lock that way as well.  Those of you suffering from wimpy pinky can still use it and those of us who prefer useful keys can have something else in its place (most likely control or backspace).

I wish more of the accessory keys had shifted functions as well.

[ch_123]

or that bent line doohickey that lives over the '6' on a terminal keyboard?).

You mean ¬ (Logical 'Not' operation)? It's still here on ISO keyboards (Shift+number beside one). However, unless you do a lot of mathematical writing, or you have some program that needs it, there's probably much more useful things that could take it's place.

[Shawn Stanford]

You mean ¬ (Logical 'Not' operation)? It's still here on ISO keyboards (Shift+number beside one). However, unless you do a lot of mathematical writing, or you have some program that needs it, there's probably much more useful things that could take it's place.

I didn't say wanting them was reasonable, I just miss them, is all.  

[Rajagra]

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2009-06-26-delete-key_N.htm

"On average, they used the "Escape" and "Delete" keys 700 times per week"

What software (and OS) were these people running?

I can't remember the last time Esc did anything useful for me. It's not like it ever escapes you out of anything nowadays. (Just like Scroll Lock rarely stops scrolling, Break rarely stops anything, Ins messes you up worse than Caps Lock,etc.)

And there is nothing Del can do that Backspace can't achieve just as easily.

I doubt that average PC users press the Esc key 700 times a week, if at all.

[Shawn Stanford]

And there is nothing Del can do that Backspace can't achieve just as easily.

That depends very much on how your data entry fields are structured and what your keys do. On a terminal, the 'End' key erases all input to the end of the unprotected field, and there are no 'quick jump' keys except 'Tab' and 'Return'. So, if you wanted to delete characters from the beginning of a field or line, there is no easy way to jump halfway down and start backspacing (assuming you have a destructive backspace, not all terminals do).

[ricercar]

The escape key is useful to back out of (e.g. cancel) Windows save and load dialog boxes without using the mouse. I also use it a lot in a game called Second Life to back out of all dialogues without closing them or using the mouse.

The Caps Lock key. meh. Wait, there was a book ... here it is. John Sandford's "Prey" series of cop fiction has a detective named Del Capslock. I swing wildly between contempt and humor.

[Hak Foo]

Esc also tends to stop browsers.

[Xuan]

And there is nothing Del can do that Backspace can't achieve just as easily.

In most text editors Ctrl+Del deletes from the caret's position to the end of the word (dw in vim), try it it's really useful.
To do the same with Backspace, Shift+End and then Backspace, it's not as good.

I doubt that average PC users press the Esc key 700 times a week, if at all.

I use vim as my text editor, I think 100 times a day is not a big number.

[shrap]

I think the only thing this thread shows is that generalizations about key usage are usually incorrect. For every key that you never use and think it should be removed/moved somewhere inconvenient, there's going to be someone who can't live without it.

Step one for any "power" computer user should be to learn how to remap keys via AutoHotKey or the equivalent.

Myself, my usage is way out there. I use backquote "`" as a focus-control key - helps cut down on those times where you need to move the mouse to click on a specific window pane or area. I probably press it a hundred times a day. I use Windows-L, -E, and -M continually. And I have to use the hated Insert key to send Ctrl-Alt-Delete keypresses to my Virtual Machines.

[Manyak]

If it weren't for the fact that I still have a ton of old DOS games I'd say the only completely useless key on a keyboard is Pause/Break.

Then again, the SysReq command also hasn't been used for anything since the IBM S370 Terminals.

[keyb_gr]

Then again, the SysReq command also hasn't been used for anything since the IBM S370 Terminals.

I wouldn't call this 'nothing'. (Although admittedly it's not overwhelmingly popular either.)

[bsvP585hUO2Y6]

Manyak writes:

> Then again, the SysReq command also hasn't been used for anything
> since the IBM S370 Terminals.

Well, Linux has support for it, and I'm making occasional use of it.
It's quite convenient when a process is eating up all memory and the
userland becomes unresponsive.  SysRq- still works nicely
in this situation since it traps directly into the Kernel.

