War Declared on Caps Lock Key

pieterh writes "I've launched a campaign to rid the world of the caps lock key. Sure, there are more serious problems to solve but please, think of the children! How am I going to explain to my kids why some of the most valuable keyboard real estate is squatted by a large, useless key that above all you must not press! Our campaign mission is simple: to send a message to the computer industry to force it (by any means necessary) to retire the CAPS key. It's going to be a hard, long, and possibly very embarassing war on uppercase, but some things just need to be done. "

Comments

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[crazyjeremy]

This instructional image has helped some people through the years...
http://users.mtrx.net/image.php?user=funnypics&ima geurl=2005%2F2005-08-23-0002%2FCAPSLOCK.GIF&showfo lder=0
Maybe you should post it in forums for the tards instead of declaring war on Uppercase.

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[flosofl]

bUT hOW wILL pEOPLE KNOW wHEN I aM BEING sUPER CEREAL? cEREALOUSLY! (fucking lameness filter)

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[rockytriton]

Some of us still use programming languages that require us to use all caps, it would be a pain to hold down the shift key constantly.

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[Anonymous Coward]

That's one of the worst attempts to pump your own website I've ever seen for sheer crappiness.

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[sk8dork]

in my job the poeple doing medical billing use software that requires all letter keypresses must be in caps also. perhaps the person starting this crap knows nothing of these worlds and is only concerned about all the all-caps emails and IMs and forum posts he sees.

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[LocoMan]

Most video editing programs I've used (well, premiere, afterFX and final cut pro) use the capslock key to allow you to scrub without previewing (but you can still hear the audio). That can be useful when you want to change something in an effects heavy area that slows down the computer as it tries to render a preview of the frames. Other than that, I don't think I ever use it anywhere else.. :)

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[mattcasters]

Sure, but in the rare case you need it, we could agree to press shift for 5 seconds to lock it.
You see, CAPS-LOCK __is__ really not needed.

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[twistedsymphony]

Same here, I work for a very large aerospace manufacturer and all the notes on the engineering documents are required to be in all caps.

Aparently the "War on Caps Lock" is spearheaded by someones who's entire computer world revolves around chatting with immature pre-teens online.

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[LWATCDR]

Okay... If the task requires a field to be in all caps why didn't the programmer just convert what every was entered in that field in all caps???
It isn't that hard to convert a string in to all up case. In most programing languages it is a built in function.
I would say who ever wrote your billing software needs to be replaced.
BTW why would you want to enter data in all caps anyway? It is harder to read than even all lower case and any good software would convert index strings into all one case so it isn't a problem with searching. If it is just because that is the way it has always been done I can understand. But then the software should deal setting the case and not the users hitting the caps lock key.
Sounds like bad software and or practices to me.

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[spleck]

"poeple doing medical billing use software that requires all letter keypresses must be in caps"

Perhaps they are part of the problem. Who writes software that requires all caps?

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[suffe]

Then how about the four of you keep your old keyboards?

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[bigdavesmith]

I agree with parent. I work in a job where our software requires all caps also, but it's not because there is something magical about capital letters. It's just poor design on the part of the software developer. The excuse is that it eliminates the issue of people typing:

• Main Street
• MAIN STREET
• main street
• Main street
• etc...

But IMHO, that type of problem could be better controlled with other means.
My beef with it is that when we mail things out, our mailing addresses are in all caps and it looks like we're sending out mail from the 1980s, not to mention any auto-filled fields in the letter: "We are writing to inform MR DAVANGER that his account..."

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[Madcowz]

"Aparently the "War on Caps Lock" is spearheaded by someones who's entire computer world revolves around chatting with immature pre-teens online."

that made me laugh

/Mad

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[recursiv]

Document = ucase(Document)

No need for caps lock.

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[BooRolla]

I think you might want to tell that to the programmer who wrote that cobol in the 70's.

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[Zenaku]

Why do people write bad software? Who knows. But since they sometimes do, and there are bad programs out there which demand entry in all caps, it would be an awful annoyance to those users to scrap the caps lock.

I think the more unfortunate case is that of corporate standards requiring your documents to utilize all caps for some sections, such as section headings or legal disclaimers. If it is as hard as it is to get programmers to write software that doesn't require all caps, imagine how hard it will be to get corporations' business process officers to write process documentation rules that don't require all caps.

Of course, none of that means the key couldn't be moved, or as someone suggested, changed to a "hold shift for 5 seconds" thing. But personally I don't feel like putting something else there and then relearning typing acions that I'm already used to doing differently. I mean, do I want to learn a new location for CTRL? Or anything else? For me it would just become unused space, like it is now.

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[greenegg77]

These things are usually procedural and therefore do not apply to the software.

If you really want to get some use out of your capslock key, remap it. In *nix you change your Xmodmap. In Windows there are several apps you can download to change it. Try this link for some info.

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[Dun Malg]

Okay... If the task requires a field to be in all caps why didn't the programmer just convert what every was entered in that field in all caps??? It isn't that hard to convert a string in to all up case. In most programing languages it is a built in function. I would say who ever wrote your billing software needs to be replaced.

Yeah, and if only Neville Chamberlain had brought along a gun, we might've avoided WW2. You're pointing out the obvious. The fact remains that there exists brain dead software written by brain dead programmers that requires all-caps input.

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[Dun Malg]

My beef with it is that when we mail things out, our mailing addresses are in all caps and it looks like we're sending out mail from the 1980s

The Post Office actually wants all caps. From the USPS address formatting instructions:

"Addresses should be typewritten or machine printed in dark ink on a light background using uppercase letters."

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[Pxtl]

Yep. If somebody's billing system required that each user log-in using a key stored on a 5.25" DD disk, I doubt we'd be sympathetic to wanting to keep such drives in computers.

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[vhogemann]

in my job the poeple doing medical billing use software that requires all letter keypresses must be in caps also.

If the software needs all input to be made using capital letters, why can't it just make them capital using a simple filter!?! The users shouldn't be allowed to input invalid characters in the first place!

Pehaps, if there wasn't a CapsLock key, the programmers would be forced to properly check the input for this application.

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[nostriluu]

Sounds like, as discussed below, your software is to blame. Sure, it's important medical / rocket lauching software, but its still squirrly.

There are other solutions, how about making control-shift a standard for caps-lock? Or how about software that uppercases text entered in a particular field.

Surely some people remember SCROLL LOCK, which disappeared some years ago despite being carried forward for years.

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[enharmonix]

changed to a "hold shift for 5 seconds" thing

Not implying you didn't know this, but for those who don't, XP accessibility (for handicapped users) already includes something similar as basic behavior on all XP machines.

Try pressing Shift about 5 - 10 times in a row, and Windows should pop up a message suggesting you use a feature called Sticky Keys. Sometimes it will also pop up if you hold it down for more than 8-10 seconds, but I think that's limited to certain applications (Office, maybe). Sticky Keys is supposed to help people who have difficulty holding down keys and dates back to at least Win 98. We once enabled it for a coworker w/ cerebral palsy who had to use the keyboard and mouse at the same time in photoshop -- it made his job a lot easier.

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[Siward]

Aparently the "War on Caps Lock" is spearheaded by someones who's entire computer world revolves around chatting with immature pre-teens online.

Or by someone who works at a company with a policy requiring all caps in correspondence. Or by someone with a background in technical writing who knows that capital letters make words, phrases, and sentences more difficult to read. Or by someone who knows a middle-aged adult who just doesn't know any better. Or by someone who knows how to spell "apparently" and use "who's" is a contraction and whose is possessive.

Just because engineers are smart does make them authorities on the English language -- in fact, it usually makes them the opposite.

I work for a very large company and we are required to not type in all caps because it is seen as unprofessional.

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[Siward]

Dammit, I re-typed part of the last sentence in my opening paragraph and forgot to change "use" to "that". Submitting without proofreading strikes agian!

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[badasscat]

"poeple doing medical billing use software that requires all letter keypresses must be in caps"

Perhaps they are part of the problem. Who writes software that requires all caps?

Why do people keep saying this? The fact is it doesn't matter.

I've got to think the people who take this line are either a) still college students, or b) unemployed. When you actually have a job, you don't walk up to your supervisor and say "I think this is stupid, so I'm going to do things in a completely different way than you told me to and a completely different way than everybody else who works here, not to mention a way that is incompatible with everything else everybody does in every other department at this company." You tell me what that's going to accomplish.

There is software like this out there, and maybe more to the point, there are procedures out there at various companies that you may or may not agree with. But you still have to follow them.

In the case of medical software, if my wife - who is a nurse - entered a medication order in the hospital computer in lower-case, you know what happens? That patient doesn't get any medication. Is that what you're arguing should happen just because some programmer wrote code that you don't like?

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[Agelmar]

I've never understood why people carry on all-caps requirements that probably originated in the days of teletypes. I admit that at one point in time, it might have been useful to restrict people to a small number of characters to save a few bits, but nowadays it's not worth it. I have no idea of what company you work for and I'm not going to ask, but I will say that I have worked in places with old systems that still require all caps for text, even though the original systems have since been discarded and re-written any number of times. ("But we want to maintain the look and feel of the old system so that people are comfortable using the new system" - forgetting that anybody new they hire looks at it and says "WTF is this POS?"... but I digress)

Anyhow, I always felt sorry for anyone who actually had to read the all-caps mess. I occasionally read some stuff, and after a sentence or two the all caps text gave me the worst headache ever. Proper grammar and capitalization is meant to make language easier to parse. Purposefully leaving out capitalization just makes things hard to read.

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[Anonymous Coward]

CAPSLOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL!

On the other hand, I use capslock all the time in my work also. I'm working in a very old firm that does it's main programming in PL/I and we have to use capslock for all our coding. If we don't, searching the source code library would not give the correct results. It is a thing from the past for sure, but I use capslock non the less.

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[Tweekster]

Not only is it unprofessional, it is quite hard to read.

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[flyingelvis 71]

The caps lock key is very useful when maintaining code on the ibm iSeries servers. The simplest solution for those with caps lock issues would be to simply learn to type.

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[SkyDude]

It's very hard to see the rest of the world when your tinfoil hat slips down over your eyes.

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[Anonymous Coward]

...we found out that the eye is trained faster on capital letters

Case studies in the '80s found that this was true only on monochrome monitors without lowercase descenders. Otherwise, all uppercase text slows reading by as much as half. The reader is sometimes reduced to reading some uppercase
words letter-by-letter until enough letters are read for the reader to guess the word within the context. This can also lead to reader guess the wrong word (if trying to read to fast) and decreasing reading comprehension. Lowercase ascenders and descenders significantly increase whole word recognition.

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[ajs]

There are places where having greek letters on the keyboard would be vastly useful.

The question you have to ask yourself is: what should the default consumer keyboard have? IMHO, caps lock isn't valuable enough to make the cut. Certainly folks who need one should have the ability to add one (by making whatever OS-specific changes people currently make to map something else to caps-lock, or by using a keyboard-specific technique, like the one I use on my Kinesis keyboard).

Personally, I'd think that control, escape or meta (yes, a real meta, not alt) should go ther, but that's just me.

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[MBGMorden]

My guess is it'd be annoyingly turned on by accident too often. They sticky keys feature on Windows also bugs me for the same reason. For any computer that I haven't used before (and hence haven't turned the darn setting off), I'll often turn on "sticky keys" by pressing shift 5 times, just because when I'm thinking I tend to tap the shift key - *most* of the time it's harmless and my equivalent to pacing while I think, but on a strang machine or new install I'll inevitably get that "beep" :).

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[dgatwood]

Indeed. If we took away the caps lock key, what would that do to the wrists of all the spammers?

CH3AP V|AG/-\RA
ch&ap v!ag@ra

See the difference? It's just not the same....

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[rjstanford]

not to mention any auto-filled fields in the letter: "We are writing to inform MR DAVANGER that his account..."

I once had a name-casing routine that was close to 1,000 LOC, just to convert names from all caps to the probable mixed case versions. Its hard, because you have to deal with Mac and Mc (except when you don't), all sorts of foreign names, hyphenated names, etc. There were actually about 100 special cases. The thing is that 100 LOC gets 99% of the names, but nobody likes seeing their name "wrong," especially if when they call to complain there's nothing the data-entry clerk can actually do about it. So either you have to really nail it, or you have to punt on it (people don't seem to mind ALLCAPS, we've trained them to accept it).

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[Kiffer]

God I hate stickykeys, filterkeys and togglekeys... well togglekeys are ok ... it makes the lock keys beep when you press them... with a different noise for on and off... sometimes I try to play tunes with them. um anyway.

They keep popping up and anoying me when I'm playing games, I'm sure I've turned them off but they seem to come back, the short cuts should not be active by default ... but rather should be clearly marked and easy to find in the control panel...

Filterkeys is a very anoying feature when playing a twitch game. If you hold down right shift for 8 seconds, it turns this feature on... and then the computer ignores any keypress that is not held for 1 second.
try playing a twitch game like that.

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[jimktrains]

All caps is easier to read. The hospital I work in does all the headers on papers (Patient info and report info) in all caps. It is so much easier to read than if it were in lowercase. The documents themselves are a mix, depending on what the doctor who wrote the section did, but I have never had a heard time reading all caps. There is no reason to have caps/lowercase. It's just a grammar rule someone invented. Some languages done' even have a lower case set.

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[LWATCDR]

Okay if you support Mac or Mc then it isn't all caps.

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[rjstanford]

I mean, the routine would take a name like MACDONALD or MCINTOSH and produce MacDonald or McIntosh. Without messing with the (few, but non-zero) ones that shouldn't be camelCased. It started out as a really simple, "Hey, we can do this easily and our letters will look better," idea that became a major undertaking, much to everyone's surprise, as people complained.

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[Jonathunder]

The post office can take my India ink fountain pen from me when they pry it from my cold, dead hand.

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[dave1791]

I have seen cases where information must be in one case ot the rother. It is trivial to map lower and upper case. If you MUST use caps in shipped sodftware, that software has issues. If The developers could not be arsed to do something as trivial as mapping keystrokes (causing people not the get their medication) for useability, I really question the ooverall quality of their software.

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[Nf1nk]

I use my scroll lock button frequently. it activates my AB switch that moves the monitor keyboard and mouse between computers.

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[Anonymous Coward]

in my job the poeple doing medical billing use software that requires all letter keypresses must be in caps also.

Okay, we will need to let workers in India keep the old-style keyboards then.

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[AnotherShep]

It's most likely because it's an old DOS program and keypresses without caps lock on are used for commands of some sort. I agree it's silly, but I've run into a few programs that do that.

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[calambrac]

If someone doesn't get medicine because some idiot software company wrote a system that can't handle otherwise correct information typed in normal case, I would hope said software company would get sued into the ground.

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[Anonymous Coward]

My job is the same way. The billing and patient management software requires CAPS.

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[advs89]

Yeah, you could use the caps-lock key for that, OR you could just use OpenOffice or Word's "All Caps" feature. CTRL-A + 'Change Case' menu item. That way it is half-way ledgible while you are reading it, and then when your done typing, you convert it to company standards...

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[Mprx]

All caps is much harder to read quickly because it doesn't have ascenders and descenders. Native English readers recognise words by the general shape instead of looking at each individual letter, but this is very difficult if all the words have similar shapes as in uppercase text.

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[soft_guy]

Here's a hint: when they offer you a job at such a company, say "no".

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[Anonymous Coward]

Surely some people remember SCROLL LOCK, which disappeared some years ago despite being carried forward for years.

I remember it particularly well as it is on the brand new keyboard right in front of me (Dell).

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[nostriluu]

OK, but you might as well use the "Any key" for that purpose.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Are you aware that you also have to go into "Settings" for each option and uncheck "Use shortcut"?

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[ajs318]

1000 lines of code to capitalise names properly? What language were you using? I could fit it in my sig as a Perl regex if it wasn't taken up with a witty comment.

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[fbjon]

It depends entirely on the font, whether it is difficult to read or not. Also, there's a reason why sentences start with a capital letter: it makes it easier to find.

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[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a very large aerospace manufacturer (maybe the same one). Yes, the notes on many items are required to be in all caps.

But most of these notes are entered into the system via an engineering design tool. It's 2006, and you know, it's really not that hard to say "notes = notes.upper()".

I know, the tool you're using was written as a master's thesis in 1986 on Sun boxes when they thought "usability" meant "let's make the widgets *blue*", and nobody has released an upgrade since the first Bush administration, and the app is about as pleasant to use as drinking shards of glass.

It probably doesn't help you, but I'm on a team writing a new such tool, and we're going to great efforts to do this sort of stuff. But even if you're stuck in something like MS Word, surely you can type normally and select the text and say "Make this uppercase". If it doesn't have that as a native command, you've got to be able to write a VisualBasic++# macro to do it -- they can't have included that mess *just* for viruses, huh?

Anyway, you have my sympathy, but "my app sucks" isn't a good enough reason to make crappy hardware; it's a reason to fix your software.

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[nostriluu]

d'oh.. that's what too many years of laptop use does.

Do have to wonder why this rant is against caps and not scroll lock.

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[fbjon]

That paragraph, right there, is TDWTF material.

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[Anonymous Coward]

And what's the suggestion for the folks who write television and radio pieces? They're almost always in caps, and it's not a question of "bad practice."

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[baggins2001]

We have a large amount of data entry which goes into third party software and Excel spreadsheet. The people that are entering the data find that it is more convenient to just keep the caps lock key on. I find it very annoying when I go into work on those computers, but I can't blame them. I've heard of many people who complain about this use of the cap lock key, but in the real world there are still a lot of people who are using it.

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[fbjon]

Music trackers tend to use it for writing note-off, which is useful. Of course it could be moved, though.

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[ate50eggs]

There have been a few arguments along the lines of - "but my totally vital software requires all of its inputs in all caps!!" This is dumb. There are 2 reasons for such a requirement to exist in a piece of software:

-The capslock key already exists
-people code lazily. (especially small market software)

if software is not going to take case into account in a search query (or whatever) it should accept either case. The capslock key is pointless and annoying.

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[It'sYerMam]

But where it is used, capital letters provide visual cues which do aid in fast reading. Many people, myself included, can be quite thrown if something is written entirely in one case.

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[saider]

Submitting without proofreading strikes agian!

And agian!
And agian!
And agian!

(sorry, couldn't resist)

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[Anonymous Coward]

Heaven forbid the software requiring all upper-case just capitalize what it receives....that's about the simplest regex to do (tr/a-z/A-Z/).

Bonehead...it really is a fairly un-used key except by people "shouting" in forums/chats/IMs.

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[fir5t psot!]

Ctrl+Shift+A = all caps on my machine, even if you didn't type that way to start with. It's simple. I bet even an aerospace engineer could learn it.

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[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, I'm an Architect and all our drawings are required to use all caps text at all times. That goes for all our consultants, Structural, Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing, Civil, Kitchen, Audio/Visual, etc. It's also useful when writing correspondence, capitalizing titles and such. Just because someone can't be bothered to turn theirs OFF and write responsibly doesn't mean it should be banished.

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[nikkoslack]

maybe the caps lock key should launch the spell checker for your medical poeple

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[MamiyaOtaru]

The secretaries in my father's orthopaedic office believe that all input needs to be in caps lock. Of course, if I turnoff caps lock and enter lowercase letters, the prog converts them to uppercase. That continues to escape them, with explanations, and it seems it always will, forcing me to turn off caps lock every time I need to work on those machines. Point being, your medical billing software may not actually require uppercase at all. At least if it doesn't suck.

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[PixelThis]

How lame is that... if the medical billing software requires all caps, then why doesn't the _software_ convert all letter keypresses to ALL CAPS? Good grief

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[geekoid]

unless they are using a green screen.Something a lot of inustries still use because or reliability.

