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Is Caps Lock Dead?
An anonymous reader asks "Recently I have noticed that I haven't used caps lock other for any purpose other than hitting it by accident. Once upon a time, COBOL was written in all caps, and other languages like BASIC and Fortran were not case sensitive. Capitals were the way to go for writing code. Does the caps lock key serve any purpose any more, and if not, should it be removed, moved, or replaced?"
especially useful in VIM.
escape and caps lock key switch.s cclock.ht m
http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~beyert/articles/e
-Grump
bet you tim!
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
Caps Lock is EVIL!
I remapped my capslock into an extra control key months ago. I never type more than a couple of words in capitals, and can easily hold down the shift key.
Capslock is just a problem when you accidentally hit it when reading something you are keying in.
how else are you supposed to shout?
"Is this just useless, or is it expensive as well?"
Naming convention in C++: Constants in ALL CAPS
To blog is sublime
Writers and layout people use cap lock all the time. Most will use it from time to time in standard word processing. Computers aren't just for programers. Some of us use the software they write.
I use Caps Lock to check if Windows has completely frozen up. If the light on my keyboard doesn't come on, it's time to do a hard reset.
else it would be *very* discriminating against all those AOL'ers.
C|N>K
oF COURSE cAPSlOCK IS STILL USEFUL! iMAGINE ALL THE USERS OF THE WORLD NOT ABLE TO SEND LONG SHOUTING EMAILS IF cAPSlOCK WAS REMOVED! wHAT WOULD THEY DO THEN?! sTaRt UsInG aLt-ShIfT? tHE HORROR!
Call on God, but row AWAY from the rocks!
Well, as I am using a mixture of Debian/Sid/Experimental and lots of unstable (and non-official) packages, my system freezes once in a while. However, pressing Caps Lock helps me check if the keyboard driver is still live (so that I can use the MagicSysRq Keys) or I must reboot by hand. Could use NumLock for that matter, but CapsLock is usually nearest to one of my hands. The truly useless key is ScrollLock, BTW...
Of course caps lock is necessary. It's necessary for whenever you want to type in all-caps without holding shift the whole time. I can think of dozens of examples of this. Hell, where I work, the blank fields on our contracts must be typed in all caps. I wrote a screenplay once, and you need caps all over the place. When I'm coding, I write some macro names in all-caps.
No, the caps lock shouldn't be removed or replaced. It's handy to have a key that allows you to toggle lower to upper caps so you don't have to hold shift.
Pointless Ask Slashdot question!
"Sufferin' succotash."
Keep it as a tribute to the coders of old. It's like having a museum in your keyboard. You can even play with the exibit.
#include "sig.h"
They still haven't even bothered to get rid of the Scroll Lock button yet... What makes you think Caps Lock is going away any time soon?
--The universe will not be altered by forum threads, even those which are very wry. --Tycho Brahe (Penny Arcade)
If caps lock were gone, how would morons get their misdirected points across?
IT'S SPELLED MORANS, YOU DUMMY.
I am still amazed that after 20 years of the desktop PC, we still have to press the key labelled [F1] to get any type of GUI help, rather than having a key labelled [HELP], although Microsoft did find a way of squeezing in a key with the Windows logo.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Actually, in the US Navy and other branches of the service radio messages all always in all caps. These were a pretty routine part of life on ship (for Officers / admin personnel etc) We would compose the messages on a PC w/ word processor, print hard copy, then have approved by CoC. Radio men would send them out encrpyed, hard copies were always kept for paper trail. A ship my send dozens or even hundreds of these a week, so the're quite common. There are a few who may need cap locks who aren't programmers. M
Are you trying to say that you hit the caps key twice for every capital letter you need to type that's not in a big row of them? You really hit the caps key at the start of every sentence?
Yeesh, mate. Shift. SHIFT.
More useful than switching with escape is switching caps lock with Control.
You should have:
Option "XkbOptions" "ctrl:swapcaps"
In the InputDevice section for your keyboard (in XF86Config, of course).
Voila'! Ctrl assumes its rightful place on the keyboard. Ergonomic implications are massive.
Equivalent hack is available for NT too. It's done via registry, but I can't be bothered to google for it right now.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
uControl is a nice little Mac OS X hack that disables/remaps Caps Lock and other modifier keys on PowerBooks.
I also used it to remap the "Enter" key to the right of the spacebar on my 15" TiBook to "Command" -- I have no clue why Apple thought that was a good idea, but uControl saved the day.
It's very well designed -- if it thinks there's going to be a conflict when booting into an upgraded OS it will disable itself (vs. barfing and causing a system panic...)
Use the Happy Hacking keyboard. It has no Caps Lock. Its Control key is in the right place.
This is one sad excuse of a story. Aren't there any leftover SCO blurbs to fill in?
---
SCO is weenies
Gator is Spyware
Microsoft is thugs
MY BAD, I ADMIT I WAS OUT FOR A BIT LAST NIGHT, and I'm not in top form i indeed got mixed up with the SHIFT KEY.
