Is Google Trying to Kill the CAPS LOCK KEY?

[Moogle Stiltzkin]

Yesterday's Chrome OS Notebook Cr-48 reveal showed that Google had different plans for where the caps lock key normally resides. INSTEAD OF DOING THIS SORT OF THING, Google has mapped to a search key.

That's fine by us, considering the caps lock key these days is mostly useless aside from those who like to troll the comments section. (In fact, I've remapped my caps lock key to backspace.)

Amusingly, Google joked, "We expect this will improve the quality of comments across the web."

For those who feel that they must have that caps lock key back, Google notes that those with the Cr-48 notebook can click on the wrench icon, go into System section inside settings and change the Modifier Key from Search back to Caps Lock.

Source:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/chrome-os-laptop-search-caps-lock-cr-48,11766.html



Hm replacing caps lock for search key ..... search as in google search This sort of reminds me how microsoft manage to put their logo on the keyboard ! nice strategy

[McLaren]

They're getting rid of the function keys, too:

There are no function keys, there’s an integrated power button (ala the new MacBook Airs) and there’s no caps lock key. In its stead you get a search button similar to what you’ll find on Logitech’s Google TV keyboard. You also get a row of dedicated feature keys for things like increasing/decreasing brightness, volume, etc...

Source:  AnandTech

[panda-R]

as much as I enjoy writing hate mail, my caps lock key is pretty much used to watch the pretty led turn on and off. I would not miss this key much.

[steeef]

Yeah, waste of space. Mine's currently mapped to Backspace. I used Ripter's AutoHotkey setup to map Win+Shift to Caps Lock, but I honestly can't remember the last time I've used it.

[Fwiffo]

They're the only ones with knives long enough to do the job...

[Losttsol]

oh no!  google stole my caps lock!  how am i supposed to do uppercase now?

[Viett]

Once again, people are forgetting the true use of the Caps Lock key:

True touch typists implement both shifts. This is so that words like Alaska, Quebec, and Peru can be typed using the correct finger (pinky). It's also more comfortable for non-pinky involved keys, for example, Wyoming is easier to type with the right shift. Once true touch typists get used to using both shifts, it becomes significantly easier to use the Caps Lock for any and all abbreviations, even two letter ones, like US, or TV.

I use Caps Lock very frequently for every day typing. I would hate to see it go, and it's the reason I use a modified version of Colemak which keeps the Caps Lock in its original position. Perhaps it can be moved somewhere else, but it has to be its own key and has to be in a location that is reasonable to reach.

It just bothers me considerably when people say the Caps Lock is a "waste of space" or is "only spamming." It's perfectly okay not to use it at all, but it's there for a reason.

[shmithers]

Just curious to see who all signed up for the laptop. I got an email the day of the launch saying "You’re eligible to receive a free Chrome notebook", so I went and signed up right away.

EDIT: Whoops I must have clicked reply again instead of edit, you can delete this post!

[shmithers]

Just curious to see who all signed up for the laptop. I got an email the day of the launch saying "You’re eligible to receive a free Chrome notebook", so I went and signed up right away.

Oh, and I am glad to see the demise of the caps lock. Only thing I used it for (before I remapped it to another control key) is turning it back off after I accidentally turned it on.

[theferenc]

Viett, you can say that all you want. But the fact is, it's in a prime location, and does not deserve to be there. It should really be with the other rather obselete keys, up above the navigation block.

Swapping it with control, as it was originally on IBM keyboards, is actually perfect. Puts it in a location that is reasonable easy for people like you to reach, but it puts a useful key to the left of A for the rest of us.

[dish]

True touch typists implement both shifts. This is so that words like Alaska, Quebec, and Peru can be typed using the correct finger (pinky). It's also more comfortable for non-pinky involved keys, for example, Wyoming is easier to type with the right shift. Once true touch typists get used to using both shifts, it becomes significantly easier to use the Caps Lock for any and all abbreviations, even two letter ones, like US, or TV.