And in some medical digital charts some areas need to be all caps, but others are not. This is so medicine names may stand out.

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[eneville]

Extra points for your reference to southpark! Well done sir!

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[barutanseijin]

Your fountain pen will not last long if you use india ink in it. Stick to dye-based fountain pen inks.

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[IngramJames]

I'll often turn on "sticky keys" by pressing shift 5 times, just because when I'm thinking I tend to tap the shift key

Thank you for letting me know that I am not alone in my wierder habits.

I can't help it. When I coded 68000 assembly, I used to delete all unnecessary whitespace characters so the compilation would be faster on my little 8MHz processor.

My name is James, and I am a geekaholic.

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[kimvette]

Here is a question to present:

"Do you still store dates using only two digits for the year? After all, that is what the old system did, and we do not wish to introduce any confusion by newfangled technology, now, do we?"

You might get fired for being a smartass, but a) you'd be in the right and b) you'll get your point across to all but the most extremely stubborn idiots on the planet. :D

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[jthill]

Nice summary (truly). I agree with almost every point, including some I hadn't really thought about (probably because I was using all-caps languages at the time) — I do know the fuzzy-CRT problem, and that's dead-on the mark.

But you're discussing output legibility. That's got nothing to do with scrubbing user input. One standard Caps-and-Strip call, you're done, and you've just eliminated untold hours of training, five minutes at a time while every new employee eventually finds somebody to explain to them that they can't hit the space bar before hitting tab, or whatever mistakes are easiest to make on that particular field. Let alone the expense every time they do it again by mistake, and have to retype the entire screen because they can't see the invisible space, or just have to poot the cursor around, and at all events have to break stride.

It's faster in every way to scrub than to check-and-reject, and always has been. Reentry overhead so vastly swamps the most inefficient scrubber that "ludicrous" won't begin to cover the CPU-time argument. The code-size argument isn't that bad, somewhere in truly-bad-judgement-call territory. Save any extra fifty bytes somewhere else when it's clear you need to and where it doesn't sacrifice function, not right here right now where it isn't and it does.

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[Siward]

Niether could I.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Oh ok. Well let's eliminate "bad software and or practices" first, then deal with annoying the crap out of the poor users who are using said software.

I predict this taking no more than 6 days. We can rest on the 7th.

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[duffel]

Surely any decent text editor has the option to convert all to caps. You can edit the document normally, and convert case later. Not only will this make your most recent changes stand out a lot before you save, it should make writing and reading easier and more pleasant.

Plus it wont seem like you're shouting at the screen.

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[booch]

I don't have a problem with allowing a CAPS LOCK function. Just don't give it its own key. I mean, how often would you really need to press it? Less than the Backspace or Delete keys, most likely. So throw it up into the PrintScreen/ScrollLock/Pause area if it needs a key of its own. Or do like they did on the NeXT keyboards, and make CTRL+SHIFT put you into CAPS LOCK mode. That's more like a typewriter too -- you had to hold down the SHIFT key and the SHIFT-LOCK key at the same time. And a SHIFT would cause it to turn SHIFT-LOCK mode off.

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[kimvette]

Scroll lock is very useful in some applications, notably spreadsheets.

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[Rinzai]

Most airlines reservations systems deal only with capitalized data. Some of them are multi-decade-old legacy systems, and that's how it works. No way around it.

Of course, the software we write takes the user-typed input and does the right thing re: casing, but at the end of the trip, only 7-bit characters are supported, and not even all of them.

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[drsquare]

Okay... If the task requires a field to be in all caps why didn't the programmer just convert what every was entered in that field in all caps???
It isn't that hard to convert a string in to all up case. In most programing languages it is a built in function.

How is this any easier than simply pressing 'caps lock'.

I use caps lock all the time, all you idiots can go fuck yourselves. I don't particular see the use of the backquote key, but I don't start a campaign to get rid of it.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Minus points for referencing one of the most disappointingly unfunny episodes of south park in the past few years. (And there's some stiff competition, too.)
  Plenty of stuff to make fun of with Al Gore, so what do they do? "I'm completely cereal!" OVER. AND. OVER. AGAIN. I thought I was watching fucking saturday night live, it was so boring, repetitive, and unfunny.
  They might have saved the episode for me if, say, Al Gore had had a climactic battle to the death with "manbearpig" (also idiotic, IMO) that nobody else saw, and the body of manbearpig fell into a crevasse or something, leaving no trace. But that would have been veering off their political point just for a joke. And we can't have that, can we?
  It's much more important that Al Gore be portrayed as pathetic and obnoxious than, say, the show actually do something funny! It's as if Mecha-Barbra Streisand didn't happen, but instead that episode concentrated on making fun of her singing for a full, agonizingly dull, 30 minutes.

Re:Helpful image to pass along

[Jafafa Hots]

Exactly. That's something I've run into over and over... a place gets a new system, ditches its archaic system - and then proceeds to use the new system to do everything exactly the same way they used to on the old system.

I once worked for a place where, as I got more into the convoluted way things were handled, I discovered that everything - EVERYTHING, from billing, all office organization, document routing, sales reps routes and office locations, the "company car" policy... EVERYTHING... revolved around a system that was set up in 1949.

They had installed a new network of PCs but everything on the PCs were structured to replicate what they used to do on paper, even though those jobs were no longer necessary.

They had a fleet of company cars driving hundreds of miles to drop off orders to HQ and return paper proofs from HQ to satellite offices. NO FAXES.

And when I tried to convince the president that he could save tons of money, effort, work hours and frustration by letting me redesign the way they did business, he gave a grudging ok - and the whole company revolted and he backed down right away. "This is the way we've been doing this for over 50 years!!!"

Re:Helpful image to pass along

[crapola23]

It's true. I mean any programmer here know's how hard it would be to program medical software that translated any keystrokes in the necessary forms, all caps or not, into upper-case letters.

Re:Helpful image to pass along

[LWATCDR]

Yep been their and done that.
Try writing code that takes a sentence with a number in it and figure out if it should be spelled out or written in numerals.
You have to let the user use any from for the numbers so they might write. That will cost one hundred and 36 dollars and you have to convert it to $136.
Don't forget address, time, dates, and ordinals.
You will come to hate the term wait one second.

Re:Helpful image to pass along

[LWATCDR]

I never said that we should get ride of the caps lock key. I just hate that the justification is because of badly designed software. It kind of reminds me of seat belt laws and motorcycle helmet laws. Think about it, why should fear of a $40 ticket be a bigger motivator than not having your head fly through a windshield?

Re:Helpful image to pass along

[alc6379]

You guys are so rediculous. Thier not going to get this at all.

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[eneville]

Don't forget the wing episode, that was taking the piss totally. I'm in the UK so the MBP episode was quite funny for me: "Half man, half bear and half pig, no wait thats not possible" "Could be half man and half bear pig" Well it was funny at the time.

Re:Helpful image to pass along

[tonyr1988]

Then why can't that software simply convert all the text to uppercase? It's not hard, in any language.

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[dcam]

Clearly you have never worked in any environment that involves drafting or technical drawing.

It is the standard for all architectural drawings to use caps only. I believe it is also the cost for most engineering drawings (or it certainly was when I went through University).

Caps is used because:
- For reasons of clarity, it is preferred to use either just lower or just upper case.
- for shorter text (and most text on drawings is short), it is easier to read upper case only

Re:Helpful image to pass along

[nazsco]

point 1: if it's really imperative, software should handle something that simple.

point 2: not saying that caps lock isn't useful! caps lock is in a place where you can press it and also press another key. so it IS a waste os "good" space. See how much effort you do pressing CTRL+something, now press capslock+something. it's much easier.

ok, touch tipists will press the OTHER ctrl in my example. but one, screw them, and two, people who use the keyboard+mouse heavily (designers, uml artists, java+eclipse+obnoxius) NEED that reach.

Re:Helpful image to pass along

[Tatarize]

Hmmm. I don't think it should be dropped. I mean, it's not as worthless as scroll lock.

We should remove pause and printscreen. Then move the caps lock key and the numlock key over there. So we have one nice little section that does all the locking. Put the little lights for the locks right above them.

Pry that windows key off these stupid boards. A button that just gets you killed while gaming. Crap**2.

Replace caps lock with a new key, function. Then drop all the function keys. Function+'1' = F1, ... Function+'-' = F11, Function+'='=F12.

That or just convert it to yet another return key.

Re:Helpful image to pass along

[Anonymous Coward]

I work in engineering and have worked in land surveying. The maps, plans and documents created are often recorded (plats, as-built drawings, etc.) and in the state where I live, the minimum text size is stipulated by law (1/8"). In the CADD engines I am familiar with, the font size represents the height of the capital letters, so many in the field use all caps set to the legal minimum. All caps are easier to read on a coffee and mud stained set of plans after a few weeks on the job site.

Re:Helpful image to pass along

[Anonymous Coward]

Use your fucking imagination. 1 programmer does it once. Hundreds or thousands of people doing thousands of hours of data entry don't have to use caps lock.
It's a shitty fucking system if there's a requirement for all capitals but it lets you type how ever you like. What the fuck is it meant to be, a test of your data entry ability? Work smart not hard.

Re:Helpful image to pass along

[Anonymous Coward]

I work in the engineering industry and we use CAPS on all drawings. Put simply they are just easier to read when you are dealing with drawings that are printed out on various sizes. Also as we do a large amount of work overseas we find it is easier for non-western (Chinese, Lao, Thai) to read CAPS. I can't say for sure the basis for using CAPS on drawings but I can tell you that when you don't it does become harder to read.

Re:Helpful image to pass along

[smithysrise]

I think these specific requirements could be addressed by software or perhaps an all-caps font if you're using a standard word processor for the notes. I for one find the button more of a hinderance than a help ... and that's just in writing reports etc, not chatting to kids.

Re:Helpful image to pass along

[Anonymous Coward]

All caps is easier to read? Wow. In 18 years working in I.T. you are the first person on the planet I've ever heard say that.

Yes, there are some ancient systems still around that use ALL CAPS, and we have one. But we run all output through a program that sets the text to proper case before attempting to use it.

Using all caps today is the quickest way in business to say to your customers: "Danger, you are dealing with unprofessional amateurs."

And sending email in all caps through our system gets your message dumped in the Spam bucket.

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[spleck]

You must be an idiot. You are attributing a number of opinions to me that I did not express in my post.

I DON'T think your nurse wife should enter a medication in lower case if the system requires it in upper case. She would also be an idiot to do that.

My problem is with the acceptance of using all caps for everything because its easier. I'm tired of customer service reps entering my data in all caps, when their system clearly supports proper capitalization. I'm tired of people composing messages in all caps because they can hunt and peck quicker without using the shift key. I am NOT however against the caps lock key that I use regularly--a key press before and after a string of caps is much easier for a typist than holding a shift key down.

As far as your assessment that only the unemployed or college students "take that line" is most likely attributed to the fact that an overwhelming majority of people lack the ambition or drive to actually do something. They're more content to be told what to do, or they've simply given up on life. I'm sorry, but I graduated college 5 years ago, and I've been employed since then. I have continually emphasized to my co-workers to avoid using all caps and to be aware of proper capitalization because the end result is software that is more professional looking. I've done my part to raise the issue in meetings and conferences. The typical response is that they don't think it matters... but if they want my approval on something, it does matter, and since the time to do it correctly is trivial, how about "why not" instead of "why".

Further, I'm also against Improper Capitalization Of All Words As Often Done By Word's Title Case Feature. Words like "of", "the", and "as" don't get capitalized!!!! (Unless, of course, they start a title).

Your post has illustrated America's Problem. People don't try to change things because they don't think they can. Quitters.

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[justo]

ah, but does the caps-lock key deserve to be in such a prime position? what about one of the function keys, or some other key sequence?

i personally have it re-mapped as ctrl (which is great for emacs)

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[bakana]

Lets get this straight, you are complaining about text being in all caps? I personally have never had a problem reading things in all caps. Especiallying on command line based software or OS's. I actually perfer the all caps text because TO ME its easier to read. I don't care if you think all caps is screaming or rude or whatever. That is just stupid. The software that we use in my company when you first open it up it turns your caps lock on for you. A much more practical and time saving way then programming the case functions into the program. I guess what I am saying is bottom line, why do you care? Caps lock or no Caps lock, that shouldn't be a question.

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[LWATCDR]

"How is this any easier than simply pressing 'caps lock'."
bECAUSE i DON'T HAVE TO REMEBER TO HIT IT AGAIN WHEN i SEND AND EMAIL OR POST ON SLASHDOT.
Because I don't have to train people to hit it when they start using that application.
Because even if they forget they will not have to go back and correct their mistake.
Because it takes the burden off of hundreds and thousands of users that use that program day in and day out are replaces it with 20 seconds of coding and maybe two hours of testing for a single programmer.

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[drsquare]

bECAUSE i DON'T HAVE TO REMEBER TO HIT IT AGAIN WHEN i SEND AND EMAIL OR POST ON SLASHDOT.

I would have thought that when the letters came up in capitals it might be a reminder to turn it off? Keyboards should not be built to cater to the mentally disabled.

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[LWATCDR]

Exactly correct. Why keep a key that is only useful poorly written programs written by the mentally disabled. It is as useful as a "margin" release or a bell going off when you hit the right margin. It is a left over from the old type writer days.

gOOD lUCK

[h890231398021]

bEST oF lUCK wITH yOUR fIGHT

Re:gOOD lUCK

[$RANDOMLUSER]

ROTFLMFAO

Re:gOOD lUCK

[rwven]

LOL, while it is annoying when people type in all caps and things like that, I use the caps lock key for legitimate reasons all the time. I'm in a data-mining job working on a UniData database and all UniQuery must be written in all caps. This would be a supreme pain to do sans a Caps-Lock key. This is just one of MANY things that falls under that umbrella. I also use the caps lock key as my "walk" key while playing CS. :-D

Frankly...I find the idea of getting rid of the caps lock key...slightly appalling. :)

Re:gOOD lUCK

[LiquidCoooled]

I don't mind it existing, it just pisses me off where it actually is.
Its one thing to have an accidental character in your text, its another to completely mess up the rest of the line.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[jwilcox154]

LOL, I agree that is the problem with the Caps Lock. Too bad it doesn't work like the shift-lock key on a typewriter. For example, it is released once someone hits the shift key and if someone hits the shift key while hitting a letter with the caps-lock activated, it doesn't end up lower case, rather it would type as an upper case letter. I really don't see eliminating the caps-lock key at all, there is still uses for it even when typing a letter. It is still more efficient than holding the shift key down for several letters.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[Mr Z]

Actually, I'm scarily efficient at typing ALL CAPS without a Caps Lock. I *never* use the Caps Lock. I used to remap Caps to be "Control," but these days I just don't bother.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[cowscows]

Do you not watch what's appearing on the screen as you're typing it? You shouldn't get too far if you're paying attention.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[Anonymous Coward]

P.S. cAN SOMEONE TELL ME WHY MY PASSWORDS ARE ALL BROKEN. i CAN'T GET INTO ANY OF MY BOXEN. hELP APPRECIATED!!!

Re:gOOD lUCK

[Rah'Dick]

Actually, it does exactly this on my system. I used Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator to remap this and some other buttons.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[Smidge204]

That's hard to do when you're transcribing something off of paper, unless you like looking back and forth a lot.

=Smidge=

Re:gOOD lUCK

[peragrin]

at work I also have to enter information with all caps.(it actually looks better on our ancient invoice printer) so having a key which lock it on and off is nesscarry, but why does it have to be the same size as the enter key? It's not like it's used that often. It's either on or off. it can be the size of a function key, or the scroll lock or num lock key.

Speaking of odd keys how many people still use the scroll lock? I have never figured out what it's for on modern keyboards.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[Tweekster]

The cap locks key has some purpose, but it is an exception rather than a rule for the absolute vast majority of people.

The keyboard could actually use a redesign because there are a number of keys that have no use anymore for most people. Print Screen, Scroll Lock, Pause/Break.

Sure they are used for somethings, but it is a rarity.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[Karl Cocknozzle]

all UniQuery must be written in all caps.

...not to mention the millions of other DBs which have been designed with all column names in ALL CAPS. What are those of us who need to query those databases supposed to do? ...HOLD DOWN the shift key for the next five years/indefinitely?

Re:gOOD lUCK

[Fred Porry]

I don't mind it existing, it just pisses me off where it actually is.

Thank you, thats just it.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[MindStalker]

Speaking of odd keys how many people still use the scroll lock? I have never figured out what it's for on modern keyboards.

As it always wikipedia is here to save you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scroll_Lock

It essentially states what you said, it has no purpose on a modern computer aside from a few special applications, all which treat it differently.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[polv0]

I too am in data mining, but I use EMACS to write all of my code, and my case sensitive programs all prefer lower case. So caps-lock has been re-mapped using keytweak to CTRL. The only problem is when I use someone elses computer I usually end up over-writing anything I try to copy with C while turning on caps-lock.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[1u3hr]

I don't mind it existing, it just pisses me off where it actually is.

There is any number of utilities to remap it. I swap its function with the left control key, so I can still use ALL CAPS if I actually need to.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[EggyToast]

Apple's keyboard design doesn't include many of the old unix/windows standards, for precisely that reason. The "6 keys" include help, home (top of page), delete, end, and page up/down. Similarly, OS X handles capslock differently -- it doesn't reverse caps, it makes everything all-caps (SO TEXT WILL ALWAYS LOOK LIKE THIS, nOT lIKE tHIS).

I'm far from a zealot (Apple replaced most of the functionality with funky hotkeys and doesn't have full keyboard-only control), but it's surprisingly refreshing to look at my keyboard and see that every key has a purpose that's actually useful in generally day to day stuff, without deciphering old features that may or may not work.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[706GL]

Wow, I'm not the only one stuck using UniData! Were there no caps lock I would have to set a brick on the shift key. Though the fact that things in quotes are case sensitive as well is so annoying. So I have to caps all commands but uncaps ever time I want to search for a name or something. I'm counting the days till we move to SQL Server.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[ConceptJunkie]

You've never heard of touch-typing, have you?

Re:gOOD lUCK

[markwalling]

you don't ever take screen shots? yes, i use snagit if i really care, but it is still faster to hit print screen, paste then running a 3rd party screen grabber. and the break key is still used by the command prompt and VB.

(yes i know i am being a windows specific troll, but i am at work where its the microshaft way or the high way)

Re:gOOD lUCK

[Anonymous Coward]

I use print screen quite a lot, thanks. Sure, on linux it's useless, there are better ways to screengrab. But for windows print screen then paste into MS Paint/whatever is sadly the best you can do without messing around installing a utility.

The best thing to do would be to take a hint from laptop keyboards and relegate all the rarely-used keys to "fn+F8" or whatever - replace them with a function key and make them secondary uses for other buttons.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[jez9999]

It's not the same size as our enter key. Personally, US keyboards piss me off. I think your enter key is way too small.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[jez9999]

Sure, on linux it's useless, there are better ways to screengrab. But for windows print screen then paste into MS Paint/whatever is sadly the best you can do without messing around installing a utility.

Heh, it's better than Linux comes up with. As you said, you can't do this in Linux - how exactly can you screengrab? Having a daemon running by default that responds to printscreen seems lightyears ahead of what most Linux distroes come with, I'm afraid.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[NeoThermic]

Any decent editor will allow you to select the all caps line and alter it into sentence case or lowercase depending on how you've fucked up. Word has had this ability for many revisions (I used it in word 97). In word, select the mistake, then do format -> change case. Select how you want the sentence to appear (this will vary depending on how you've fucked up), and click apply. :)

NeoThermic

Re:gOOD lUCK

[Chris Pimlott]

Actually, Ubuntu has printscreen mapped to take a screen shot by default. It wouldn't surprise me if that were the Gnome default.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[Phreakiture]

I vote for keeping it.