I appologize to Slashdot and to the "Shift Key" for any Confusion on my part.... again my bad.
in a pinch caps lock might work as a "ANY" key???
actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.
95.84% of all engineering drawings (for bridges, airplanes, refineries, etc.) use all caps. Even though we textually shout at the fabricators/contruction guys, every now and then someone installs a checkvalve backwards or forgets to grout some 10,000# machinery.
I figure the original forced use of caps on these drawings is (was) to force the draftsmen to raise the writing instrument for each letter, so as to avoid the sloppy penmanship that usually accompanies cursive.
Someone said that COBOL was the only real language to use the lock, and that's almost true. But hey we can all forget FORTRAN, ADA, and even ASM or asembler was first written all in caps.
My univeristy still teaches a course in COBOL, its the first data processing course and it really was useful. Mainly because most major corperations that have mainframes still use COBOL for their data warehouses.
COBOL ain't dead... well... it may be. but it's still warm.
and where would we be without the all caps flame wars of the fark forums and irc??
while(1) { fork(); };
In fact, I'm developing an application right now that requires Caps Lock.
Press CAPS LOCK to proceed.
Press SCROLL LOCK to cancel.
Please don't take my CAPS away from me!
What if he types with only one finger?
My KVM switch uses Scroll Lock (hit twice within 1/2 second) to enable the other keys for switching machines. If we don't have some useless keys on the keyboard, devices like my KVM switch would have to hijack functions I actually use once in awhile, which would be annoying.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
"Ok sir, your password is not working? Ok then, have you tried turning off your caps lock? Yes sir, the caps lock key. That's a key on the left side of the middle of your keyboard. Try pressing it once and then typing in your password again. Working now? Very good sir, have a good day."
Productivity in the US may increase by 10% if we got rid of the stupid thing. If you *need* to type in all caps, pick a menu-option in your word processor or other application.
Very popular slashdot journal for adul
I actually include the capslock key in my touch typing. It's kinda hard juggling left and right shift when typing strings of capital letters.
- IP
I'm a navy reservist, and although the Navy and the other branches of the armed forces are moving towards computerization of almost every aspect of information management, oft times you'll find that because of some arcane requirement for filling out a form or other type of data entry, you're required to use all caps. However, in many cases, the program that was written to replace forms with this requirement won't enforce the capitalization, much less actually automatically capitalize everything. You say it's dumb, I say it's dumb, and all the staff we have say it's dumb. But, in the mean time, they have to live with it, and having the caps lock key makes it all the more bearable.
Here's the official way of remapping keys in Windows XP and Windows 2003 Server:
1) Download the Resource Kit Tools.
2) Run Remapkey.exe to Remap the Windows Keyboard Layout anyway you want.
For some very strange reason, this sometimes does not work reliably in a DOS window when using a PS/2 to USB converter for the keyboard. Since the remapping is done at a fundamental level, the failure is difficult to understand.
All I know is that everytime I play Diablo 2 or another game, the Windows Key become the absolute BANE OF MY EXISTENCE! X(
Join the TWIT army now!
Theres on here.
I disabled mine long ago and haven't looked back.
Especially in financial businesses (Banks etc) .. Printing out checks and certain forms will always be done in CAPS so as to not confuse the other parties. I find it a bit silly because one person hasn't used it, it must mean that no one else does. Sure, home users might not find much use out of it, but in the business world it is used everyday. And the business world makes up the majority of PC sales in the world.
I use caps lock all the time in Photoshop and Illustrator. It toggles between brush size or standard, and precise for the cursor. Precise cursors are more usable than standard (cross hair, vs. bucket or eyedropper for example), and also for the path tool in Illustrator (instead of a pen). Yes, you can set the preference, but there are times when you want to show the tool, or brush size, and caps lock is an easy way to toggle between them.
Dear Slashdot,
Very recently, to my unimaginable surprise, I have noticed that I haven't used the tilde key for any purpose other than hitting it by accident. I know that once upon a time people were using the tilde key. They were using it like there was no tomorrow. I don't use it now, though, which makes me very sad. Does the tilde key serve any purpose any more? Does it still serve any purpose whatsoever? If not, will it ever serve a purpose? Will it ever make any sense? If not, should it be removed, moved, or replaced? If so, will we be able to see it in museum? What if later I find some use for this key, but it will have been gone long ago? What then? What will be the future of this little key? What, I ask?
Thank you very much, Slashdot, for your answer!
Sincerely,
Concerned reader.
P.S. I love reading Slashdot and especially the Ask Slashdot section, when people always ask so interesting questions! THANK YOU VERY MUCH! (Oh, God damn it! I used caps lock!)
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
There are all sorts of programming situations where having a caps lock key helps keep things readable. For example...
SELECT *
FROM tblWhatever a
INNER JOIN tblYaddaYadda b
ON a.ID = b.ID
WHERE b.foo = 1
Not to mention data entry work... lots of places that do data entry use all caps.