I use Caps Lock very frequently for every day typing. I would hate to see it go, and it's the reason I use a modified version of Colemak which keeps the Caps Lock in its original position. Perhaps it can be moved somewhere else, but it has to be its own key and has to be in a location that is reasonable to reach.

It just bothers me considerably when people say the Caps Lock is a "waste of space" or is "only spamming." It's perfectly okay not to use it at all, but it's there for a reason.

What do you use it for?

[Viett]

Viett, you can say that all you want. But the fact is, it's in a prime location, and does not deserve to be there. It should really be with the other rather obselete keys, up above the navigation block.

Swapping it with control, as it was originally on IBM keyboards, is actually perfect. Puts it in a location that is reasonable easy for people like you to reach, but it puts a useful key to the left of A for the rest of us.

I agree it can be moved. Not above the navigation block, though. It needs to be somewhere where it is reasonable to press during natural typing, which is the only real time you're ever going to use it.

What do you use it for?

I use it for just about any abbreviation. Even two letter ones, as I mentioned in my earlier post. Take "U.S.A." for instance. True touch typing would have you using both shifts, letting go of the shifts to press the period. Although this case is a bit extreme, it demonstrates why the Caps is, in certain cases, necessary and efficient.

It may seem like abbreviations are not that commonly used, but they are perhaps more common than the use of the  '/', '[', ']' and '\' keys, all of which have their own key in the main alphanumeric cluster of the keyboard.

In summary:

For me, Caps Lock is an essential part of natural typing. I don't think "I need to hit Caps Lock to type the following..." I hit it instantly upon requiring more than one capital letter in a row, much like I would any other alphanumeric key that's needed.

[nanu]

According to this MW poll, most of us seem not to mind.

[Pylon]

Once again, people are forgetting the true use of the Caps Lock key:

True touch typists implement both shifts.

Sorry to be argumentative and nitpicky, but touch typing means typing without looking at the keyboard and relying mostly on muscle memory. The "proper" home-row method of touch typing will generally call for use of both shifts, but you can touch type using only one of the shifts.

I generally touch type with only left shift. Interestingly, that's been causing me to use caps lock more often as it's uncomfortable to hold down shift while typing a complete sentence or something. I use all caps for headers on my school notes.

[AndrewZorn]

I was so happy when I first saw this article, I thought they were properly replacing it with Control.  Nope.  Another nonsense key.

[InSanCen]

I'll be buying one of these... if only to force my other half into using the shift key for what it was intended, and not "Caps Lock, Letter, caps Lock"... God, that get's on my nerves!

[quadibloc]

I posted the Logitech GoogleTV keyboard here.

I'm so disappointed! Looking at your first photo, I thought for a moment it was like the Optimus Maximus. That would have been something useful. Although the Optimus Popularis - which seems to be using an inexpensive principle that Microsoft also seems to be using - is a better model, as that could be affordable. The only problem is heat from the backlight of the LCD panel not having anywhere to go if you put a keyboard over an LCD.

[microsoft windows]

Google won't be killing anything on my keyboards...

Microsoft's been trying to kill Windows 3.1 for 15 years and I still use it.

[Losttsol]

"Google killed the Caps Lock Key" set to the tune of "Video Killed the Radio Star".

Feel free to use this idea in your viral video.

[quadibloc]

And I am a classic touch typist, even if I sometimes get lazy and make the mistake of using the wrong shift key on occasion - so I know that Caps Lock makes abundant sense when one is typing a series of capital letters which include letters typed with both hands, not just one.

However, having to remove one's hands from the home row for something as special as that might not seem too onerous to some, especially if they have to use the CTRL key or the ALT key a lot. Also, unless one is using wrong-hand letters that are close to the little finger, just using the shift key sometimes is faster than going in and out of CAPS LOCK.