It makes it much easier to type strings of variables in a BASH script, such as ${LD_LIBRARY_PATH_32} when you don't have to hold down the shift key.

I'll agree that it's in the wrong place, though. Didn't the IBM XT have it somewhwere down on the bottom left corner.... I think where Control is on a modern KB and vice-versa?

Re:gOOD lUCK

[Snarfangel]

I don't know, my password shows "******" whether or not I look at the screen. Unless you mean I should look at the screen, the light on the keyboard, my fingers, and the paper I might be transcribing simultaneously.

Better to put it out of range of the accidental finger.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[jeremyp]

I agree, it's too big. My laptop keyboard has no delete key and no insert key but the cPS LOCK KEY THAT I ONLY EVER PRESS BY ccident - trying to go for the "a" - is twice as big as any normal key.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[Tweekster]

Yes I do make screenshots. once or twice a year, which is once or twice more than most people ever will...

But when I do make those screenshots, I am sure glad I have a key dedicated to that task...

Re:gOOD lUCK

[Tweekster]

Exactly, because everyone I know takes hundreds of screenshots a day that it completely justifies having a dedicated key for that purpose...

Oh wait, linux does it the smart way...Click on the Main Menu, click "Take Screenshot"

Re:gOOD lUCK

[fimbulvetr]

Speaking of odd keys how many people still use the scroll lock? I have never figured out what it's for on modern keyboards.

If you're on a linux box, and the console messages have scrolled by and you desperately want to see them, without rebooting the machine again (Or whatever), turn scroll lock on and use "page up" to view the history. Make sure to turn scroll lock back off before typing though!

Re:gOOD lUCK

[LiquidCoooled]

I don't look at the screen all the time whilst typing for the same reason I don't look at my feet all the time whilst walking. Usually I am typing up some notes I've made on paper or writing from memory whilst reading up on my actual work. I normally notice (on average) about half a line along that its wrong.

Typing is really easy and doesn't involve looking whilst I am doing it but depending upon the keyboard I use I occasionally catch the caps lock and I remarked it would be better elsewhere.

By the way just because I'm curious, how the hell do you get to feeding kids and cleaner energy from touch typing?

Re:gOOD lUCK

[genessy]

I agree. We also use UniData here in our financial institution. So, it's more than hardware that you're going to have to fix; you're going to have to fix piles and piles of software as well. Frankly, maybe the submitter should just learn to touch-type a little better so he/she doesn't have so much trouble hitting his caps lock.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[minvaren]

Oh my, a fellow PICK developer... I didn't think there were any others on here! We definitely need the caps for what we do.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[oahazmatt]

Don't worry, reports indicate the caps lock key will be replaced with the "non-lower case" key.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[plague3106]

Don't you think its tough to look at the screen when the data you're typing in comes from a paper? Have you ever tried to type pages of text into a word processor?

Get off your high horse, stupid.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[Dion]

No, they probably realize that SQL is case insensitive, so foo FOO foO FoO and Foo are all the same name.

You can force it to be case sensitive by quoting the string so "foo" and "Foo" are different identifiers.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[Anonymous Coward]

So remap it to left Control, problem solved. How easy is this? Very.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[pthisis]

On modern desktops, go to the menubar menu and select "Take Screenshots".

On old, X-only systems, type "xwd -root > out.xwd" (replace out.xwd with whatever filename you want). Or just xwd if you want to select an individual window to capture (using the mouse) instead of doing a full-screen screanshot.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[Sloppy]

The problem I've had is with some games, where pressing a key does something other than just echo a character on the screen. I press a button and something doesn't work right, and I look around at several possible causes for the problem, before I realize that I typed T instead of t.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[flink]

Apple replaced most of the functionality with funky hotkeys and doesn't have full keyboard-only control

Do you have a link to these hot keys? I really miss Pause when working in the terminal and Insert when editing text. Is there any way to reproduce them in OS X? When I google I only find sites discussing their absence.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[Khyber]

yanno - if your program requires stuff to be typed in all caps - why isn't it programmed to just automatically put everything in caps, like the software the Probation/Parole boards use?

Re:gOOD lUCK

[jbnix]

"working on a UniData database and all UniQuery"

WoW .. I thought I was the only one left who worked with these ... amazing !!!

I agree .. we have many terminal proggies that require all caps and were writen over 10 years ago. I am not about to go back and try to fix all that.

this guy should just get a knife and pop the key off all together. that is what I do with the little "windows menu" key.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[muckdog]

Yes heard of that, I also heard of carple tunnel. I'll stick with my hack and wack 3-4 finger typing and still have use of my hands when I am 50.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[ConceptJunkie]

I don't know. I'm 41 and I hack and wack, although I'm pretty good at it, but I've been having some problems on and off. It's not getting worse (or I'm getting more tolerant of it), but I definitely can't play video games (with a controller like Gamecube, etc) very long without my hands hurting. Of course, I don't usually play console games, but the fact that it happens bothers me.

We'll see. I try to be reasonable and exercise my hands, but, well, we'll see...

Re:gOOD lUCK

[Anonymous Coward]

cAPS lOCK iS lIKE cRuIsE CONTROL FOR COOL!

Re:gOOD lUCK

[Danga]

The keyboard could actually use a redesign because there are a number of keys that have no use anymore for most people. Print Screen, Scroll Lock, Pause/Break.

Print screen has actually been very helpful to me in the past when I want someone I am trying to help (who has minimal computer skills and is on a Windows machine) to create a screenshot to send to me. I just tell them to make sure to have what I am interested in seeing on the screen and then have them press Print Screen, open up MS Paint, hit CTRL+V, then save the file as a JPEG and send it to me. It is a quick and easy way to get a screenshot since there is a button right on the keyboard and the other steps are trivial.

Scroll Lock and Pause/Break I do not use too often but Caps Lock comes in handy often enough that I don't think it should be phased out just yet.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[Eggplant62]

Wanna tell me how I type medical transcription with HEADERS ALL IN CAPS without a capslock key and still maintain enough speed to remain profitable?? You really wanna make my job that much harder, what with my already having to listen to grammatically-challenged, supposedly-degreed professionals, usually through a thick accent, under unrealistic deadlines that already make my job a supreme challenge?

FUCK YOU.

The person with this idea needs to expand his world vision beyond his own little chunk of reality and think of others who might actually need that key to survive.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[Anonymous Coward]

I LIKE MY CAPS LOCK TOO. IT CONSIDERABLY SIMPLIFIES THE TASK OF PRINTING THINGS LIKE THIS. bUT aS i uSED tO uSE aN aMIGA, i hAD a hARD tIME gETTING uSED tO tHIS bEHAVIOUR. If an improvement were made, it would be to eliminate the toggling effect on the shift key and lock in uppercase only. GEE, HOW COME NOBODY EVERY THOUGHT OF THAT?

Re:gOOD lUCK

[John Nowak]

Most US keyboards are the same.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[Andrewkov]

Its one thing to have an accidental character in your text, its another to completely mess up the rest of the line.

Sounds like you should be using Microsoft products. Excel and Word will detect your caps lock is on, and turn it off automatically for you. Drives me nuts, since I usually notice it's on after I type the first word, then turn it off, but Word has already turned it off, so I turn it back on, ugh. (and yes, I know you can turn off the autocorrection feature).

Re:gOOD lUCK

[Andrewkov]

I use scroll lock in Excel sometimes, it causes the arrow keys to move the spreadsheet around, intead of the cursor.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[jez9999]

Huh?? I didn't think they were. Could you give me some evidence of that? This link seems to suggest that they're not.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[TilJ]

Exactly, it needs to be banished to the upper right quadrant with the other oddball keys (scroll lock, pause/break, and sysrq). They're all useful, but they all have no need to be on the valuable home row.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[Anonymous Coward]

Proper touch typing reduces the risk of repetitive stress injuries. Plus, you'd get work done faster, so maybe you could actually be retired by the time you're fifty. (Wouldn't it be nice if it actually worked that way?)

Re:gOOD lUCK

[funfail]

Looking at the feet while walking = Looking at the keyboard while typing
Looking at the screen while typing = Looking at the road while walking

Re:gOOD lUCK

[LiquidCoooled]

Good point, I'll defer to my sig in this instance.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[graphicartist82]

That's interesting.. I just took a quick break from coding InfoBASIC (on PI/Open).. All of its code has to be upper case too.

PI/Open has something similar to UniQuery, it's called INFORM and it's in ... you guessed it ... upper case

Re:gOOD lUCK

[marshall_j]

Allow me to provide a tool that will help a ton

http://www.brainsystems.com/capsunlock/

Install this bad boy and any accidental press of the caps lock will not work unless it is pressed with the ctrl key. A very handy bit of free (beer) software

Re:gOOD lUCK

[John Nowak]

Ah.. you mean the RETURN key. ... ;-)

They used to be larger on my older Macintosh and Apple keyboards. Nowdays, they're quite tiny. I have no problem with it after some practice.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[parkrrrr]

Every time I hit PrintScrn/SysRq on this Windows XP machine, my computer locks up.

Must be because of that remote kernel debugger...

But seriously, I find that Alt-PrintScrn is a better choice for most screen capture tasks, anyway, and it won't break to the debugger.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[back_pages]

Lots of legal correspondence is done in caps. Some people have a system that dictates when to underline, italicize, bold, and capitalize. Many people throw moderation to the wind _AND_HIT_THE_HEAVY_SHIT_AT_THE_DROP_OF_A_HAT . If you take away caps, you take away at least 50% of the effectiveness of the breathless exasperation available to these esteemed legal writers.

And yes, taking away 1 of 4 options means losing 50% of the effectiveness. The reason is that the first 3 options are insufficient - they fail to properly express the food-flying-from-the-mouth outrage that is necessary to rationally convey their logic. That fourth escalation - all caps - is what cinches the deal. The sum is more than the parts.

However, you could get rid of legal correspondence. Hm..

Re:gOOD lUCK

[StikyPad]

There's no reason caps-lock couldn't be accomplished by some other shortcut, such as both shifts at the same time, or CTRL-Shift. I agree that it's often accidentally engaged, it's probably only slightly more frequently used than Scroll Lock, and yet it's taking up almost two-keys worth of valuable real-estate right smack dab in the home row mirroring the Enter key. As the late Mr. Cochran would say [if he were a construction paper animation], "That does not make sense!"

Re:gOOD lUCK

[x-caiver]

This reply goes out to not just you, but to the other 100 people who have said 'sometimes I NEED to type in all caps!!!':

You could still do 'caps lock' without having to have a dedicated key for it. Double-tap the shift key, hit the left and right shift at hte same time, or any of dozens of options could trigger a software caps-lock.

Now this would not solve the real problem (people that don't know WTF they are doing wHEN THEY TYPE LIKE AN iDIOT), but it would eliminate a superflous key so we could put something more useful in its spot.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[Digi-John]

Funny, those (british?) keyboards piss /me/ off. I continually hit the wrong damn key, because you chopped off the part of the Enter key I always hit and replaced it with something stupid. Suit yourselves, I guess.

Re:gOOD lUCK

[Unequivocal]

Actually Word (since v6 I think) will automagically correct if you backwards case a sentence. It actually doesn't just fix the sentence you messed up but it turns off capslock altogther on the keyboard so you're not in the f**ked state anymore.

Whatever else I think about Word, this feature is a gOOD tHING.

Steve

Next on Slashdot

[zubernerd]

Must be a slow news day, again!
Stories to be seen soon on Slashdot:
"Jihad declared on SysRq key" and "Crusade declared on 'Scroll Lock' Key"

Re:Next on Slashdot

[mrchaotica]

Hey, come on now -- SysRq is cool!

Re:Next on Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

While we're at it, let's get rid of the break key. I mean, who uses THAT anymore? While we're at it, let's get rid of the break key. I mean, who uses THAT anymore? While we're at it, let's get rid of the break key. I mean, who uses THAT anymore?

Re:Next on Slashdot

[SnowZero]

In some OS's, you could even say it's magic.

Re:Next on Slashdot

[daivzhavue]

Don't you DARE touch my Scroll Lock key. I will not retrain my KVM-switching response.

Re:Next on Slashdot

[Marcion]

No please get rid of Insert, I would give blood, sweat and tears for that!

Re:Next on Slashdot

[BinaryWorld]

Actually, I wouldn't mind a "Crusade declared on Scroll Lock Key". I have never found a use for it, other than a night light. ;)

Re:Next on Slashdot

[jokercito]

Woah! This is serious! I propose keyboards should all have a War on CapsLock threat level indicator light.

Re:Next on Slashdot

[gardyloo]

No please get rid of Insert, I would give blood, sweat and tears for that!

      Spoken like a true Slashdotter! ;)

Re:Next on Slashdot

[rainman_bc]

No please get rid of Insert, I would give blood, sweat and tears for that!

Actually, in a geek magazine I read, that was one of the quick and cheap mods to do to your computer. It's the most annoying key because it's next to backspace.

At work and at home I just pop that key out. I can't stand it either. Think I might start popping out the caps key too.

Re:Next on Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the "Scroll Lock" key on my computer for? contains much information on often unused keys. The Scroll Lock key still does something in MS Excel.

Re:Next on Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

WOW!

How would someone enter "insert mode" in VIM then?? By pressing "i"?!?!

You, Sir, are mad!

Re:Next on Slashdot

[gnu-sucks]

Darn straight!

alt-sysreq h

(that's home term in some solaris versions)

First post?

[Theovon]

I can't believe it.

Anyhow, I think he's right. I haven't used the CAPS key since I programmed in FORTRAN. It's called Fortran now and accepts lower case like everything else. In fact, I didn't even use the caps key to type FORTRAN. I just held down the shift key with my little finger. So, what use is this CAPS key?

Re:First post?

[m_chan]

I have a great fondness for IBM buckling spring keyboards as that's where I cut my teeth (well, actually first on an IBM Selectric). Anyway, some years ago I bought two Endura Pro Unicomp keyboards from PC Keyboard. Clicky key goodness. Spendy, but indestructible. Loud, but I kind of like it, especially when I am typing while angry. Best of all, on request they will hard-swap keys, which is what I had them do, now typing away quite happily with the l-control key back where it belongs and caps lock reglegated out of the way. It makes a _huge_ difference in all-day typing sessions to not make that stretch off the home row to reach ctrl. Like many, I would formerly accomplish this with custom x-configs, registry hacks in Windows, and other tactics, but this is just better. And permanent.

Re:First post?

[Spliffster]

in some languages you cannot type special characters without the caps lock keye (ÖÄÜÀÉÈ for german and french) come to mind. on a us keyboard you might not need it however.

Re:First post?

[Intron]

"I have a great fondness for IBM buckling spring keyboards as that's where I cut my teeth"

frozen lima beans work well, too.

Re:First post?

[Anonymous Coward]

in some languages you cannot type special characters without the caps lock keye (ÖÄÜÀÉÈ for german and french) come to mind. on a us keyboard you might not need it however.

for german keyboards this is not true. In germany the keyboards have a different layout with keys for öäü and you can just use SHIFT to caps them ÖÄÜ.
but maybe you meant that you need the caps lock on english keyboards to write those letters (though that sounds strange to me. I thought one could do that by pressing ALT and entering the ascii code on the keypad).
anyway... even tough we have a different keyboard layout we also have that stupid CAPS key and it has to DIE!!!

Re:First post?

[cowscows]

The majority of text on architectural drawings is generally in CAPS, for reasons both historic and practial. On my work computer, caps lock is probably on the majority of the time.

Re:First post?

[dargaud]

Then you have to explain to me how. I use a US keyboard because I'm a programmer and I can't stand programming with a french keyboard ('{' and '}' are not even on it so no luck in C/PHP, and you need to shift to use number, argh !). So that when I need to type accented letters I just know by heart all the ALT codes for éàêè... This is very annoying. I want a keyword with a whole bunch of extra programmable keys on top for all those accented chars and missing char, like '' which takes a tiring 5 keys to type: ALT-0176
Just to say that I don't see what the CAPS LOCK key has to do with that.

Re:First post?

[danaris]

That's interesting...on a Mac with a US keyboard, you can access any of those with the right combinations of Shift and Option. Of course, I've only once used a non-US-QWERTY keyboard, and I was completely lost on it, so I don't know what international keyboards & keymaps are like...it just seems odd that you can't get at them with Shift and appropriate modifiers everywhere.

My understanding of the Caps Lock key is it's supposed to act exactly like a held-down Shift key, but only for the letters.

Dan Aris

Re:First post?

[asleepathemouse]

most forms of engineering graphics are done in caps, im probaly the only person in the design dept at my office whos caps are not on all the time. i get IM's all the time in nothing but caps just because of this but, im a big boy and know why so it dont bother me, i never really got very worked up over the case of someones letter when they are talking to me, the words themselves are ususaly what tells me what they mean...

Re:First post?

[Spliffster]

you really need to have a look at a swiss german (sg-latin1) keyboard which has both; german umlauts and french accents on it. as long as you want to use the uppercase accents or umlauts you can access them only with caps-lock enabled (and in some casese caps-lock + shift + key).

so long ...

Re:First post?

[grahamlee]

'{' and '}' are not even on it so no luck in C/PHP,

Trigraphs!

Re:First post?

[Gobelet]

'{' and '}' are not even on it

Yes, they are.

AltGr + 4 and AltGr + + will give you { and }.

Look here.

Re:First post?

[Schreckgestalt]

So, what use is this CAPS key?

Imagine having a keyboard with some non-US layout. Mine, for example, is Swiss-German. As there are a lot of French-speaking people in Switzerland, there are not only German, but also French characters on it.

One key has the ö, and when you press shift and the same key, you get the é. To write an Ö, you have to use the CAPS LOCK key. Got it?

Re:First post?

[atomico]

Try a Spanish keyboard: you have [,],{,} and also accented vowels for your é,è,ê, not to forget umlauts ÖÄöä and çe thingy. And the almighty Ññ, just in case we convince the French to drop the 'gn' combination :).
I have worked some time in other European countries, and the variety of keyboard layouts is amazing. What I could never understand is the reason for having Y and Z changed in German keyboards...

Re:First post?

[graphicsguy]

Are you just telling us the way it is, or are you claiming that this method makes some kind of sense?

Re:First post?

[joh]

What I could never understand is the reason for having Y and Z changed in German keyboards...

The reason is that Y is only very rarely used in German, while the Z is common. With English it's the other way round. Frequently needed keys in the pinky position in the bottom row can slow down typing a lot and provokes typing errors.

Re:First post?

[Eideewt]

It's nice that you don't type in all caps, but typing using only lower case letters is just as bad. Try reaching a happy medium.

Re:First post?

[dargaud]

Thanks for the suggestion, as my own kbd is getting old (lots of typing this year). Do you have to shift for the number keys on the spanish keyboard ? I've used italian keyboards as well and it's only marginally better than the horrible french ones.

Re:First post?

[atomico]

Probably the Spanish keyboard is not very different from the French one, probably differences lie just in the less frequently used keys.

• Letter Ñ is on the home row, where the American keyboard has ;/:
• Accented letters á, à, ä, ê, are typed: first the accent key, then the vowel
• Square and curly brackets []{} by pressing 'AltGr'
• Ç is the rightmost key in the home row, beside 'Enter'

Check some layout on the web, you might find it useful.

Worse Yet...

[meatbridge]

are the sleep keys they've been adding to key boards lately. drop your head phones on that sucker and you can really F up your day.

Best Real Estate?

[hal2814]

The bottom left corner of my keyboard is harly prime real estate. Oh, you didn't leave the default PS2 keyboard mapping for Caps Lock did you? That's my Ctrl button like the good Lord intended.

Re:Best Real Estate?

[$RANDOMLUSER]

That's absolutely right. If God hadn't meant for the Control key to be next to the "A" key, he wouldn't have put it there on the ADM3A.

