Those U-shaped plastic bits I got with my Topre Realforce

[Tisca]

What are they for and what are they called?
My best guess is putting between the switch and the cap for blocking accidental presses. They fit there perfectly sideways turned correctly, up until you try to put the cap back on. I did only try this with the Caps Lock key, different rows and key sizes might work differently. So what's the deal with these?

What I'm talking about (second img inside plastic bag): http://i.imgur.com/YLomt.jpg

[Snooter]

I believe that is a key puller so you can easily take off key caps to put the new ones on.

Edit: I see what you're talking about now I don't know what those are sorry.

[alaricljs]

Dunno what they are called but they are for exactly what you did.  They block pressing of keys you don't want activated.  Don't know which keys they had in mind, but likely caps/win/menu are the primary candidates.

[All The Fire]

He's talking about the little black things in the bag, by what he's said he's already managed to remove the keycaps with the big metal puller.

In other words, I don't know.

[Tisca]

Only key I want blocked and have tried on is Caps. If the cap would be level with the rest it'd be fine but it's higher than the rest and not properly attached at all. Am I doing something wrong or do the only work for certain keys?

[cleeoo]

But if you were to put something like that on. Wouldn't that mean that it is permanently unable to be pressed, until you remove the plastic block? That just seems a bit silly... I can sort of understand it being used on the Caps Lock key, but besides that, it doesn't seem practical.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

I had a problem a few years ago with hitting Insert by mistake way too often, and it was driving me mad. Being a dome board, I just pulled the dome and replaced the keycap. Sorted. These days I find myself using that key quite a lot anyway.

I sometimes hit LWin by mistake, but since I use that key extensively, there's no use in blocking it.

Besides, now I know about AutoHotkey, I can just convert any key into a no-op.

Keys that are good candidates for blocking (or violent and humiliating abuse) are things like Power Off where Page Up is supposed to be. Thank frak that, on keyboard with said layout, the power keys didn't work. (Nor did half the Display control panel for that matter.)

[Tisca]

But if you were to put something like that on. Wouldn't that mean that it is permanently unable to be pressed, until you remove the plastic block?

Yep. Personally I have zero use for Caps Lock and I can't think of any use case where it could be needed. Any time I need to write in upper case it's short enough to hold down shift. Windows keys are also pretty useless because I just have never learned to use them properly but I never accidentally press them so they don't bother me. There's a few others like that but I don't care.

[Tisca]

Besides, now I know about AutoHotkey, I can just convert any key into a no-op.

Are you saying there's a way to software disable keys? Tell me more. Is AutoHotKey that thing that can get you banned for in online games because it can be interpreted as some sort of cheating?

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Easy. To unbind the right Windows key:

RWin::return

Simple. ("Return" doesn't mean the enter key, it creates an empty subroutine that's executed when RWin is pressed.)

I don't really play games, and even then it's typically only Worms United in DOSBox against the PC. I use Autohotkey there to override Winamp's global hotkey (F11) so that when I press F11 for Prod, nothing happens instead of being kicked back to the desktop to see the Winamp window:

#IfWinActive ahk_class SDL_app
     F11::
#IfWinActive

(it should be F11::return, but the # pragmas seem to remove the need somehow; note that the above rule blocks F11 if any SDL-based program is the focused window)

[laffindude]

Only key I want blocked and have tried on is Caps. If the cap would be level with the rest it'd be fine but it's higher than the rest and not properly attached at all. Am I doing something wrong or do the only work for certain keys?

You slide it in from the key next to the one you want blocked.

[Tisca]

You slide it in from the key next to the one you want blocked.

Thank you!! It was tricky but it worked. You have to keep the cap on and slide it in (remove cap from the key on either left or right of the one you intend to block). If you try to place the blocker first you can't get the cap in place, at least not with moderate force. Sliding it far enough under with longer keys like Caps is trickier and I can't tell if it's there all the way but it works.

[Reptile]

Go right to left. It still is tricky for any other keys than 1x