But Caps Lock is handy for things like typing in FORTRAN programs, at least for old compilers that don't recognize lowercase letters as meaningful characters. I suppose one would need a time machine, though, to be using computers that old... outside of museums. In most cases. So that does make it something tied to an obsolete legacy.

Still, if it could do things that were more useful - like if instead of getting lowercase letters when shifting the letter keys under Caps Lock, why not have the keyboard generate a pile of additional mathematical symbols?

[Vertigo]

I use it for just about any abbreviation. Even two letter ones, as I mentioned in my earlier post. Take "U.S.A." for instance. True touch typing would have you using both shifts, letting go of the shifts to press the period. Although this case is a bit extreme, it demonstrates why the Caps is, in certain cases, necessary and efficient.

...

For me, Caps Lock is an essential part of natural typing.

Hi guys,

Part time lurker, first time poster.  Just wanted to add my two cents and back up Viett's stance here: the Caps Lock key has been an integral part of my touch typing for 20 years now, and it'd be a little awkward to type without it.   Abbreviations--however rare--are almost universally faster and easier to type when using it, and for those of us who transcribe text between media (or simply pursue the upper limits of our W.P.M.), it's invaluable.

To wit, type "simply pursue the upper limits of our W.P.M." using the Caps Lock key, and then again just toggling your Shift keys.

[dish]

Latex is for math.

[quadibloc]

He's talking about LaTEX, a preprocessor for TEX, a text formatting system created by Donald Knuth. There are interesting documents available on the Web with articles from TUGboat... oh, dear, if you searched on that, you would probably get sites about boats, wouldn't you?

TUG stands for "TEX User's Group", though, so disambiguation is possible. Searching on "mathematical typesetting" might help too.

On the other hand, if you Google for Daniel Rhatigan's paper on the Monotype system for 4-line mathematics, the server won't let you download the .pdf directly from its own URL. So I will give you the link myself. (This, of course, isn't connected with TEX, but with what people used before they had TEX.)

There, now you can begin your exciting adventure in learning about an obsolete technology...

[aegrotatio]

I specifically look for non-stepped Caps Lock keys in keyboards so I can reprogram them to Ctrl when I use Unix.  Now that I'm pushing the big 4-0, my pinky is starting to suffer from Emacs syndrome.

I still like using it that way.  At work they don't let me remap keys so I use my old Happy Hacking Keyboard Lite and Lite 2 axes to keep the Ctrl key where it's supposed to be, and to keep my pinky unhappy.

[AndrewZorn]

Holy CRAP guys, I just got one of the Google laptops in the mail!!!  (well, 2 days ago, but only picked it up now because I didn't realize what it was)
I ACTUALLY GOT SELECTED FOR THE TEST PROGRAM

I will unbox it and put pictures and stuff here

[ch_123]

As good an idea as this sounds on paper, there are a worrying number of people out there who don't know how shift keys work, and think that Caps Lock is the way you are meant to type upper case letters.

Such are the risks of fixing stupid designs - people grow attached to them.

[Fwiffo]

The only problem I have with this is that it's not a great spot for a "Search" key. The best things to put in such a prime location would be Control, Shift or Backspace. Control would be the least disruptive I guess; then you could put Search in the lower left corner.

[RoboKrikit]

I would rather they make that the "Shortcut" key (call it what you want), and assign global shortcuts to it.  Like the Windows key but in a less ****ty location.

I imagine their thought process on the location of the Search key went something like, "Hey, we need to find a place for the Search key, what's a useless key that people won't hit on accident?  People have probably trained themselves to avoid Caps Lock, let's use that."

[8_INCH_FLOPPY]

I'd rather have caps lock replaced with something universally useful like the 'control' key, like on the old 83-key keyboards.

[AndrewZorn]

I guess I should have posted this here as soon as I found out:



FEAR NO MORE

[Lanx]

i think i'll hard wire my v2 mod capslock to ctrl, i do use ctrl+a a few times and i didn't even know it till i just looked