Re:Best Real Estate?

[Rude Turnip]

I'm pretty sure he uses voice commands...ever read Genesis? "Let there be light!" =)

Re:Best Real Estate?

[hal2814]

He didn't make keyboards for Himself. He made them for us. He doesn't need toilet paper either but we still have tp as a gift from Him.

Re:Best Real Estate?

[Scott Wood]

The bottom corners are indeed prime real estate... what other keys can be easily pressed with the side of one's palms?

Re:Best Real Estate?

[xerxesdaphat]

>Let there be light!

More proof Christians are deluded. The bible was clearly written in BASIC...

Re: Best Real Estate?

[Dolda2000]

Call me infidel if you will, but I would argue that the bottom left corner is indeed the One True position for the Control key. It is far easier to reach with the pinky finger than the leftmost middle row is. When using Emacs commands like C-x C-f with the Control key in the bottom left, notice that if you press Control with your pinky, X with your long finger and F with your index finger, the fingers line up nicely in a natural straight line. Then do the same with the Control key in the leftmost middle row, and note how you have to stretch the pinky finger surely, Oh Good Lord, an entire extra inch!

Re:Best Real Estate?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem isn't the capslock key, it's that every PC maker in the world puts it in the wrong place. The key to the left of 'A' should be control w/ capslock relegated to some lower lefthand corner, just as God and Bill Joy intended it to be. Thank the xmodmap author, the OSX Tiger developers and some nameless Windows hacker for providing ways to correct the long time mistake of all PC hardware vendors.

Re:Best Real Estate?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's absolutely right. If God hadn't meant for the Control key to be next to the "A" key, he wouldn't have put it there on the ADM3A.

The problem is it was only put there to make it easier to type ADM3A.

Re: Best Real Estate?

[hal2814]

I use emacs and still prefer the left-of-A Control key. You are correct that with bottom-left-corner you can line up your fingers nicely but you have to move your palm away from the keyboard to do it. Using the left-of-a setup, you make a v shape with your pinky, middle finger, and index finger but the palm stays stationary like it's supposed to.

Re: Best Real Estate?

[interlingua.ro]

I'm not sure what kind of keyboard you have, but on my IBM clicky that's simply not true. Caps Lock makes a wonderful control key if remapped.

Re:Best Real Estate?

[Anonymous Coward]

"insightful"? :)

Re: Best Real Estate?

[Eideewt]

That's what the other control key is for. Trying to hold control (or Shift, or Alt) with the same hand that's pressing letter keys is just asking for a typing related injury.

What About INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY?

[eldavojohn]

IN HONOR OF THE SUBJECT MATERIAL, I HAVE CHOSEN TO USE THE CAPS LOCK FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE FOR THIS POST.

On second thought, that's far too annoying.

If the proposed abolishment of caps lock keys is successful, I grow concerned about what myself and my predecessors will celebrate on INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY which happens to be October 22. And don't tell me it's not a real holiday because that is one convincing website. It has a news flash with a picture of a potato, uses the word "bitches" and has a countdown for the days remaining to INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY. And look at this other reputable site, Out House Rag that also backs INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY. That's more than Adults Day in Japan has to say! Please, if I have to put up with one more Nevada Day (October 31) the least you can do is let me have my INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY. Please don't remove your caps lock key because they're not evil!

You know, there's this horrible site that actually encourages you to remap your caps lock to a more suitable function ... but of course that would just be sacrilegious and a very dangerous process (don't try it at home!).

Re:What About INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY?

[dirgotronix]

whoa, derekarnold.net linked to my forum.

i feel ... special. now if only my forum was up and running at the moment.

Re:What About INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY?

[punkr0x]

Haha, holy crap, I should not laugh that hard at work. Well done!

Re:What About INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY?

[g-doo]

And besides, the caps lock LED would be lonely.

Re:What About INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY?

[underworld]

What about international spell check day? That site is in desperate need of that holiday.

solution

[Anonymous Coward]

just remove it from the keyboard

i have

Re:solution

[Eideewt]

Too bad you accidentally took out the shift keys too.

here here!

[nugx]

Dug! I mean, Shouted! Err, I agree!

Please think of the COBOL programmers.

[ettlz]

Bloody lameness filter runied the original version of this post. "Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING." That's the WHOLE FUCKING IDEA!

Re:Please think of the COBOL programmers.

[Red Flayer]

Exactly. Caps lock is important to management to ensure that their staff really grasp the importance of the coffee-maker procedural email. Otherwise, no one would pay attention to the fact that you need to use 2 (that's right, 2!) bags of coffee for every pot.

Oh, and of course, to make sure that staff get their TPS reports in by the end of the day.

There are important uses...

[Anonymous Coward]

But just think how hard it would be to type 'FRIST POST!!!111!! WOO HOO IM LEET' without the cap lock key! Some poor newbie might only end up as second, or even third post without this important aid. Think of the newbies!

this is a stupid idea

[Anonymous Coward]

i hate typing lower case letters

hurrah!

[tolan-b]

Personally I often remove the caps-lock key so as to not accidentally turn it on.

Re:hurrah!

[Anonymous Coward]

It wasn't a joke! I was perfectly serious! :p

Re:hurrah!

[StarManta.Mini]

OS X lets you turn it off in system preferences.

Re:hurrah!

[Nerdfest]

You may laugh, but I do the same. When they ask "where's you're caps-lock key", I tell them that I've remapped it to it's proper position ... in my desk drawer. I'm apparently a sloppy typist and hit it a lot when aiming for the tab key when programming. The best feature of windows XP is the feature that will turn off caps-lock if you press shift.

Re:hurrah!

[tomzyk]

wOW. i THOUGHT i WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO DID THAT. uNFORTUNATELY, MY LAPTOP CAME WITH THE CAPSLOCK on BY DEFAULT.

Re:hurrah!

[deval]

I too do this but sometimes X decides that caps lock is on anyway - in this case you just need to stuff a biro in the gap to press the key and turn it off :D

Couldn't agree more!

[Pope]

What a toally useless key to have in such a prominent keying position. The old school 'boards had it right: big-ass Control key next to the A, tiny Caps Lock in the bottom left corner. It made even more sense when Windows starting adopting the Mac's Command-letter keyboard shortcut as Control-letter, like Cut/Copy/Paste.

DOWN WITH CAPS LOCK!

Re:Couldn't agree more!

[BrianRoach]

My Sun Type 6 USB keyboards are still that way :)

(Really screws you up if you're using a "PC" keyboard on a different machine ... you hit the CAPS LOCK key instead of ctrl).

- Roach

Re:Couldn't agree more!

[McGregorMortis]

Yeah, I think they got switched by IBM when they brought out the PS/2 systems. I didn't like it at the time, and I don't like it now. But I've become accustomed to it.

For a while, I ran some software that remapped Caps and Ctrl back to the proper way. As an Emacs user, it was absolutely essential that Ctrl be in the right place. The new location is very awkward, requiring much longer stretches to reach some essential combinations.

I think maybe they switched them to be more like traditional mechanical typewriters.

Re:Couldn't agree more!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not put the caps lock key right next to the other key I've never ever used: scroll lock?

Re:Couldn't agree more!

[amliebsch]

You can still get these keyboards if you want! And even better - they are the direct descendents of the legendary IBM Model M in all its massive, spring-buckling goodness.

http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/linux101.html

They even have two designs - one with just the CapsLock and LCtrl swapped, and one that also swaps the backtick and escape keys.

So, since you can get these if you want, I really don't know what the submitter is whining about. I guess s/he is just some kind of megalomaniacal totalitarian bent on forcing everyone to use the One True Keyboard or something.

Re:Couldn't agree more!

[amliebsch]

I failed the internet.

'Linux' model buckling spring keyboard

Re:Couldn't agree more!

[Agripa]

While I learned to touch type on a mechanical typewriter for many years I used various terminals and computer systems that had the control key to the left of the A and the caps lock key in the lower left corner. For a while AT style keyboard had a switch to swap the keys and after that I would take them apart and rewire them permanently. When they switched to using a membrane instead of a printed circuit board I resorted to software. When software no longer works I will probably build a keyboard dongle to do the substitution although that might take some effort for USB.

Re:Couldn't agree more!

[DragonWriter]

I think maybe they switched them to be more like traditional mechanical typewriters.

They definitely switched them to be more like typewriters (though electric more than "mechanical"); which made sense—computers were being more used by non-technical people who also used typewriters and having the layouts as similar as possible was a good thing for most business users. Apparently, the difference in layouts particularly the location of the Caps Lock key was a frequent gripe of pre-PS/2 IBM customers.

Of course, now that computers have almost completely displaced typewriters, there's a lot less reason to be bound by what typewriter users are used to. OTOH, most computer users are now used to the existing dominant layout and there's not a big incentive to switch for most users.

And, for those who like the old Control location, there's always the Happy Hacking Keyboard.

Re:Couldn't agree more!

[Anonymous Coward]

What a toally useless key to have in such a prominent keying position.

Yeah, maybe they should make it function as a second 'T.'

Re:Couldn't agree more!

[vnangia]

Hate to break it to you lad, but down is on... as it clearly was in your last sentence.

Re:Couldn't agree more!

[1u3hr]

I think maybe they switched them to be more like traditional mechanical typewriters.

Read these two posts by Dan Strychalski in alt.folklore.computers:
Date: 1998/04/16

      Windows came out in August 1985. The "enhanced" PC AT
      keyboard with Control in the bottom row appeared in April 1986. Its
      Control key was in exactly the same place as the Mac's Command key. At
      some point after that -- exactly when, I don't know -- Microsoft
      started using Control-X, C, and V for Cut, Copy, and Paste in Windows.

      I'm not saying IBM moved the Control key to let Microsoft copy Mac
      keystrokes. I wouldn't discount the possibility, either. I *do* believe
      the Control key was moved to make keyboard-only operation uncomfortable
      and inefficient. I've met a *few* keyboarders who prefer a bottom-row
      Control key; *not one* of them likes it where IBM put it in 1986.

      Some people say IBM wanted to make the keyboard more typewriter-like.
      By adding a second Alt and a second Control key? By using `Enter' where
      all typewriters and most other computer keyboards have `Return'? People
      had squawked about departures from the Selectric design in 1981; the
      changes they'd asked for had been made on the original PC AT in 1984.