Oh, and did I mention that THIS IS A STUPID ARTICLE? SURELY THERE MUST BE SOMETHING EXCITING ENOUGH GOING ON IN THE WORLD THAT WE DON'T NEED TO PUT THIS CRAP ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE SITE?
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
MOV AX, BX
ADD CX, DX
XOR DX, 0x64
mov ax, bx
add cx, dx
xor dx, 0x64
Maybe I just like shouting at the CPU :)
I also like doing my HTML tags in caps.
I've discovered a remarkable proof, but this margin is too small to contain it...
In the US Air Force, we use CAPS LOCK all the time. It sucks. It's a pain in the ass because they want so much stuff in capitals, like its better that way. I'm a fan of readability. And if everything is in caps anyways, then everything stands out, so why use it. Also, working for the government, you'll notice a lot of busted up keyboards with no caps light that works. So when putting in passwords can be a bitch sometimes.
Mark
My little brother used to sneak on my computer all the time before he got a decent laptop, and I'd always be annoyed to find the caps lock key on from whatever flaming/shouting/n00bing he was doing there. So one day I remapped caps lock to switch to a Cyrillic keyboard--it helps a lot with my Russian homework, and I never did find it enabled again after my brother had been using my computer.
I use the hell out of caps lock; it's my "prone" key in FPS shooters. Others use it for radio, etc. Aside from games though, I don't use it overmuch.
I've never understood the 'need' people have to capitalize SQL. It's not case sensitive. If one has a decent syntax highlighting editor, then the capital's don't help at all! I think having so many cap's in my code is fugly too. I've been doing SQL for 5 years or so, and I've gotten into many arguments with DBA's over this...
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
YELLING!!!
You say it doesn't help if you have a syntax highlighting editor; you can't count on having a syntax highlighted editor all the time.
While I think there are benefits to it, many interns that I've worked with seem paralyzed if they don't have syntax highlighting. A few are paralized if they don't have auto-complete. If the code REQUIRES syntax highlighting to be understandable, clearly you need to adopt a different style.
If you don't have SQL syntax highlighting, the more complex the SQL statement is the more it benefits from the all-cap keywords. That in itself is enough to justify (for me) it's use. Since I compose my SQL statements in my C++ interface code, I don't have SQL syntax highlighting; the C++ editor highlights them all as strings. Using caps really helps readability, especially when the SQL statements are complex and require several lines to compose.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
There are several keys that I think should be standard on all keyboards, not just to avoid having to use combinations, but mainly to avoid having a different combination in each program (ex., some programs use Ctrl+Z for undo, others use Alt+Backspace, etc.). Here's my list:
Most of these keys could simply emulate the most common shotcuts (ex., Help = F1, Cut = Ctrl+X, etc.), so they would automatically be compatible with most existing programs.
I doubt this will happen anytime soon, though, since Microsoft is pretty much the only company with the power to dictate a "standard", and the fact that the only new keys to appear in several years are the "winkeys" shows that their idea of a "useful" key is one that has their logo on it, even if it's only used about once a month (or, in my case, not even that).
Also, one thing I'd like to see is a mouse where, instead of a scroll wheel (or two wheels), there was a mini-trackball, that could be used to scroll both vertically and horizontally. I'm surprised no-one has come up with this yet (at least I've never seen one).
RMN
~~~
In your example I would use shift key because there is alot of switching between upper and lower case.
Because I so rarely use caps lock, it becomes a distraction to use. Its just so much more natural to hold shift and type "s-e-l-e-c-t" than pausing, looking down, and hitting caps lock. Yeah I know caps lock is right above shift, but I have trained myself to not accidently hit it, so I just can't naturally hit caps lock while typing .
I only caps lock when I know at the beginning of a large chunk of text that I will be using all caps.
I think this article does beg the question "When should we trade tradition for efficiency?"
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
...the latching shift-lock that some early-80s home computers had? If you pressed it, it literally latched down until you pressed it again, and it behaved exactly like a held shift key. Now that would be infinitely more useful, both for the ability to physically feel it latch down (and thus avoid accidental pressing) and for the fact it affects more than just cap letters, it affects anything shifted.
I have a cousin who comes over to my house for holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc...), and he used to run a web page. I was showing him some stuff, and he went to go update the page. I noticed he was typing pretty slowly, especially around capitals, and then I looked down at the keyboard...
He was using Caps Lock twice for each capital letter!
Like instead of [SHIFT]H[/SHIFT]ello, world! he would do [CAPS LOCK/]H[CAPS LOCK/]ello, world!...
It was truly painful to watch. So, I told him, you shouldn't use the Caps Lock key like that, because that's what Shift is for! At the time, he got annoyed at me and said something like, I've already learned it this way, it's quicker for me...
Lo and behold, the next time he runs into me, he says thanks, I can type much faster now... it's now become a sort of joke between the two of us...
I can't figure out where he would learn that from, though... any ideas?
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Um, what's a capslock?