,----[ Documentation/sysrq.txt.gz ]
| *  What is the magic SysRq key?
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| It is a 'magical' key combo you can hit which the kernel will respond
| to regardless of whatever else it is doing, unless it is completely
| locked up.
| [...]
| *  What are the 'command' keys?
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| 'r'     - Turns off keyboard raw mode and sets it to XLATE.
|
| 'k'     - Secure Access Key (SAK) Kills all programs on the current virtual
|           console. NOTE: See important comments below in SAK section.
|
| 'b'     - Will immediately reboot the system without syncing or unmounting
|           your disks.
|
| 'c'   - Will perform a kexec reboot in order to take a crashdump.
|
| 'o'     - Will shut your system off (if configured and supported).
|
| 's'     - Will attempt to sync all mounted filesystems.
|
| 'u'     - Will attempt to remount all mounted filesystems read-only.
|
| 'p'     - Will dump the current registers and flags to your console.
|
| 't'     - Will dump a list of current tasks and their information to your
|           console.
|
| 'm'     - Will dump current memory info to your console.
|
| 'v'   - Dumps Voyager SMP processor info to your console.
|
| '0'-'9' - Sets the console log level, controlling which kernel messages
|           will be printed to your console. ('0', for example would make
|           it so that only emergency messages like PANICs or OOPSes would
|           make it to your console.)
|
| 'f'   - Will call oom_kill to kill a memory hog process
|
| 'e'     - Send a SIGTERM to all processes, except for init.
|
| 'i'     - Send a SIGKILL to all processes, except for init.
|
| 'l'     - Send a SIGKILL to all processes, INCLUDING init. (Your system
|           will be non-functional after this.)
|
| 'h'     - Will display help ( actually any other key than those listed
|           above will display help. but 'h' is easy to remember :-)
|
`----

[ch_123]

Yeah, I've used some of those SysRQ commands myself, but I don't think they are enable by default in most distributions, maybe something to do with the fact that someone can restart or power off your computer with the press of three buttons...

[timw4mail]

Yeah, I've used some of those SysRQ commands myself, but I don't think they are enable by default in most distributions, maybe something to do with the fact that someone can restart or power off your computer with the press of three buttons...

Hold: Control - Alt - Sysreq

Hit: R - E - I - S - U - B

Hard software reboot.

[harrigan]

I also swap the escape and tilde key too.

I use Escape and tilde quite frequently so I swapped these keys too but I map Shift-Escape to the tilde character.  I map Shift-grave to Compose since I need it every once in a while.

[IBI]

You mean ¬ (Logical 'Not' operation)? It's still here on ISO keyboards (Shift+number beside one). However, unless you do a lot of mathematical writing, or you have some program that needs it, there's probably much more useful things that could take it's place.

I tend to use ! are not but it's a shame we haven't got the rest of the characters, ∀ and ∃ would be dead useful and I could see the internet repurposing them in no time.

"On average, they used the "Escape" and "Delete" keys 700 times per week"

I can't remember the last time Esc did anything useful for me. It's not like it ever escapes you out of anything nowadays.

Escape is an all purpose cancel and I use it a lot, I generally have to hit it four or five times every time I start a game to skip the stupid intro logos and as others have said it gets rid of dialogue boxes, unhooks tools and generally acts as an all-purpose cancel.

[IBI]

I forgot about ESC and games.   I wonder if the new Supreme Commander will get me back into PC gaming.

It's back in the hands of Chris Taylor so it should be better than the travesty that was Forged Alliance.

And if Paradox can add the polish while maintaining the gameplay Hearts of Iron III looks like it's going to be excellent as well. Hearts of Iron II was the sort of game where invading russia was actually as difficult as it was supposed to be, rather than being just another province (*coughtotalwarcough*). Being able to do it at more than 1024x768 will be excellent.