and Date: 1999/01/09

      One of the design goals of the Mac's creators was to make
      programs such as WordStar impossible. They were not about to
      copy anything from WordStar. While WordStar lets you do
      *everything* through the Ctrl key, the Mac in its first
      three years had *no* Ctrl key; it had a single Command key,
      and that key was in the worst possible place for comfortable
      use with all but a few character keys. The OS and the first
      model apps simply did not allow keyboard-only operation. At
      the time, CP/M was still going strong; lots of new IBM-type
      and non-IBM-type machines were coming out; and WordStar held
      near-absolute sway in the word processing world. Steve Jobs
      did not want Mac users learning a method of operation that
      would be transferrable to other systems.

~~~~~

So it all goes back to IBM, Microsoft and Apple trying to fuck each other
over, and cooperating to wipe out "old school" apps like Wordstar.

Re:Couldn't agree more!

[fermion]

i just want the light to be on the caps lock key and not down in the basement in the unused lavatory behind a big sign that say beware of rabbit. The worst thing about using company issued PC is that no matter who expensive the machine, the keyboard always sucks, with the cap lock indicator way off to the left in a forest or twenty other LEDs, like they could not afford a PCB layout program that could route the leads around the key.

Re:Couldn't agree more!

[pthisis]

I don't understand how a control key to the left of A would be _easier_ to do keyboardless operation with. Try hitting Ctrl-X without moving the fingers of your left hand off of their home locations--pinkie on Ctrl (modern caps lock), ring finger on x. It's quite uncomfortable. Alternatively, you can move your whole hand and then deal with returning to the home row.

With ctrl in the lower-left, you just hold it down with the edge of your palm and have all your fingers in their natural locations. Even Ctrl-A is easy.

Re:Couldn't agree more!

[imikem]

Today's standard keyboards are likely to be subjects of ridicule in the future. Caps Lock is but one of the travesties. Why can that function not be relegated to, say, holding down both Shift keys, or a longer hold down on one? That reuses a key with similar function, thus easy to remember. I often hit Caps Lock when reaching for Tab. Dunno about putting Control there, as that makes standard cut/copy/paste more awkward.

Re:Couldn't agree more!

[UnknownSoldier]

Completely agree!

Ctrl on the bottom is easier.

Re:Couldn't agree more!

[1u3hr]

Completely agree! Ctrl on the bottom is easier.

Thousands of hard core Wordstar and vi geeks, who intensively use control keys, would venture to disagree.

Re:Couldn't agree more!

[UnknownSoldier]

I grew up on WordStar on the Apple, before switching over the PC. It's easier to shift the pinky down, then up.

Different strokes for different folks.

Re:Couldn't agree more!

[Eideewt]

That's why you have two control keys. Of course, the best way is to make both Caps Lock and Enter act as control keys. Control where God intended + symmetry = happy camper.

Re:Couldn't agree more!

[amliebsch]

Why can that function not be relegated to, say, holding down both Shift keys, or a longer hold down on one?

Why not CTRL+SHIFT for that matter?

Re:Couldn't agree more!

[amliebsch]

In case you don't read upthread, you can buy brand new keyboards with the CAPSLOCK and CTRL keys swapped. And even better, they're high-quality buckling spring keyboards, direct descendents of the IBM Model M. http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/linux101.html

DISCLAIMER: I am not affiliated with this site, but I love my Model M keyboards.

Re:Couldn't agree more!

[Anonymous Coward]

There is already a petition for this!

Re:Couldn't agree more!

[pthisis]

Thousands of hard core Wordstar and vi geeks, who intensively use control keys, would venture to disagree.

As a hardcore vi geek (to the point where I have a few patches in vim 7) I'll just say
1. Vi doesn't intensively use control keys. Emacs does.
2. That said, control on the bottom left is much easier to hit once you start using the "edge of palm" technique. The more intensively you use it, the bigger a win control on bottom left is.

Re:Couldn't agree more!

[1u3hr]

2. That said, control on the bottom left is much easier to hit once you start using the "edge of palm" technique.

I can't contort my hands to do this, perhaps my hands are larger. I have to take my fingers off the home row to even touch a key with my palm. And though I did use vi for a few years, that was back in the 70s... so my memory is a little fuzzy.

not enough

[Anonymous Coward]

taking down the caps lock key isn't enough, we must go for the head of the dragon - the windows key.

Re:not enough

[kgruscho]

hmm, i use the windows key constantly. it lets me access the start menu without: a. using the mouse, b. having the idiotic taskbar even on the screen.

major improvement to my user experience.

Re:not enough

[EvilIdler]

Thank goodness (Logitech, that is) for G15 keyboards,
with their switch that disables the windows key :)

Re:not enough

[Anonymous Coward]

ctrl-esc

Re:not enough

[Eideewt]

I'll never understand the "lets take keys off the keyboard" crowd. The Windows key's default binding is barely useful (I'm amazed that Windows doesn't provide a built in facility for assigning it to other actions) and the Menu key is completely useless (what the hell did they even think this was for?) but why would any sane person want to give up the possibilities they provide? You *can* remap them, you know. For example, my Windows key drops down a Quake-style console, and my Menu key brings up a wmii style menu that lets me launch any program quickly. I'd much rather have plenty of customizable keys with no particular purpose than have only a small set of indispensable ones.

Slashdot and CapsLock

[jonv]

Slashdot seems to have a solution. Tried to post a funny message in all Caps and Slashdot responded:
Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

Re:Slashdot and CapsLock

[Emeye]

But how will you CAPTURE THEIR ATTENTION without

LARGE CAPITAL LETTERS?

Re:Slashdot and CapsLock

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole "using caps is like yelling" line is so bogus.

People used a single "font case" for centuries, for subtle
and no-so-subtle things, with no problem.

Secondly, while E. E. Cummings may have had an artistic
point to make, by writing in all lowercase, a lot of
people who would ban the "caps lock" key are not
artistic, just lazy. Bah.

Re:Slashdot and CapsLock

[Anonymous Coward]

That would explain why Mr Oboje had trouble getting this through

"MY NAME IS OLUSUN OBOJE, CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER OF NIGERIAN GERBIL TRADING CO. I HAVE $10,0000,000 GERMAN FRANCS WHICH I AM LOOKING TO INVEST IN OVERSEAS VENTURES, ESPECIALLY ONES THAT WILL TELL ME HOW TO SPAM IN LOWERCASE..."

It has its uses.

[celardore]

I work in finance, and on occasion I have to manually type out invoices. It is important to maintain consistancy, so all the invoices are typed in block caps. If I didn't have caps lock, that particular task would be so frustrating...

Although I agree caps lock should be banned for anyone under 18, they seem to love it - and ALL CAPS DOES GET ANNOYING TO READ.

Re:It has its uses.

[anshil]

For those in with a desperate need of caps can have a software solution for their OS that makes double-hit-shift to a capslock...

Really the capslock key is just from the mechanical typewrites where a double-hit-shift would not have been possible.

Re:It has its uses.

[gsn]

For those in desperate need to not have a caps have a simple solution - don't press the bloody thing...

And seriously am I the only one who uses the numeric keypad for gaming - I think its vastly better than the arrow keys because they are higher up and my palm is on the kyboard for the most part and better than the WASD because there aren't as many keys near it.

Dont get rid of the key use a software solution to rebind any key on the keyboard to whatever you want - if you have a redundant control then good for you.

I like the logitech keyboards mostly because they have more keys that I can use to bind other command to.

Re:It has its uses.

[Anonymous Coward]

...and better than the WASD because there aren't as many keys near it.

Amateur! Having keys near "it" is critical to competent gaming. In fact, WASD is stupid too. It should be ESDF. There's a pinky over there people! And that pinky finds it a lot easier to press 1QAZ than ESC (which most games take as an interrupt type key) TAB, CAPS-LOCK, LEFT SHIFT, and CONTROL.

And that numeric keypad? It's out of here as soon as we're done hiding CAPS LOCK's body. The only people who need a keypad are people doing data entry. And if you don't have reams of paper covered in numbers to type in every day, you don't do data entry. I have to stop myself from laughing everytime I see some putz stop typing, eyeball their keyboard, move their right hand over to the num-keys, and type in UPARROW, INS, END, -, 555, -, HOME, PG-DN, PG-UP, END. and then look back up at the screen and realize they just fubared whatever it was they were typing. Have to hit undo a half-dozen times, eyeball the keyboard again, locate and press numlock and type it all again.

Look people! There are numbers right there, just above your fingers. You don't need to show your mad computer skills by using that stupid keypad. It just slows you down and wastes calories and there are children starving in africa right now and the US is dependant on foreign oil and Ken Lay is molesting Elvis on some Carribean island.

Re:It has its uses.

[1u3hr]

I work in finance, and on occasion I have to manually type out invoices. It is important to maintain consistancy, so all the invoices are typed in block caps.

Manually? If using MS Word, you can select the text after typing it in and use the AAa button, or SHIFT-F3 to cycle through various cases. Or make a macro. Or better, make a style all caps (Style->Font), and that's all you can type.

Re:It has its uses.

[celardore]

No I meant manually into an archaic system. Should have made that clearer.

Re:It has its uses.

[1u3hr]

No I meant manually into an archaic system.

If the system can only cope with caps, it should convert all input itself. How stupid.

Data entry issues

[sirstar]

What about the Data entry people that have to type things in all caps? Holding down the shift button to type in a whole line will be more of a pain then someone learning how to turn their caps lock off.....

Re:Data entry issues

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone, please, mod parent +5 Informative.

Re:Data entry issues

[dens]

I've seen data entry done like this, and every time I wonder "why on earth are they doing this?" Can you tell me a real reason that a data entry person would have to type in all caps? The only times I have seen this is on old data entry systems that MADE THEM type in all caps (meaning the program controlled this behavior, not the typist, which, if you want this behavior, is actually how it should be done).

Re:Data entry issues

[nra1871]

Move it up to where the scroll lock key is. Still accessible, and won't get accidentally hit. I also motion to rid the keyboard of that friggin numlock key. Sometimes it boots up activated, sometimes not, other times it's activated, I login, and it's deactivated.

Re:Data entry issues

[sirstar]

Some companies still use applications that require information to be typed in caps (my current employer for example). These applications (most) don't have the option to convert the information into caps as it's typed in, or it's the company standard...

Re:Data entry issues

[prockcore]

What about the Data entry people that have to type things in all caps?

Sounds more like a software problem than a keyboard problem. Even web forms can automatically translate a form field to all caps.

(really, you can do a css "text-transform: uppercase;" on an input field and everything you type will be translated.. including accented characters).

Re:Data entry issues

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Actually, I do know the answer to that. The IBM 1403 Chain Printer. It was an incredibly high-speed (3 seconds per-page on 11x14 fanfold) impact printer which used a continuously moving chain with letters attached, and 132 hammers behind the paper. Each hammer would strike when the right letter passed it at the right position. The standard suppled chain came, IIRC, with 8 upper case alphabets, and 2 lower case alphabets. Due to the rotational latency of the chain, lower case letters really slowed down print jobs, so people used all upper case. Even today these beasts are still in use for multi-part forms like invoices and such.

Re:Data entry issues

[dens]

Exactly my point. This sounds like an outdated standard -- welcome to 1972. On the other hand, sometimes you can't do anything about this type of thing if some pointy-haired VP decides it should be done this way, stupid or not...

Re:Data entry issues

[Rah'Dick]

Think about this: if there was no CAPS key anymore, programmers who made these data entry programs would not even get the idea to force someone to use all caps. Of course, some old programs will not get updated anymore. But then again, employees and bosses would both see the neccessity to move to a newer program, once the CAPS key is gone.

Anyway, Slashdot's a bad place to announce a campaign like this, because here you'll encounter far more people that actually have a use for the CAPS key than anywhere else. Think of the countless people who are NOT into programming or data entry.

Re:Data entry issues

[PhilipMckrack]

You can type in all caps like it "has always been done" or you can spend 59.6 million dollars (random dollar amount subject to change with the size of the company) to rewrite and test an entire application that has been bug free for 15 years to account for lower case characters. Doesn't sound like all that tough of a choice to me.

There are lots of "if x-field = 'ABC'" in code out there, lots of sorting routines that count on information being in all caps. I know it's not the best way or the proper way, but that's the way it is.

Re:Data entry issues

[twistedsymphony]

Because, believe it or not some companies today still use or still have to communicate with such archic data entry systems.

It also keeps things standarized in a single case, not to mention there are some corporate and government standards that require certain things to be in all caps.

Re:Data entry issues

[stefanb]

Ugh, here's an idea: maybe could write a program that could somehow figure out which lowercase letter corresponds to which uppercase letter. Maybe it's possible to somehow teach the data entry application to use this to convert all the wrong letters into the right ones?

And, yes, I know, some asshat has probably already patented this brilliant idea...

Arggh! Someone just shoot the product managers who came up with the MUST BE IN ALL CAPS crap to start with!

Re:Data entry issues

[RealGrouchy]

Can you tell me a real reason that a data entry person would have to type in all caps?

One very good reason is to remove ambiguity with accented letters. By typing in all caps, it is understood (at least in French) that accents are not to be applied.

If they were to type in mixed caps, names and places are more consistently typed (that is, the chance of human error is lower). For example, the government can do a search in its databases for entries with a certain name and birthdate (like... for pension benefits, or for tickets, or tax somethings) and not have to worry about searching for variants with and without accents, etc. Same applies to private sector.

- RG>

Re:Data entry issues

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose it would be too much to question why the data has to be in all caps. Or why a script couldn't convert the text to the desired capitilization after entry.

Re:Data entry issues

[dens]

That's the most insane ridiculous excusre I've ever heard. There is no ambiguity. If you are typing a word in a foreign language, that word has exactly one way of being spelled correctly, whether it's uppercase or lowercase.

Besides the same thing applies to English searches. We can find things in databases in upper or lower case. We're more likely not to find it because the keyword we are searching for isn't in the thing (article, etc.) we're looking for. Some of this even happens because of variation in the English language, such as American vs. British English. If I'm searching for toilet and you typed "loo", I won't find what you wrote.

Re:Data entry issues

[kioopi]

they could still tape their shift-key down, no?

Re:Data entry issues

[Anonymous Coward]

I also motion to rid the keyboard of that friggin numlock key. Sometimes it boots up activated, sometimes not, other times it's activated, I login, and it's deactivated.

Do you have this issue in Linux or Windows? I've personally seen numlock turn off when Linux boots (or is it when X.org/XFree86 loads?), but I haven't seen the behavior in Windows.

Re:Data entry issues

[graphicsguy]

Since that data entry person has to type the CAPS LOCK key exactly once at the beginning of the day, I don't think it would be so bad to put it in a less convenient location.

Re:Data entry issues

[Boronx]

1. Removes one degree of ambiguity in searching. They already have decades of data entered this way, so a switch to all lowercase would be difficult.

2. These are people using old software or stock database software who no longer have the capability to make that modification and don't see why they need it as long as there's a caps lock key.

I don't understand the Jihad to get rid of the key when they could just move it to where every other seldom used key lives.

Re:Data entry issues

[Rob the Bold]

What about the Data entry people that have to type things in all caps?

At this point you have to ask, why do the people who designed the data entry system hate us? Cause if your system requires all caps, wouldn't it make sense to automatically convert any letter typed into caps? Or did they think: "He typed a lower case 't'. He could have meant 'T', but how can we be sure?" Were they afraid of capital numbers creeping in? We have machines to do the tedious and repetive stuff, right? Like converting characters to ALL CAPS or, from a post here long ago, watching soccer games.

OK, this field has to be all caps, great. Convert any input to caps. Done. Or, make every user hit CAPS LOCK every time he types data into this field. If he fails to, give him an error and make him repeat it, ALL CAPS this time. Rather a no-brainer.

Re:Data entry issues

[sirstar]

Well, when you're dealing with a terminal emulation program that interfaces with your call management system... it's kinda hard to do when that emulation program isn't programmed to automaticly change the case of the characters... it would be nice, but haven't seen it yet....

Re:Data entry issues

[sirstar]

That or use a push pin to hold it down =)

Re:Data entry issues

[iomanip]

Clearly none of you have used the 77 standard of fortran...

What's next?

[Astrorunner]

Re-arrange the letters on the keyboard in a logical and efficient manner?

That's crazy talk, man.

Sure there's dvorak, but look how long we've been stuck with qwerty. And how long did it take for the Esc key to finally find a home?

Why?

[grommit]

There's plenty of keyboards that you can buy that don't have a caps lock key on them. What's the point of this stupid crusade other than to annoy those of us that do use caps lock on occasion?

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's plenty of keyboards that you can buy that don't have a caps lock key on them

Try finding a mini keyboard (just no keypad) where CTRL isn't totally buried somewhere stupid. In the land of Ebay where every Chinese manufacturer just copies whatever was already there first, the FN key occupies the corner on every small quality keyboard.

THINK OF THE DATA ENTRY PEOPLE!!!

[Korgan]

WHAT ABOUT THOSE OF US THAT HAVE TO USE CAPSLOCK TO ENTER DATA INTO A BUSINESS SYSTEM? WHERE WILL YOU LEAVE US???????

Ooops. Sorry, caps. :-P

Seriously though, I know lots of people who's business requires them to enter data into their company's systems using caps. I don't know about you, but my little pinky would get extremely disfigured having to swap to and hold the shift button all the time. You'd slow typists down immeasurably.

Re:THINK OF THE DATA ENTRY PEOPLE!!!

[hcdejong]

IDK, but maybe the correct solution to that would be to clue-by-four the stupid idiot who thought it'd be a good idea to require data to be entered in caps only. Computers not being able to handle mixed case is sooo 1950s, you know.

Re:THINK OF THE DATA ENTRY PEOPLE!!!

[Random BedHead Ed]

... but it's safe to say that legacy AT, PS/2 and USB keyboards with caps lock keys will be around almost forever. No matter how many we destroy once the New Keyboard Revoultion has passed, the old ones will still be around. Gradually CAPS-ONLY apps will go away; it will take far longer for the old keyboards to disappear.

Re:THINK OF THE DATA ENTRY PEOPLE!!!

[i.r.id10t]

Yup. You can have my Model M when you pry it - and the 3 spares in the garage - from my cold dead RSI laden hands

Re:THINK OF THE DATA ENTRY PEOPLE!!!

[technos]

It's for consistancy. Say you're entering a string into billing.

You could get

'Cisco model X12R1234-J router with cabling.'
'CISCO MODEL X12R1234-J ROUTER WITH CABLING'
'cisco model X12R1234-J router with cabling'
'Cisco Model X12R1234-J Router With Cabling.'

or any variation therof. Mixed capitilizations and (and inconsistant punctuation) make you look like an idiot, and training people to not look like idiots is harder than it sounds.

Re:THINK OF THE DATA ENTRY PEOPLE!!!

[hcdejong]

Still the wrong way to solve the problem. Have the computer sort out dumb issues like capitalisation, instead of forcing the humans to adapt to some arcane and unreadable convention. While you're at it, get the computer to do something to prevent people from entering the same information twice.

Re:THINK OF THE DATA ENTRY PEOPLE!!!

[Ghost Hedgehog]

For that group we can just build a little USB keyboard extension that only has a Caps Lock key.

Re:THINK OF THE DATA ENTRY PEOPLE!!!

[Rakshasa Taisab]

Perhaps they could implement a mechanism by which upper-case letter are entered into the system by default, and shift would be used for inputting lower-case letters.

Re:THINK OF THE DATA ENTRY PEOPLE!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of not looking like an idiot, you do realize that you misspelled "inconsistent" and "consistency"? Consider this me training you.

Re:THINK OF THE DATA ENTRY PEOPLE!!!

[Rogerborg]

It's always the computer's fault, isn't it, Seymour?

Re:THINK OF THE DATA ENTRY PEOPLE!!!

[hcdejong]

Duh. Computers are supposed to make our lives easier, not harder.

Re:THINK OF THE DATA ENTRY PEOPLE!!!

[Who235]

input.toCaps();

Re:THINK OF THE DATA ENTRY PEOPLE!!!

[CynicTheHedgehog]

Easy (and far more robust) solution:

create or replace trigger upper_sometable_trig
before insert or updateon sometable
referencing new as newRow
for each row
begin
    newRow.column1 = upper(newRow.column1);
    newRow.column2 = upper(newRow.column2); ...
end;

And this can be done to any database, in-house or third-party. An even better solution is to let them put mixed case data in the table and just create a function-based index on upper(indexedColumn). If they want to present the data in all caps, that is a UI concern, and queries can be done quickly with UPPER(indexedColumn) in the where clause. I can think of many legitimate cases where it might be desirable to present in mixed caps. For example, which of the following automatically-generated messages seems more personal:

Dear Jerry McGuire,

Or

Dear JERRY MCGUIRE,

In some cases it's possible to derive mixed caps from all upper caps (many languages support the notion of "proper case") but in situations such as the one above it's very difficult to go back. Of course, all of this hinges on the quality of the source data and the quality of your data entry personel.

Re:THINK OF THE DATA ENTRY PEOPLE!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot about "capitalizations". And "thereof" (though I'm willing to chalk that up to a typo).

Re:THINK OF THE DATA ENTRY PEOPLE!!!

[technos]

Hmm? Yup, 'e' instead of 'a', now that you mention it. Doesn't really bother me, an early AM post to Slashdot is not something I would even bother to spell-check, even if this damn Palm browser did it.

Just take as an example of how hard it is to train people to not look like idiots.

Re:THINK OF THE DATA ENTRY PEOPLE!!!

[Enahs]

Yes, and while we're at it, let's convince companies that they should do away with billing software that was last updated in 1984 but nonetheless comes with a hefty support contract, largely because the software sucks. And while we're at it, let's ask the bean counters for a pony, because they love being asked to spend money that doesn't have an immediate measurable benefit and love giving the green light to a cheaper, untried solution over an expensive, tried system.

See, I think I'm stumbling on to why Western businesses are beginning to fail.

Re:THINK OF THE DATA ENTRY PEOPLE!!!

[Agthorr]

The business should fix their software to automatically capitalize text that must be in all-caps.

Re:THINK OF THE DATA ENTRY PEOPLE!!!

[soft_guy]

Programmers should be using a case insenstive compare function.

Re:THINK OF THE DATA ENTRY PEOPLE!!!

[Lord Ender]

The REAL solution is to update the software to be case insensitive. And for people who are happy with using old software, they can use old keyboards, too.

Re:THINK OF THE DATA ENTRY PEOPLE!!!

[Austerity Empowers]

A determined idiot will defeat any training.

Re:THINK OF THE DATA ENTRY PEOPLE!!!

[brezel]

why not use lower case? reading upper case text makes me feel like the monitor is shouting in my face. apart from that as many people already said i believe every data input software/environment/database allows to upper() or lower() any input.

Re:THINK OF THE DATA ENTRY PEOPLE!!!

[HalAtWork]

Seriously though, I know lots of people who's business requires them to enter data into their company's systems using caps.

This sounds like a strange limit in the first place, why not allow the software to interpret all text as capitalized? Just take the user input string and convert to uppercase for all. Voila!

Re:THINK OF THE DATA ENTRY PEOPLE!!!

[HalAtWork]

Sounds like something the software could handle. Just convert everything to uppercase on the software side.

Re:THINK OF THE DATA ENTRY PEOPLE!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, if you're truly a data entry monkey, then you won't have to worry about all your fancy variations because you'd better be using a fixed width font anyway. Well wait a minute... if we're banning the Capslock key, let's just do away with Courier font while we're at it. Fixed width Shmixed Width!

Re:THINK OF THE DATA ENTRY PEOPLE!!!

[ozbird]

Mixed capitilizations and (and inconsistant punctuation) make you look like an idiot, and training people to not look like idiots is harder than it sounds.

... which is why you run toupper() or equivalent for the poor idiots. You do validate your <taint>user input</taint>, don't you?

Re:THINK OF THE DATA ENTRY PEOPLE!!!

[dcam]

It is the standard on archtectural (and other drawings) to use UPPER CASE only. This is for clarity.

Re:THINK OF THE DATA ENTRY PEOPLE!!!

[kimvette]

No; computers are not intended to make our lives easier, but offshore contractors' lives easier so that they can do work more cheaply than the Americans they've replaced. ;)

Re:THINK OF THE DATA ENTRY PEOPLE!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mixed capitilizations and (and inconsistant punctuation) make you look like an idiot, and training people to not look like idiots is harder than it sounds.
Yeah, and traingin people to not look like idiots is like wicked hard to do.

Re:THINK OF THE DATA ENTRY PEOPLE!!!

[gfreeman]

While you're at it, get the computer to do something to prevent people from entering the same information twice.

Test it out on the /. editors first.

Get rid of the CAPSLOCK key?

[palad1]

You'll pry my rail/shaft combo CAPSLOCK key from my cold, dead hands...

Lost developer productivity? Health issues?

[PIPBoy3000]

So when I want to code constants in my scripts, my pinkies will have to dance all about? What about repetitive stress (my left pinkie used to go numb)? What about the extra time? Who cares about the children. Think about the people who's job it is to type words in upper case all day long.

Const STATUS As String = "UNHAPPY"

no

[AviLazar]

Because caps lock has uses. Let us say you need to type in all capital letters (acronym). Now you have to put a period between each letter. That is annoying. Let us say you want to capitalize a sentence, now you have to hold the shift key down. That is annoying. While I agree there are annoying people WHO ONLY LIKE TO TYPE IN CAPS and these people should be lobotomized, I enjoy my caps lock.

Also, if this is the best thing you can figure out to challenge in life then you need to get a life.

I still use mine.

[duke_cheetah2003]

I still use my CAPS LOCK, just not very often.

Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[pieterh]

Clearly we need to clean up a lot of keyboard junk. CAPS LOCK is just the start. Who knows where we'll finish?

The CAPSoff blog.

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[JustOK]

Hopefully, with only one button left. It should be big and blue and convey a sense of well being and security, and provide the user with a sense of accomplisment and success when pushed.

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[Flibz]

W shld gt rd f thm psky vwls fr strtrs!

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[Anonymous Coward]

***WINNER of the 2008 Best Psychic Prize

that is damn funny. but then you knew I'd say that.

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[wizbit]

I vote for three buttons, but I agree with the rest of your post.

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[Silver Sloth]

And will, of course, be marked ANY.

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[another_fanboy]

Anything but the beloved Windows key...

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[Ford Prefect]

Clearly we need to clean up a lot of keyboard junk. CAPS LOCK is just the start. Who knows where we'll finish?

The ever-trendy Apple tried that, and removed quite a few keys. On this 'ere MacBook Pro, there's no SysRq, no Home, no Insert, no PgUp... And more importantly, no Delete.

Which makes running Windows XP a little interesting without a remapped keyboard... ;-)

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[flamingnight]

Boot Camp 1.1 (released today) claims to better support the keyboard. Just downloaded and installed, but haven't had a chance to try it out on my MacBook Pro yet.

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[Embedded2004]

I use home/end/pgup/pgdn all the time. Are there any replaces for them?

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[Kadin2048]

Yes I think they map those to FN-modified F-keys; or at least they used to on older PowerBook models, and I'd be surprised if they took them off, since quite a few people do use them. If they did remove them, I'm sure you could probably remap them to your least-favorite four F-keys.

Although, I guess people said the same thing about Serial Ports...I wouldn't put anything past Mr Jobs: when he decides something's going to go, it goes.

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[gdog05]

Mac desktop keyboards and their little green "have to view from a hovering position" caps lock lights really piss me off. I don't use it, but I do hit it by mistake quite often because I'm a horrible typist. It really sucks in graphic design, when there's a chance you could mistakenly modify a customer's file because of that damn key. My Logitech keyboard lets you know when Caps Lock is on "flashes the big green text on the monitor." The Mac guys could take a cue from Logitech. They may not get viruses, but I'll be damned if that is not a bad keyboard design.

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[WoLpH]

Ever tried VI?


Unfortunately most programs don't support the VI keyset

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[Yer Mom]

OTOH, since you don't actually use it, you could use the Keyboard pref pane to disable it entirely, or remap it to be an extra Ctrl/Command/Option key.

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you should see about joining an assisted computing facility

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[Mr. Underbridge]

W shld gt rd f thm psky vwls fr strtrs!

Wh nt, t wrkd fr th Gyptns.

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[lahvak]

I use home/end/pgup/pgdn all the time. Are there any replaces for them?

^/$/^B/^F

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[gdog05]

I have actually done that very thing, but co-workers got confused, so I switched it back for those Caps Locked souls. Good suggestion though.

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[Jugalator]

ooo!! :-(

y o e ooa? :-)

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[Bruitist]

Three? Why not just two?

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[Jugalator]

Ah damn, forgot "y" is a vowel in my mother tongue but not in English :-p

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[Anonymous Coward]

A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling
                                  by Mark Twain

          For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be
replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of
the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the
"ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w"
spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile
Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks
the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.
          Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with
Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so
modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear
15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c",
"y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu
riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli.
          Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a
lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[tjkerr]

Personally I'd go for six.

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[Kjella]

Hopefully, with only one button left. It should be big and blue and convey a sense of well being and security, and provide the user with a sense of accomplisment and success when pushed.

Also the large friendly letters "Don't panic", a voice interface and a sub-etha connection, and we might be getting somewhere.

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[Moofie]

Sure it is. "My" contains one vowel, and I think that's an English word. S'matter of fact, here is a web site of words that have syllables in which Y is the vowel.

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[Fungii]

Reminds me of a dilbert cartoon I saw once. I can't remember the exact text, but it was something like this.

Computer Salesman: "And this is our newest user friendly model."
Dilbert: "It only has one button."
Computer Salesman: "Yes, and we press it before it leaves the factory." ...

Ok, my memory isn't the best..

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[john83]

Already been done, man.

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[julesh]

Be careful not to run with editing scissors, you might accidentally disemvowel yourself.

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[saider]

I remember a Dilbert cartoon where Dilbert is talking to a salesman about a computer.

Salesman: Our computer is so powerful and smart that it needs only one button to operate.

Dilbert: What happens when you push the button?

Salesman: Woa! I'm in over my head. You'd better call Tech Support.

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[Anonymous Coward]

In English, sometimes it is a vowel, sometimes it isn't. That's why when Americans in school at age five recite (or prior to lowering of standards used to recite) "A-E-I-O-U and sometimes Y"

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

[sharkey]

Posting from the WinTel world here: The color blue most certainly DOES NOT convey either a sense of well-being or security to us.

While you are at it.

[ErroneousBee]

Sort the rest of the keyboard out.

Insert and Caps lock need to be moved out of the way, so that you can use them, but you dont accidentally change a mode while going for another key. The Windows button can be moved too. I keep hitting it when using windows and defocusing the window Im working in. They have no effect in KDE so its not a bother there.

Backspace and delete need to be side by side.

Minus and plus need to be given the same level, as shifting to get a plus is not logical compared to minus.

Re:While you are at it.

[advocate_one]

They have no effect in KDE so its not a bother there.

it might have no effect on your KDE... however, mine came ready set up to pull the Kmenu up when pressed...

What I do want to see however... is the Ctrl and left shift swap places... I've lost count of the number of times I've gone for a shifted letter and accidently done something completely different instead... such as cut some text or opened a file or even closed the bloody window I'm working in...

Re:While you are at it.

[edxwelch]

If they allowed an easy way to program any key to do any function it would sort out a lot of problems. I write in English and Spanish and I don't have the ñ on my keyboard. If I could just reprogram caps lock key to be ñ. The keyboard language switch in Windows is too clumsy, becuase it changes all the keys and uses a stupid key combination which causes you're application to loose focus.

Re:While you are at it.

[HarvardAce]

Minus and plus need to be given the same level, as shifting to get a plus is not logical compared to minus.

Except you're forgetting one thing -- people use the "minus" as a hyphen or dash. So that makes sense to have it accessible without a shift. Whether the plus or the equals should require a shift is an interesting topic, as neither are used in normal prose. For programming, I'd guess that I use the = a lot more than I use a +, especially in languages where string concatenation is not done using the +. Also, I would say I use the ? much more than the /, and curly braces more often than square brackets, so those could probably be changed as well, except for the fact that changing them would screw everyone up. My biggest pet peeve is the large enter button (the one that is J shaped). I want my backslash to be right above the enter key (and below the backspace), not to the right of the shift key (or left of the backspace key). At work my keyboard has the large enter key and I always add extra newlines when I'm trying to use the backslash. Then I get used to it by the end of the day, go home, and then get screwed up with my keyboard at home...rinse and repeat.

Re:While you are at it.

[punkr0x]

I'm looking at my keyboard and trying to decide how insert could be put further out of the way. It annoys me too but it's my own fault.

Re:While you are at it.

[Anonymous Coward]

And, put the = key in the numeric pad along side the other math keys.

This nuisance is most associated with spreadsheets.

Re:While you are at it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Minus and plus were at the same level on my first computer, the Commodore 64.

And oh, how I miss the Pi key. What a boon it would be for 3D programming!

I got it!! We'll replace CAPS LOCK... with Pi!

Re:While you are at it.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not a minus, that's a hyphen for 99% of people. This is what happens when you do too much programming :P.

Re:While you are at it.

[Fallingcow]

Have you tried US International as a layout? It lets you hit ' and ` before a letter to give it an accent mark (or a cedilla in the case of the letter C) and ~ before n to make ñ. It's not a perfect solution, but workable, especially if you do less typing in whatever language needs the accents than in English. It avoids layout switching, which certainly is a mess in XP. You do have to hit space after any character that can be added to a letter (single and double quotes, etc.) but it soon becomes automatic.

It also makes alt+(almost any other key) print all kinds of other fun characters.

Re:While you are at it.

[TilJ]

Exactly, it doesn't belong in the main area of the keyboard at all.

And then the redundancy between the arrow keys and the numberic keypad -- bah! My mouse sits 16" to the right of the center of the home row. I notice that most people offset their keyboard to the left (relative to the display) to compensate. That /can't/ be good for your wrists. The numpad should be on a seperate cable -- when I'm not doing data entry, I'll toss it out of the way.

Re:While you are at it.

[Eideewt]

Whaaa? "=" doesn't belong in the main area? Are you for real?! I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you've never written a line of code.

Re:While you are at it.

[ErroneousBee]

How about a detachable number pad formed not unlike a pocket calculator? Then you can hold it in one hand and 'type' with the other.

I guess is may not even need a battery if you make it using rfid technology and use the powered keyboard as a base station.

Re:While you are at it.

[adamgolding]

Why on earth would you want to move the Windows key elsewhere? It's one of the modifier keys along with Shift, Alt, and CTRL--that's why there's two of them so you can conduct whatever CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+WIN+PRINTSCREEN command you defined in your program of choice. (you wouldn't believe how many key commands people use in something like Cubase)

And I hope every knows about Windows' own shortcuts: WIN+E, WIN+D, WIN+M, WIN+R, WIN+BREAK, WIN+L

Anyone know how to get the Control panel shortcut working that's only supposed to work for some special MS keyboards? (i think it's WIN+C ??)

Re:While you are at it.

[edxwelch]

No. because I don't have a US keyboard

Hope you'll win

[Professeur Shadoko]

I'm being tired of these fights with my girlfriend (yeah, I know, /.) who insists on using this damned key and DARES using it on MY computer and leaving caps lock ON when she has finished using it.

(No key under the 'tab' key has been used for this post)

Re:Hope you'll win

[toddestan]

C'mon, you're the alpha geek. Why not remap the Caps lock key to something else? Even better, just switch to Dvorak - that'll show her.

Real Programmers...

[Mister Transistor]

Have found the tweak utility to remap it to what it should be and always has been before "PC"'s: The CTRL Key. That, and turning off those damn Windows keys!

Re:Real Programmers...

[mschaef]

"That, and turning off those damn Windows keys!"

On Windows, the damn windows keys actually have a couple good useses: Windows+L either locks the machine or lets you switch users, depending on how your machine is configured. Windows+M minimizes all the windows, leaving a clean desktop.

Even (Especially?) on Unix, getting rid of a shift key and all the implied shortcut keys seems a little rash...

Re:Real Programmers...

[Mister Transistor]

Hmmm... OK, I promise not to tell all my Linux boxes what they're missing!

Seriously, I keep all my older PC keyboards that don't have Windows keys for that purpose, and they work just fine without them.

There's an icon to clear the desktop on the taskbar that's adequate so as not to require an extra key on the keyboard just for that rare use.

Turning them off is pimarily for games. If you _really_ need the extra Meta key then you can always UN-map it.

Re:Real Programmers...

[Stormwatch]

It has another good use. If a full-screen program (such as a game) hangs, press the Windows key and you'll probably be taken back to the main area, from where you can kill the misbehaving program.

Re:Real Programmers...

[Novus]

Personally, I use the KDE 4 modifier keys layout; almost all the window manager and other KDE shortcuts that used to be Alt-something and conflict with applications are Win-something instead. Having an extra modifier key that few applications dare to use is great for window managers.

Re:Real Programmers...

[Nephilium]

Also... Windows + E opens Explorer; Windows + R opens the run dialog; Windows + D goes to the desktop; Windows + F opens the search dialog...

Now... if games would just disable the damned thing... I'd be a happier person then I am now...

Nephilium

Re:Real Programmers...

[mschaef]

"Hmmm... OK, I promise not to tell all my Linux boxes what they're missing!"

My hunch is that there are at least half a dozen ways in Linux to bind keys to interesting features. :-)

"There's an icon to clear the desktop on the taskbar that's adequate so as not to require an extra key on the keyboard just for that rare use."

Yeah, but mousing over to a 16x16 (or whatever) pixel icon at the edge of the screen and clicking is slower... Windows has an icon too, and I _never_ use it.

"If you _really_ need the extra Meta key then you can always UN-map it."

Heh... none of this isn't about _needing_ anything, it's more about _wanting_ something. That's probably why people get so excited about it. Nobody argues about the need for a keyboard... just specific keys and where they're located.

Re:Real Programmers...

[Anonymous Coward]

But this affects all users. Real programmers write a new keyboard driver that can be selected by users if they want it.

My driver disables caps lock and the win key.

Re:Real Programmers...

[knBIS]

You can remap your windows key to do all sorts of fun stuff linux... I can move windows, resize windows, run a few common apps, show my desktop, change my background, close or shade an app, minimize everything, and display my root menu which can be easily navigated with the keyboard.
i use fluxbox as my wm, heres the relevant section my ~/.fluxbox/keys file

Mod4 m :RootMenu
Mod4 n :ExecCommand aterm -tr -sh 20 -txttype orInverted -cr Red
Mod4 a :ArrangeWindows
Mod4 h :ShowDesktop
Mod4 j :Shade
Mod4 f :ExecCommand firefox
Mod4 t :ExecCommand thunderbird
Mod4 x :Close
Mod4 b :ExecCommand fbsetbg -r /home/***/pictures/wallpaper/ -f
Mod4 r :ExecCommand fbrun

Mod4 Left :MoveLeft 5
Mod4 Right :MoveRight 5
Mod4 Up :MoveUp 5
Mod4 Down :MoveDown 5

Mod4 Shift Left :MoveLeft 20
Mod4 Shift Right :MoveRight 20
Mod4 Shift Up :MoveUp 20
Mod4 Shift Down :MoveDown 20

Mod4 Control Right :ResizeHorizontal 5
Mod4 Control Left :ResizeHorizontal -5
Mod4 Control Up :ResizeVertical -5
Mod4 Control Down :ResizeVertical 5

Re:Real Programmers...

[Eideewt]

You're insane. Why would you bind a useful key to nothing?

Re:Real Programmers...

[Eideewt]

Yes, it is invaluable. I use it to bring up a drop-down terminal, Quake-style, and the Menu key gets to bring up my keyboard-controlled program launcher. Mine are way off in the corner of my keyboard, so I use them as single-press keys rather than as modifiers.

me too

[polar red]

I've removed the caps-lock key for a long time allready. I've even wondered what use capitals are ... they serve no purpose. You say they can emphasize words ? I tend to disagree, most of the time emotions are transferred via text, they are misunderstood.

Re:me too

[smash]

Capitals make sentences easier to pick out in paragraphs, particularly in justified text. They also make names easier to pick out (eg, you're scanning a text for mention of names).

Yes, they're largely redundant, but redundancy is part of the written language. You can get rid of vowels and most works are still readable barely, but using them certainly makes things a lot easier to decipher.

All caps is useful in code to distinguish between constants and variables... also useful in SQL queries to distinguish between SQL operators and the parameters they're working on.

Also, caps is useful for emphasis. You mention emotions, but that's not the only thing you may want to emphasize. How about marking IMPORTANT information, such as KEY WORDS?

There's several other uses (acronyms for example). None of these uses would really be mandatory, you are right - but they're all conveniences that make dealing with text far easier.

Re:me too

[polar red]

they're all conveniences that make dealing with text far easier.

that's only because our brains are trained to see a difference between capitals and lowercase. ... do we have a 'bold' key on our keyboard ? do we have a 'italics' key on our keyboard ? do we have a key on our keyboard to switch fonts ?

Re:me too

[smash]

that's only because our brains are trained to see a difference between capitals and lowercase

Yep. What's your point?

It's a standard. It's been that way for hundreds of years. It applies to typewriters, written text, computers, etc. There's no need to change it.

Change, to fix a problem is good. Change for the sake of change is bad.

I really see no problem with the way things are. The problem is fucktards who *decide* to type in all caps, or who are too incompetent to use a keyboard properly and not hit caps. Changing the keyboard will not solve those problems.

Ctrl key

[bazoobazoo]

I prefer having the Ctrl button and caps lock key switched, like on the Sun keyboards. Some people do need to type in all caps (think: cobol programmers, architects).

Useful for Vi users

[suso]

Put this in your .Xmodmap

remove Lock = Caps_Lock
keycode 66 = Escape

I find that the Capslock key makes a nice Escape key so I don't have to reach up high for it.

Re:Useful for Vi users

[Anonymous Coward]

I often remap it to Control, but that still has the problem of using a finger that shouldn't be tied up for holding it down - one thing I absolutely love about OS X is that it uses the command key, which can easily be pressed with the thumb, which I generally don't use for anything other than the space bar.

Re:Useful for Vi users

[wilper]

And we that prefer the superior editor can replace it with Ctrl, to ease the strain on the wrist.

I did this six years ago and have never looked back, I even do it on Windows-machines these days. There is a nice little util called ctrl2caps (or possibly caps2ctrl) that does this for you.

Re:Useful for Vi users

[neoform]

yeah, that extra 1.5" is an unbearable distance to reach..

Re:Useful for Vi users

[LordOfTheNoobs]

It is once you have changed it to a more useful key ( e.g. my caps being a CTRL for emacs ). I have an old Zentith Data Systems keyboard I pulled off of a 286 that I like because it has this layout naturally.