[msiegel]

cyberculture strikes again

http://digg.com/mods/Caps_Lock_Has_A_New_Name

[msiegel]

i just remapped caps lock to be control, and now i have no caps lock

i like it this way

http://pics.blameitonthevoices.com/082009/caps_lock_problem.jpg

[Rajagra]

I remap it as Backspace, and when I plug in my HHKBlite I really miss the CL key!!!!

[quadibloc]

I finally decided to get around to using Microsoft's Keyboard Layout Creator to set up a custom keyboard layout that lets me use the right Alt key to type additional characters.

To have even more choices, I used a feature called "Swiss German Capitals" so that when Caps Lock is on, instead of getting lowercase characters when I shift the letters, I get additional special characters.

[timw4mail]

I finally decided to get around to using Microsoft's Keyboard Layout Creator to set up a custom keyboard layout that lets me use the right Alt key to type additional characters.

To have even more choices, I used a feature called "Swiss German Capitals" so that when Caps Lock is on, instead of getting lowercase characters when I shift the letters, I get additional special characters.

That just sounds too complicated.

[msiegel]

I finally decided to get around to using Microsoft's Keyboard Layout Creator to set up a custom keyboard layout that lets me use the right Alt key to type additional characters.

To have even more choices, I used a feature called "Swiss German Capitals" so that when Caps Lock is on, instead of getting lowercase characters when I shift the letters, I get additional special characters.

we're changing your username to Unicode XD

[spremino]

Caps Lock is useful, I agreee. It's just misplaced. There are other keys more useful to have in such comfortable position (Esc, Backspace, Shift (for European layout, ecc).

[quadibloc]

I've seen that site before, I really wonder what he was smoking when he came up with this.

Hey, I wasn't even on drugs when I came up with this!

Of course, I know it's hard to believe.

One multi-function keyboard layout that tries to combine all the functions of:

The normal 104/105-key PC keyboard
The 122-key terminal emulation keyboard
The Sun keyboard (notice the HELP key on the left)
An APL keyboard (APL symbols are on the right half of the keys)
A LISP keyboard of the Space Cadet variety (Meta, Super, and Hyper... and the symbols on the left half of the keys, even unshifted (. ). and

One keyboard to bind them, one keyboard on which to find them all, one keyboard to rule them all...

[timw4mail]

Hey, I wasn't even on drugs when I came up with this!

Of course, I know it's hard to believe.

One multi-function keyboard layout that tries to combine all the functions of:

The normal 104/105-key PC keyboard
The 122-key terminal emulation keyboard
The Sun keyboard (notice the HELP key on the left)
An APL keyboard (APL symbols are on the right half of the keys)
A LISP keyboard of the Space Cadet variety (Meta, Super, and Hyper... and the symbols on the left half of the keys, even unshifted (. ). and

One keyboard to bind them, one keyboard on which to find them all, one keyboard to rule them all...

And one keyboard to confuse them all.

[spremino]

Caps Lock bashing sites:

http://anticapslock.com/
http://capsoff.org/

[vicz]

Hey, I wasn't even on drugs when I came up with this!

Needs foot pedals.

[Rajagra]

Hey, I wasn't even on drugs when I came up with this!

I can feel the colours, man!

Show Image

Airbags? For extreme typing? Made by Volvo?

[quadibloc]

Needs foot pedals.

I had actually considered, in order to allow full FORTRAN compatibility on modern computers...

adding six sense switches and four sense lights to the keyboard.

As were found on the front panel of the IBM 704 computer.

And then there's the Velotype keyboard, currently known as the Veyboard, which has pads intended to be pressed down with the wrists during typing.

[microsoft windows]

That's one wacky keyboard.

[D-EJ915]

Caps Lock bashing sites:

http://anticapslock.com/
http://capsoff.org/

they are not bashing sites!  they are portals of enlightenment!

[DreymaR]

Ridding yourself of the CapsLock key is premature. I get such joy from mine, as the PKL 'extend' key. It's pretty much like the HHKB Fn key for me, plus added goodness.