Re:Useful for Vi users

[Jerf]

I've been experimenting with using Backspace, on the theory that I'm already happy with where the control key is, and I use backspace a lot.

So far, I still tend to forget the caps lock key exists at all, which would cause trouble no matter how I remapped it...

This could be especially useful to me since I use Dvorak, which, regardless of whatever other effects it may have, does definitely cause you to have your fingers on the home keys a lot more. (With QWERTY I wandered all over the place, with Dvorak I actually touch-type "correctly".)

I bring that up to segue into something else: Like most Dvorak users, I haven't bought a "Dvorak" keyboard. I just use OS features to remap the keyboard, which has always been pretty easy in X and is pretty easy in XP (although as usual not quite as polished if you like to switch a lot, though I've since gotten over that). You really can't just "get rid of" the Caps Lock key, but this guy doesn't seem to propose what it should be. I suppose by default we're going to go back to control (though I'd like to see some thought put into it; backspace ought to at least be considered and there may be some other good choices too, though I have to admit I doubt Escape is it in modern times), but this guy really ought to suggest something.

Re:Useful for Vi users

[chadbo]

Swap Ctrl and Caps_Lock is nice too, like the good 'ol Sun keyboards.

Re:Useful for Vi users

[cp.tar]

What about switching Esc and CapsLock then?

Though I find some things annoying in vi(m) - but that's more of a problem with the Croatian keyboard than anything else...

Re:Useful for Vi users

[Compulsion]

Ctrl-[ is also escape in vim. I use that FAR more than Esc. I don't have to move my fingers from the home keys.

Re:Useful for Vi users

[cp.tar]

On a Croatian keyboard, [ is AltGr+F.

Re:Useful for Vi users

[morgan_greywolf]

Vi users probably want one of these keyboards. No dedicated caps lock key.

Re:Useful for Vi users

[Chris Burke]

Exactly. Getting rid of caps lock is retarded. It's current location is retarded. War on Caps Lock? War on stupid keyboard layouts!

Re:Useful for Vi users

[drinkypoo]

And we that prefer the superior editor can replace it with Ctrl, to ease the strain on the wrist.

Superior editor? I don't use the control key in vim all that often.

Personally, I have two keyboards that have this function in hardware, not a remap but a swap. Actually, I do have one that has it in software, but I haven't figured out how to reprogram the keyboard yet: It's an northgate omnikey ultra. I also have a keytronic kb101 plus that has a dip switch to swap caps and control.

Re:Useful for Vi users

[c_woolley]

Great information. Thanks for the post.

Re:Useful for Vi users

[CaveMike]

Here it is on sys internals: http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Ctrl2Cap.htm l

Re:Useful for Vi users

[drinkypoo]

The traditional "Unix" layout swaps caps lock and control, and there are numerous keyboards that are designed that way, or can be remapped that way. I have two in the latter category, a keytronic kb101 plus and a northgate omnikey ultra. I bring up this latter keyboard because it can be physically remapped to dvorak with a dip switch setting, and it will work on IBM, tandy, or Amiga of all things. You can still get them, but it's getting harder, because along with the clicky ibm keyboards, they're considered to be all-time classics.

Re:Useful for Vi users

[wilper]

At work I have a Kinesis Ergo that also supports making capslock into a control in hardware.

Re:Useful for Vi users

[contrapunctus]

I use happy hacking keyboard which has the cntrl key in the caps lock space
http://www.pfu.fujitsu.com/en/hhkeyboard/

Re:Useful for Vi users

[Anonymous Coward]

Stuck on windows without X11?
Try this instead (caveat emptor)
It re-maps CapsLock as LeftControl (as it should be).

Regedit:
  My Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlS et\Control\Keyboard Layout\
    New -> Binary Value
      Name: Scancode Map
        Edit Binary Value
          0000 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
          0008 02 00 00 00 1D E0 3A 00
          0010 00 00 00 00
          [OK]
        result looks like this:
          Name: Scancode Map
            Type: REG_BINARY
            Data: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 1d e0 3a 00 00 00 00 00
-E

Re:Useful for Vi users

[Anonymous Coward]

With all the autocomplete combinations, I find myself using control a whole more often than I would like. Since I map jj to Esc in insert mode, Caps Lock might be a good candidate for a new Ctrl key.

Re:Useful for Vi users

[BrokenHalo]

Superior editor? I don't use the control key in vim all that often.

Fair enough, but I use it in emacs a hell of a lot (let's agree to not bother with the emacs/vi jihad, OK?) but I personally find the best way of dealing with the caps-lock key is to map it to do nothing whatsoever. The damn thing is nothing but an inconvenience, and if I hit it by accident I really don't want it to do anything...

Re:Useful for Vi users

[Anonymous Coward]

There's some good Engrish going on at that site.

Re:Useful for Vi users

[Anonymous Coward]

In soviet Windows, keys reconfigure you!

Re:Useful for Vi users

[xdmp]

i find binding capslock to control more convenient both for vim and shell work (i use set -o vi in bash anyway) typing ^C ^D ^M (so no need to reach for enter) are a lot easier, and using ^] for escape is faster than escape-button (IMO)

Re:Useful for Vi users

[drinkypoo]

(let's agree to not bother with the emacs/vi jihad, OK?)

you started it!

No no, seriously though, I couldn't resist, but what I couldn't resist was a joke, not a war.

Re:Useful for Vi users

[Scudsucker]

yeah, that extra 1.5" is an unbearable distance to reach..

Unless you have very long fingers, hitting the ESC key requires moving your whole left hand, as opposed to moving only your pinky 1/8 of an inch.

Re:Useful for Vi users

[bagawk]

I found it nice to have inoremap jj in my .vimrc. Whenever you are in insert mode, pressing j twice will bring you into command mode.

Re:Useful for Vi users

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly the better binding is CTRL. Especially if you are using Emacs, but even if you are using vi, C-[ is a hell of a lot easier (as an alternative to escape in it's normal position). This way you can also still use the control key to move around the terminal and other editors faster, where C-p would be last command, or C-i would mean italicized, or C-arrow key jumps by word...

Re:Useful for Vi users

[Anonymous Coward]

The escape key used to be part of the QWERTY keyboard before the advent of the IBM PC style keyboard which moved the escape key up to Alaska. They also started labelling the carriage return key "Enter". Both changes suck. And that's that doofy "alt" key for, anyway?

Re:Useful for Vi users

[HTH NE1]

And we that prefer the superior editor can replace it with Ctrl, to ease the strain on the wrist.

I'd have taken that to be the opinion of a die-hard Apple II user which swapped the position of the two. I used to use my old Apple IIgs ADB keyboard with my Macs for that layout until I decided I couldn't do without the cluster between the main keyboard and numeric keypad (really just the forward-delete key). Though the IIgs still had better positioning for the tilde/backquote and pipe/backslash keys on either side of the spacebar (US model), which the HHKB places more inconveniently for Unix/Linux users.

Re:Useful for Vi users

[Curtman]

No no, seriously though, I couldn't resist, but what I couldn't resist was a joke, not a war.

That's okay, you're both wrong. nano is the one true editor. 122K of pure sweetness.

Re:Useful for Vi users

[Millenniumman]

ed pwns nano.

Re:Useful for Vi users

[Wonko the Sane]

Put this in your .Xmodmap

I imagine that only works for Xwindows? Is there a solution for the console?

Re:Useful for Vi users

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd have taken that to be the opinion of a die-hard Apple II user which swapped the position of the two.

Umm, the Apple II keyboards didn't "swap" anything. Virtually ALL keyboards had the control key in the right place until some ANSI standard came out. (Typing this on a dual G5 with an ADB-USB converter with an "Apple Keyboard", which came out with the SE.) I like this keyboard better than the GS keyboard, though I have one or two of them in my cache of ADB keyboards with the control key in the right place (and good key feel). The pref to switch caps lock to control is useful when I HAVE to use a USB keyboard.

Re:Useful for Vi users

[HiThere]

I wonder if you could swap them. I do occasionally have a use for capslock. But not as often as for the escape key. (And I don't use that often either. I intend to *avoid* carpal tunnel by not twisting my hands unmercifully. So far it's nearly working...whenever I get a sign of it's presence I switch which side of the keyboard my mouse is on.)

Re:Useful for Vi users

[yukonbob]

I'm seeing so many of these, assuming everybody is using X... if you're not, and you're using NetBSD (or OpenBSD?), you can set the console to read Capslock as Control (or Esc) via:

wsconsctl -w map+="keysym Caps_Lock = Control_L" (to map capslock to control), or
wsconsctl -w map+="keysym Caps_Lock = Escape" (to map to escape, as parent did)

This will take effect immediately, but not survive a reboot... if you like it and want to enable it all the time, you can add a line to /etc/wscons.conf like this:
mapfile /usr/share/wscons/keymaps/pckbd.c2c

which turns Capslock into a Control key... or you can make your own mappings...

Full list of keysyms (on NetBSD) at /usr/include/dev/wscons/wsksymdef.h

-yb

btw: NetBSD 4 is now in Beta... check The NetBSD site for an announcement coming soon...

Re:Useful for Vi users

[Anonymous Coward]

echo, and redirection of stdout is the only way to edit files!

Re:Useful for Vi users

[Simon80]

I'm pretty sure Ctrl+[ is Esc in Vi.. but I've only ever used vim, so I could be wrong.

Re:Useful for Vi users

[Science]

Do you guys ever type anyting for the real world. You know, there are people besides the gods of tech who use computers and their attached keyboards. I almost never touch the Esc key. I use the Caps Lock key quite often. Have you ever typed the title to an article in Publisher, or PowerPoint (or your favorite Linux version of either)? have you ever used all caps for emphasis? These are almost always done using all caps. Switching back and forth between the two Shift keys would be a pain and would inconvenience a lot more people than reaching all the way up to the Esc key. You obviously have a techie way of changing the Caps Lock to whatever you wish it to be, so allow us mere mortals to have our Caps Lock.

meh.

[smash]

Caps is useful for entering DEFINES.

I certainly use it a lot more than scroll lock or the windows menu key.

Get rid of it for what? I may use it 5 minutes a year, but if it's not there, it's going to be missed...

Re:meh.

[Mr Z]

How long are these defines? I lose maybe 1-2 WPM just parking my pinky on the shift key for most things I'd type in ALL CAPS.

--Joe

Re:meh.

[smash]

It was an example, there are others. 1-2wpm lost is 1-2wpm lost. What's going to replace the caps lock key and save me 1-2wpm instead?

Getting rid of caps lock will cost millions of dollars (keyboard redesign, documentation changes, associated beauracracy, re-training fingers for those who DO use caps lock). There had better be a damn good reason to change things, other than "AOLers shouting piss me off!" to justify this money spending.

Look, I barely use caps lock myself, but there ARE uses for it. Unless you have some "killer app" for the position occupied by caps lock, wanking around getting rid of it is just wasting time and money.

Re:meh.

[Mr Z]

I lose all my WPM when I hit Caps accidentally. :-) I don't think I've used Caps on purpose (except as a joke) since the 80s, when it was a necessity. (Apple ][ DOS 3.3: "BE SURE CAPS LOCK IS DOWN." TI-99/4A also wanted ALL CAPS.) Maybe it's because I use VI that I find myself completely disinterested in using Caps, and supremely frustrated when I bump it accidentally. I'd rather use that space for something else, or nuke it completely.

As for retraining costs, etc. I'm not sure it's that big a deal. If they start offering keyboards that remove Caps and do something interesting and useful with the space, I might just buy one. If manufacturers make it easy to select among a couple different layouts for the "extra keys," say, with swappable keycaps, that might work too. Although, historically, it seems most people just use what they're given and don't give two shakes about it. (That would NOT include a good portion of us Slashdotters.) So, it's not clear that market forces can do it, though they might.

--Joe

And Num-Lock too!

[Adhemar]

While we're at it, can we get rid of NUM LOCK too? At least on normal 100+ key keyboards.

It should be on, not only by default, but all the time. We have arrow keys, Page up and down, Home and End, Insert and Delete between the letters and the right-side number pad. There's no need to duplicate those keys just beside it.

Only negative point: it was up to now a cool hack to make flash the LEDs indicating CAPS and NUM LOCK, like the Knight Rider car, or make it send messages in Morse.

Re:And Num-Lock too!

[The Cisco Kid]

No, remove Numlock, and eliminate the concept. We have an entire full set of numbers right where they've always been, at the top of the keyboard, as well as the various mathematical signs in their normal locations. Theres no need to duplicate those keys elsewhere.

Re:And Num-Lock too!

[KiloByte]

While we're at it, can we get rid of NUM LOCK too? At least on normal 100+ key keyboards.

It should be on, not only by default, but all the time.

Now, are you fucking[1] out of your mind? Any system that has NumLock on by default is broken. Heck, any system that allows to turn NumLock on in the first place is broken.

Why the hell would I want to have two separate ways to type numbers?
On the other hand, many programs use the normal arrows and the gray new-fangled[2] ones for separate functions.

[1]. Yeah, I'm riled up, but heretics have this effect on me. Now you'll start to claim that emacs or vi are usable or something.
[2]. Well, perhaps not that new these days, but still, they were not there when I learned how to use a keyboard.

Re:And Num-Lock too!

[MyNameIsEarl]

While we are getting rid of Numlock lets get rid of F-Lock as well. What a worthless button that is, at least in it's default state. If they switched it to F-Lock off meaning regualr F key use then I could live with it.

Re:And Num-Lock too!

[mschaef]

"Why the hell would I want to have two separate ways to type numbers?"

Having done a little data entry work (15 years ago), I can say from first hand experience that the number pad can be hugely faster for entering numbers than the top row. My accountant is a big fan of number pads too: he exclusively uses laptops, but has a stack of plug in number pads to go with them.

Re:And Num-Lock too!

[Quill_28]

You are kidding right?

No way should the numpad ever be removed.

Ever try to enter in a lot of numbers adding and substracting also?

Re:And Num-Lock too!

[Adhemar]

We have an entire full set of numbers right where they've always been, at the top of the keyboard, as well as the various mathematical signs in their normal locations. Theres no need to duplicate those keys elsewhere.

If you have to type a lot of numbers, having a numeric pad is very handy. My laptop doesn't have a numeric pad at the right side of its keyboard, so the first thing I did (after buying the laptop- was to by an external USB one.

There's a second reason why I dislike the numbers above the letter keyboards. On my keyboard layout (Belgian version of AZERTY, but numerous other layouts have the same problem), these keys have accented letters and interpunction signs on them. I need SHIFT to typ the numbers there. If you have to type a lot of numbers, always pressing SHIFT is not very handy.

Of course, I could use CAPS LOCK...

Re:And Num-Lock too!

[kiddygrinder]

I've got a mac keyboard on my pc, there's no numlock or scroll lock key! There are the unmapped f14-f16 though so i guess it's kinda a moot point.

Re:And Num-Lock too!

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't get rid of NumLock! How are we going to set our character to auto-run in WoW?

Re:And Num-Lock too!

[CaptnMArk]

mod parent up +5

Re:And Num-Lock too!

[punkr0x]

I use the number pad (for numbers) all the time. Why do we need two sets of arrows right next to each other? Never, ever, have I gone to hit an arrow over there and said, "Oh dammit, the num lock is turned ON again!"

Re:And Num-Lock too!

[zoney_ie]

The numeric keypad is invaluable for fast number entry - even if you aren't a hardcore data inputter. Seriously, try it next time you have need to enter a number string. The row of numbers at the top of the keyboard is only useful for inserting the odd number or two into non-numeric strings. The operator keys are exceptionally useful when dealing with spreadsheets, on-the-fly calculations (why would you go take out a calculator when sitting in front of a PC?), etc.

That said, I'm not so sure of the need to have the alternative functions for the numeric keypad - perhaps Num Lock could indeed be done away with. But the layout of the arrows, home, end, page up, page down on the numeric keypad looks more logical - perhaps such a layout should replace the inverted T of arrow keys, and the 6 keys above them.

But for the fact that keyboards are cheap generic things, one could have a removable numeric keypad (for those happy to get by without one - and consider the space more convenient than the additional functionality).

Re:And Num-Lock too!

[LinuxDon]

The numpad make numerous tasks so much more efficient you wouldn't believe it:
- Doing calculations on the calculator
- Working with spreadsheets
- Entering IP addresses (This is the only point where IPV6 is going to suck)
- Entering any decimal number

People doing finances or network engineers are handicapped without the numpad!
Try entering 192.168.1.1 with your right hand, I have just entered without looking at the keyboard in 1.5 seconds.

I believe you should just learn to work more efficiently on your keyboard ;)

Re:And Num-Lock too!

[john83]

Read his post again. He didn't say what you think he said.

Re:And Num-Lock too!

[Barlo_Mung_42]

NUM LOCK is the key I use to bring up the KVM OSD and I like it that way.

Re:And Num-Lock too!

[The Cisco Kid]

What the hell is 'F-lock'? There sure as hell isnt any such thing on my NorthGate OmniKey, nor have I ever noticed one even on currently made desktop keyboards. I have noticied them on laptops, which often to save keyboard realestate dont have a seperate set of function keys overlap them with other keys, and/or overlap laptop-specific functions (switch between LCD and external, suspend, etc)

Re:And Num-Lock too!

[MyNameIsEarl]

It is a relatively new "feature" on most? Microsoft and Logitech keyboards. That when turned on, which is not the default, lets your F keys act normally, but, when turned off, the default!, assigns them different functions.

Re:And Num-Lock too!

[Fallingcow]

I first ran in to this when I couldn't figure out why the hell quicksave/load wasn't working in some game. Took me several minutes to figure it out, because it never occured to me that my keyboard might be effectively disabling my F keys by default. The whole idea was foreign to me. WTF?

Re:And Num-Lock too!

[Thanatos69]

That would be fine except for laptop keyboards where the number pad is on the letters...
J=1
K=2
L=3
U=4
I=5
O=6
7=7
8=8
9=9

I can't count how many times I have logged into windows with the numlock on and had my password rejected a couple times before I noticed that the numlock was on. It's a stupid system but I'm sure someone has an excuse for it.

Re:And Num-Lock too!

[shrikel]

Getting rid of the key does not necessarily mean the LED has to go...

Re:And Num-Lock too!

[kimvette]

Every accountant, bookkeeper, and small business owner who has to deal with accounting, product pricing, and inventory will disagree with you.

Re:And Num-Lock too!

[shobadobs]

but has a stack of plug in number pads to go with them.

A /stack/? What, does he like, keep them distributed in various locations about his person? Why? Are the other companies hiring ninjas and ninjapickpockets to lower his productivity by stealing them?

I must know!

Re:And Num-Lock too!

[toddestan]

Keyboards like that already exist. There is the "Happy Hacking" keyboard layout, which is basically a 101 keyboard with everything to the right of F12 lopped off. If I remember right, IBM even made a version of the famous Model M that way. And then there is my favorite, which is the Deck 82 key. At first, I thought I would not be able to live without the numeric keypad. And sure, at times I do miss it. But overall, I like the extra desk space more than the keypad.

Re:And Num-Lock too!

[ymgve]

Who the hell seriously uses Numlock for autorun? One of the first things I do on a new install is to map 'Q' to autorun. Much more accessible. (Also, I set 'B' to open all bags by default. Love it.)

Re:And Num-Lock too!

[The Cisco Kid]

"Everything to the right of the F12-key" would imply about 90% of the keyboard. Oh wait, you probably have one of those keyboards where instead of being where they belong off to the left they are in an inconvenient row at the top.

Re:And Num-Lock too!

[Quill_28]

Stupid mods look at the time. How is it redundant if it was first.

This group has 0 topics.

[pugdk]

I think the above statement presented when you go to the google group in question about sums it up.

Who gives a damn?

mod

[rodentia]

+1 Righteous.

Re:mod

[RedBear]

Righteous my shiny metal ass...

Original poster:
"Dear Slashdot, I don't use FEATURE. Why don't you all band together with me to help get FEATURE permanently removed? After all, I'm sure no one else in the world actually uses or needs FEATURE. I don't need it, so logically nobody else needs it either. Even if they do it doesn't matter to me because I'm the most important person here."

Why don't we do something useful like lobbying to have the main keyboard shortcuts standardized across all platforms based on the actually-useful Mac OS keyboard shortcuts. First step, move the Ctrl key next to the space bar, or designate the Alt key as the main meta key for keyboard shortcuts. I used Windows for YEARS and about the only keyboard command I ever found useful was Alt-Tab. A few weeks using BeOS/Mac OS and I was regularly using a dozen common keyboard commands because they all use the keys right next to the spacebar. They're so easy to use that I use them all day long!

Obviously not every keyboard command translates between operating systems but there are a couple dozen commands that could be standardized everywhere for general desktop users, like (Q)uit, Close (W)indow, (E)ject, (R)efresh, New (T)ab, (O)pen, (P)rint, Select (A)ll, (S)ave, (D)uplicate, (F)ind, Find a(G)ain, Z/X/C/V (undo, cut, copy, paste), (B)old, (N)ew, etc. All of these keyboard commands are a total pain in the ass in Windows because of the position of the Ctrl key in the corner of the keyboard, so most people never use them even if they know about them. Sadly every Linux desktop environment seems to have copied this incredibly flawed Windows-style keyboard shortcut setup. What I wouldn't give for good Mac-like keyboard presets for KDE/GNOME. I tried to make one myself but guess what? KDE and GNOME used separate keybindings, and various applications used their own keybindings so I found that I would have to create new keybindings in a half dozen different ways in different locations in order to have any semblance of order. Guess what again? This is one of the reasons I bought an iBook. Standards. Consistency.

Seriously, if you want to make the world a better place for keyboarding just start by moving the Ctrl key to either side of the spacebar and work on creating standard keyboard shortcuts for ALL applications to use on ALL operating systems. I know, craaaazy talk. I'm not holding my breath either. But it sure would be something, wouldn't it?

Erm...

[Klaidas]

Well, umm...
That's unusual...
But what if we need CAPS LOCK for some reason? (Even tho I don't think I ever really used it for something)
And, well, removing CAPS LOCK because some 11 years olds use it all the time in IRC is not going to solve it - they can always put they finger on Shift, or maybe stick the bottom side of Shith to the keyboard so it would be pressed all the time...

Actually

[Anonymous Coward]

Barring the fact that there are causes out there we should pressure the big computer companies to change well before we focus on the CAPS lock, I actually use the thing enough I'd like to see it stay- but moving it to a more remote corner wouldn't bother me.

Of course, it does come in handy when playing Counter-Strike...

Suggestion...

[DarkNemesis618]

In my opinion, you might as well keep it until a better key is found to be placed there to replace it. In turn, maybe add a feature that turns off the Caps Lock key. So when the feature is enabled, hitting the Caps Lock key does nothing.

Re:Suggestion...

[kiddygrinder]

It should be replaced by the "Stupid fucking idea" key, so every time you're about to code something you just hit and it kicks you if it's a stupid fucking idea, saving yourself the trouble of doing just that after 5 hrs of trying to get a page of useless code to work.

Re:Suggestion...

[Thurn und Taxis]

maybe add a feature that turns off the Caps Lock key.

It's called PRESSING THE KEY. If you don't press it, it doesn't turn on! Simple as that.

Seriously, people. Learn to type, and leave my keyboard alone!

Re:Suggestion...

[NeuroAcid]

We can replace it with the Any Key.

maybe just a new placement?

[rayde]

i propose that keyboards should place caps lock up in no-man's land with Print Screen, Scroll Lock, and Pause/Break, rather than doing away with it completely. For the few times you actually would WANT to activate caps lock, it shouldn't be a problem for people to reach up there. And those who need caps lock a lot for their old programming language or somthing can use a legacy keyboard.

Re:maybe just a new placement?

[TheThiefMaster]

I like the idea of moving the caps key. My preference is turn the scroll-lock key into caps lock, make shift+caps lock be scroll lock (so basically combine caps and scroll lock into one key), and replace the old caps key with two keys for those wierd marks some languages have above letters. I know, I know, the Alt Gr key does some of them, and local keyboards already have the appropriate key(s) for their local language, but what about the rest?

Then again, a campaign to get rid of the accents above letters in european languages and replace them with the letters or letter combinations that sound exactly like them wouldn't go amiss either.

Re:maybe just a new placement?

[Anonymous Coward]

the old Apple IIgs keybard had caps lock & control switched. caps lock ended up being a regular-sized key.

http://www.digibarn.com/collections/systems/appleI Igs-wozedition/appleIIgs-literature/DSC08706.JPG

Re:maybe just a new placement?

[Anonymous Coward]

And those who need caps lock a lot for their old programming language or somthing can use a legacy keyboard.

Like perl. Anybody here remember that?

Re:maybe just a new placement?

[Chandon Seldon]

Then again, a campaign to get rid of the accents above letters in european languages and replace them with the letters or letter combinations that sound exactly like them wouldn't go amiss either.

Accents are actually the best solution we have available for the problem they solve.

In english, we use 6 symbols for vowels. American english has at least 15 distinct vowel sounds. We have multiple ways of spelling each of those vowel sounds, and no agreement on which vowel sounds are represented by which spellings.

Languages that have a separate symbol (vowel character with accent mark) for each vowel sound are definately a step up on us.

(ref: http://faculty.washington.edu/dillon/PhonResources /newstart.html )

Re:maybe just a new placement?

[TheThiefMaster]

I'm almost offended by the fact that you assume I'm American, when in fact I am English (rare I know). But yeah, I agree with your point about vowel sounds. Maybe we should just all agree on a certain spelling for each sound, be it combinations of vowels or accented vowels, but at least agree.

Re:maybe just a new placement?

[sowth]

You are obviously not a touch typist. What about acronyms? What about system constants and macros? Typing SO_KEEPALIVE, SOCK_STREAM, MODULE_LICENSE, and EXPORT_SYMBOL would be a pain in the ass if the caps lock wasn't in an easy to reach place.

What needs to go is the "Windows" and "Menu" keys. At least move them to another part of the keyboard. It is hard enough to hit the Control and Alt keys with your pinkie, then they made them smaller! They were probably put there because Bill Gates noticed people who use other operating systems have lots of things bound to Ctrl sequences. Commander Stalin^WGates thinks everyone should use the mouse. Yay monopolies. They do us such good.

Re:maybe just a new placement?

[Chandon Seldon]

I found a reference page on American English first =P.

Brittish english is a bit better, at least y'all manage to only have 3 or 4 different regional accents with completely different pronunciation.

noble, but...

[tehwebguy]

...what about writing queries?

SELECT * FROM `table` WHERE ...

Re:noble, but...

[The Cisco Kid]

SELECT * FROM 'table' WHERE ...

Amazingly, I was able to type this ENTIRE post (ALL of it. I mean, REALLY), without once using the typewriter-age 'SHIFT LOCK' key. And for the record, in the place where that key probably is on 99.9% of the keyboards of the people reading this, on my keyboard, is the special 'Control' key, which is where God, and Jobs and Wozniak Intended it to be. (The silly capslock key, since I havent found an otherwise suitable keyboard without one, happens to be to the left of the spacebar, similar to where other useless keys such as those known as the 'Windows' keys are on many keyboards made today)

Re:noble, but...

[Guysmiley777]

which is where God, and Jobs and Wozniak Intended it to be.

Gosh, with that logic every keyboard should also have an open-apple key, or shouldn't have the number "1" when a lower case L works just fine.

Macs use PC hardware now. Welcome to the real world.

Re:noble, but...

[The Cisco Kid]

That part was a joke - I dont use a Mac. But if you see a 'capslock' key to the left of the a-key (on a common qwerty keyboard, at least), then that is a TYPEWRITER keyboard modified for computer use.

Interesting Idea, but ....

[Alien54]

Although I expected something a little bit more substantial in a web presence.

Maybe even a geocities webpage, for cryin out loud.

A small screw driver solves the problem

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Just pry it loose. (Remember to keep the pried open key in your desk along with the mug holding paper clips and pencils so that when the corporate bean counters come doing their inventory check you could show it to them.)

Is it just me...

[bananaguyc]

...or does this particular SlashDot article seem a bit trollish in nature?

Wife

[d3matt]

My wife uses capslock you insensitive clod!!!

No seriously, when she types, she turns on capslock for each upper case letter then turns it back off again... She formed the habbit before anyone informed her of what a shift key was. Now she can't use a shift key. I don't have the heart to introduce her to a SUN keyboard...

Useless? Not at all!

[Lars Clausen]

My Caps Lock key is gainfully in use to change the keyboard layout between English and Danish. It's wonderful as it lights up an LED, so I can easily see the state I'm in, and it's very handily placed. Please don't take my Caps^H^H^H^HLayout Lock key away!

Re:Useless? Not at all!

[mschaef]

"My Caps Lock key is gainfully in use to change the keyboard layout between English and Danish."

That's splendid! How does it work? Is it a standard OS feature or some kind of add on?

Re:Useless? Not at all!

[Lars Clausen]

It's a setting in recent Gnome versions, under Keyboard Preferences there is a (unusually large for Gnome) set of ways to change the Layout Options, include 8 (!) different things to do for Caps Lock.

Re:Useless? Not at all!

[blitzkrieg3]

I think you are missing the point. You are using the caps lock key, sure, but you aren't using the key in the way that it was intended. What you are really calling for is a replacement of the caps lock key to a new change language key, effectivly calling for a removal of the caps lock key anyway. So when you think about it, we're all on the same side here.

I NEED IT!

[Anonymous Coward]

BECAUSE I'M ALWAYS YELLING!

Caps Lock is useful!

[NekoXP]

Of course like Num Lock and Scroll Lock, practically useless these days (as is Sys Rq..). But I have a couple of games that use it (show/hide ship stats or so in strategy games). And they provide no GUI notification that a feature is "enabled". Why not? Because you have lights on your keyboard!

And remember the awesomeness of the Amiga keyboard which had it's caps lock light embedded in the key, so you knew exactly when it was on or not just by looking at the key (and not the opposite side of the keyboard).

Maybe they shouldn't remove it, but leave the lights and toggle switches, just rename the keys? Or put them in the USB hotkeys group with lights around so you can press them and make 'em glow.

I'd miss the key even if I never use it to type caps :)

Re:Caps Lock is useful!

[d3matt]

SUN keyboards had the light embedded in the keys as well (they just put capslock where control goes and the only control key is where capslock goes).

Re:Caps Lock is useful!

[SlashTom]

As do some Mac keyboards, like the one on my Pismo Powerbook.
Very neat feature, I think...

Re:Caps Lock is useful!

[zoney_ie]

Personally, I use the SysRq/Print Screen key regularly enough (for the latter purpose); certainly more often than the Caps Lock key. I have yet to use scroll lock, pause/break, "context menu" or indeed the Windows keys.

I find the numeric keypad handy on occasion, and I can see it being of use for many business tasks, but I seldom use the operator keys, and never the alternate functions (num lock off).

Also, although I use the occasional function key for application shortcuts; I really don't make good use of all 12 of them.

What I would like is more modifier keys, to allow me to type non-English words. As I'm in Ireland, I've UK keyboards, and set up as "Irish" layout (this means Alt Gr plus aeiou gives áéíóú). I'd like to be able to do àèìòù in a similar fashion (as opposed to the "backtick" key followed by letter), as well as other characters used in German, Spanish, etc. I'm not a fan of the "international" layout (i.e. logical not physical layout) though.

Re:Caps Lock is useful!

[mrchaotica]

And remember the awesomeness of the Amiga keyboard which had it's caps lock light embedded in the key, so you knew exactly when it was on or not just by looking at the key (and not the opposite side of the keyboard).

That wasn't just the Amiga keyboard; my Tandy keyboard had that too. I think it was more just a function of getting a keyboard that wasn't a CHEAP PIECE OF CRAP like most of the ones nowadays.

You could probably find a new one like that too; look for places selling stuff like "Model-M" clones and whatnot.

Re:Caps Lock is useful!

[NekoXP]

Having moved from the UK (Alt Gr!) to the US (Right-Alt is the fucking same as Left-Alt!?!?!) I heartily agree with this.

Alt Gr should be a standard key everywhere. I just can't type ANY non-ASCII character with a US keymap unless I resort to charmap or the Alt-numpad option. And since I am using a laptop; that doesn't work anyway. Infuriating.

I use the Windows key all the time, it sames me picking up a mouse if I can just go tap-tap-tap on a couple keys in the corner and get a "Run" dialog up (Windows-R), show the desktop (Windows-D) or pick My Computer from the menu using arrows. I guess each to his own. But the menu key, I've never used that, because the Alt key does the same damn thing in every app. If I press it in here Firefox gives me the textbox editing menu but I never use that even with the mouse.

Re:Caps Lock is useful!

[digitrev]

Scroll lock useless? Clearly you've never used a splitter for multiple PCs. The complete lack of functionality of the Scroll Lock makes it a perfect candidate for quickly switching your monitor over to the other PC. Double Scroll Lock is my friend.

But, but, but...

[earthloop]

wITHOUT A CAPS LOCK KEY, HOW WILL i TURN CAPS OFF?

----
and i've had to type all this to avoid the stupid lame filter. Hmpff!

Meanwhile, at AOL...

[ABoerma]

"Why's everybody whispering?"

This can be fixed in about five minutes

[mschaef]

On Windows, Caps Lock and Control can be swepped. A similar technique can be used to make caps lock a redundant control key:

http://www.manicai.net/comp/swap-caps-ctrl.html

There are also ways to do this on Unix, but I don't remember what they are.

Re:This can be fixed in about five minutes

[rilister]

My life improved a great deal when I discovered this little system tray item:
http://members.execulink.com/~pjones/toggler/index .htm
The Toggler! You set the number of seconds that you need to hold down CAPS LOCK before it becomes active - and no more accidental Caps LOCKING EVER AGAIN.

It has other great uses too, like disabling the windows key to avoid that 'crash to desktop' feel in the middle of a game...

Re:This can be fixed in about five minutes

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahhh... Scancode map. When I got my new Dell in the office, I Googled around and for software fixes to disable the Windows and Menu keys. I figured there had to be some Windows way of doing it, since it's a Windows feature; but alas no. I ran into a plethora of stupid little widgets (many trojans no doubt) that some people actually wanted to CHARGE for. Finally, I found an article about the scancode map. Delicious. I disabled the Windows and Menu key, and enjoy the pure bliss of knowing that my focus will never change for no good reason. Oddly enough, I haven't had any trouble with caps lock at all. It must be either my keyboard or the way I type.

Anyway, Scancode rules. MS should include a user-friendly way to manipulate it.

Re:This can be fixed in about five minutes

[Red_Winestain]

I can fix this in less than a minute:

In MacOS X 10.4:

System Preferences --> Keyboard & Mouse --> Keyboard --> Modifier Keys...

Set Caps Lock to Control.

Re:This can be fixed in about five minutes

[booch]

In Windows, you can also set CAPSLOCK to get turned off when you hit SHIFT. But it ain't easy. In XP:

1. Control Panel
2. Regional and Language Options
3. Languages tab
4. Details
5. Key Settings
6. To turn off Caps Lock: Press the SHIFT key

Re:This can be fixed in about five minutes

[kst]

Yes, I use a similar Registry hack to do the same thing on my Windows systems, so both Caps Lock and Control act as control keys.

Personally, I can't stand having the control key anywhere other than immediately to the left of the 'A', and I use Caps Lock rarely enough that disabling it altogether isn't a problem for me. I've tried to adapt to other layouts, and I can get by, but it never becomes comfortable.

These are my own prejudices, and I wouldn't want to impose them on anyone else.

The problem with the registry hack is that it applies to anyone using the machine. If I were using a shared Windows machine with multiple accounts, I wouldn't be able to set it to work the way I like without inconveniencing other users. Fortunately, the two Windows machines I use aren't shared with anyone else.

This should be a per-user control panel setting. It's a common enough quirk that Microsoft should expend the minimal effort required to cater to it.

I need it

[mombodog]

What? Get rid of it? How will I make posts on EBay and Craigslist? ;-)

Re:I need it

[Glowing Fish]

You don't really need to make posts on craigslist! You can just go back to scrawling offers on bathroom walls.

A Neccessary Evil

[ewisnor]

Even though I agree that messages typed in caps are quite annoying, I've found a lot of instututions have made it neccessary to have caps lock on while performing certain tasks.
As an example, bar code scanning. The codes are usually case-sensitive and scanning one in the opposite case may not yield any results in the inventory unless caps-lock is on. Also, some people might just do general record keeping and whatnot in caps. I've also found that some people get seriously irritated when I turn their caps-lock off because their network password is in caps and they're used to typing it with the lock on.

I guess it's just become a thing-to-do in the realm of office work, and a faux paux in the realm of online communication.

I actually use CAPS LOCK.

[Valdrax]

So, what use is this CAPS key?

I actually use CAPS LOCK regularly when writing macros in C. It's much easier on the finger to not have to chord full words with the shift key pressed. Try it sometime. Once you get in the habit of using it on long stretches of capitalized letters (like CAPS LOCK), you'll never go back.

My biggest gripe is that I have to press shift to use the underscore key.

Re:I actually use CAPS LOCK.

[Kadin2048]

I would probably use Caps Lock a lot more, if it actually acted like a shift modifier on all the keys, and not just on letters. Or at least acted like a shift as far as the understore/hyphen key is concerned.

I write quite a bit of SQL from time to time, and generally write the commands in caps, although it's case insensitive. Our table names are all written with underscores, so I'm constantly going for that key.

One of these days I should really just do a registry hack or something and swap the behavior of the hyphen and the underscore...although if anyone else ever had to use my workstation, that would really mess with them. (And vice versa, which is why I haven't done it; there's something to be said for being used to the "universal" setup.)

Re:I actually use CAPS LOCK.

[xerxesdaphat]

Back on the... wait... either the Commodore 64 or the BBC Micro (I had both, I can't remember which one though) there was both a Caps-Lock and a Shift-Lock (as you describe). I think it was the Beeb the more I think about it.

Note that you don't need to hack anything around, if you're running Gnome all you need to do is set up Keyboard->Keyboard Layout Options->Caps-Lock Behaviour and you can make it a Shift-Lock if you'd prefer.

Me? Mine's an extra Ctrl key (vi user ^_^)...

-Tommi

Re:I actually use CAPS LOCK.

[Nf1nk]

there is a shift lock built into windows it is hidden under the accessability menu.
I found it when I had writers block and sat there pressing and releasing the shift key trying to figure out what word to use. The computer was so annoyed by my actions it popped up a menu asking if I was disabled.

Re:I actually use CAPS LOCK.

[Valdrax]

Ah, shift-lock. Memories. The keyboards that I took typing class on in high school had a shift-lock instead of a caps-lock key. I forget whether or not my C64 and Vic-20 had shift-lock or caps-lock keys because I was more interested in drawing pretty pictures on the screen with the extended character set and color codes at that age.

(Yes, I learned to touch type on a typewriter. No, you may not touch my brow-ridge or see my stone axe collection.)

But what about...

[greysky]

...The windows and menu keys?!?! I HATE those things! I popped them out of keyboards at home, but I can't do that at work.

Is your capslock key on Sir?

[sixdaywar]

Won't somebody please think of the Users!

Just remap the key...

[__aaclcg7560]

From a Caps Lock to a Shift Lock.

IM NOT TRYING TO SHOUT

[Shadow Wrought]

I HIT CAPSLOCK TWICE AND IT STILL WON'T TYPE LOWERCASE...

Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted! Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted! Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted! Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted! Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted! Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted! Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

... It does come in handy sometimes

[illeism]

What about my users who use a terminal emulation program that requires everything to be typed in caps? I shudder at the thought of users and their disjointed crooked pinkies because they had to hold the shift key constantly.... THINK OF THE PINKIES MAN...

Forget Caps Lock

[Anonymous Coward]

The real villain is the windows key. Does anyone EVER use this key? How often have you been typing and accidentally hit the windows key? You can't even use backspace, you need to stop, use the mouse, and then get out of whatever menu has just opened.

Oh, and the any key...when are they going to finally install that one?

Re:FORGET CAPS LOCK

[Zadaz]

I use it. If you use Windows I don't see how you can live without Windows-E and Windows-R and Windows - M (or D).

That "Windows Menu" key is a big waste of space though.

I say keep Caps-Lock, it's handy for accessibility reasons.

But can we please get rid of any key with "Scr Lk", "PtrSc" or "Sys Rq" on it? I mean for fuck's sake.

Re:FORGET CAPS LOCK

[BenjyD]

I use it all the time on Windows systems: Win-E, Win-F, Win-R, Win-D, Win-Up-Enter-Enter (shutdown). And you don't need the mouse to get back to what you were doing, just Esc, Alt-tab will do it.
Of course, since I now switch between Mac OS X and Windows, I do hit it a lot more by mistake now...

Re:FORGET CAPS LOCK

[daranz]

On a laptop running GNOME, I configured the winkey to allow window dragging. Ie, when you hold down winkey, you can click anywhere on the window and drag it. Quite useful, as it makes it easier to use the touchpad.

The default functionality of the winkey under windows, that makes the Start menu pop up is certainly annoying, but if you can make use of the key for something else, it certainly becomes that much more useful.

Remap it

[fmaresca]

to Escape, as I do some years ago, and you will see that is very comfortable.

Re:Remap it

[Yacob]

Exactly! I reversed escape and capslock on my kinesis keyboard which has the deficiency of the esc key being too small and far away vs regular keyboards. Its been great, especially if you're a vi user. I would do the same on any keyboard I have to use regularly.

Re:Remap it

[fmaresca]

Yes, I'm a heavy vi[m] user, and I remap the Escape keycode in every machine I had, in X and console, to the CapsLock key for this reason. Most of my keyboards are IBM Model M and these are big ones: the distance between Esc and A are almost 10 cm, wich is very long for frecuent use of Esc, as on vi, mutt, etc.

put control there instead

[jjeffries]

The old-timers in the crowd probably already know about this one:

Replacing CapsLock with Left-Control on X
Create the file ~/.Xmodmap with these contents:

            remove mod4 = Meta_L
            remove mod1 = Alt_L
            remove lock = Caps_Lock
            keysym Meta_L = Alt_L
            keysym Alt_L = Meta_L
            add mod4 = Meta_L
            add mod1 = Alt_L
            add control = Caps_Lock

If you are running something like XFree86, add

            xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap

to your ~/.xinitrc file or ~/.xsession file. If neither of those exist, you can always do it from the command line.

text stolen from http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/people/chaffee/swapx.html

Re:put control there instead

[kfg]

And remember, whatever you do, do not use what you have just learned here to remap your collegue's keyboard when goes out for lunch. It would cause him a certain amount of consternation, especially if he isn't the sort that would know about these things.

Maximum effect is actually obtained by only changing a few keys, not just messing everything up.

But remember, if anyone should ask where you got the idea, I specifically said "do not."

KFG

Re:put control there instead

[AmishMoshr]

It's also useful for switching keyboard layouts - though to be honest I use the "weenie method" and set all of this up using the available Gnome tools. It is nice to have at least a subset of extended characters just an extra keystroke away.

Re:put control there instead

[Fishstick]

oh, I know _just_ the guy that would appreciate something like this

that'd teach him to follow the corporate security policy and use a password-protected screen saver :-)

not that I would ever do something like this, just saying...

Re:put control there instead

[Penguin Programmer]

Of course. That's the one true keyboard layout. And emacs is the one true editor. Everyone knows that.

Re:put control there instead

[pthisis]

I never understood why you'd do this, though. It's much easier to hit control where it is now, especially if you have a multi-key emacs chord to hit. Just use the edge of your left palm to hold down control and you don't have to anchor your pinkie or move your hands around on the home row.

Map caps lock to escape. Then a traditional PC keyboard is both emacs and vi friendly.

Re:put control there instead

[krupicka]

Or you just get a Sun USB Type 6 keyboard.

Re:put control there instead

[scruffy]

In the KDE Control Center:

select Regional and Accessibility on the left side menu
select Keyboard Layout on the left side menu
select Xkb Options tab on the top
find Ctrl key position in the list of Options
select "Make CapsLock an Additional Ctrl" (or whatever you like)
click Apply on the lower right

Re:put control there instead

[Chandon Seldon]

You appear to have smaller hands than I do. Using my palm to press control popped up an error message "You are too fat, mash the keyboard to be sent a typing wand".

Re:put control there instead

[danheretic]

Judging by what I've seen on Usenet, email and Slashdot posts, unix admins don't know what the Caps Lock (or Shift) key is, anyway, so this doesn't really apply to them.

Re:put control there instead

[bagawk]

It is even a little easier than that
Option "XkbOptions" "ctrl:swapcaps" in xorg.conf

Re:put control there instead

[Anonymous Coward]

neat idea... but I'd rather it map an entire subnet or something... say, uses one proxy one way, another another way, so you could quickly switch back and forth between proxies for better sock puppet pleasure

War...

[AstrumPreliator]

Sergeant: "Correct, there is no obligation." Bender/Fry: *giggling, signing up for army* Sergeant: "Unless of course, war were declared." *alarm goes off* Fry: "What's that?" Sergeant: "War were declared."

But what about us FORTRAN programmers

[SirWillae]

I know most of us don't want to believe it, but there are still people who code in FORTRAN. As bad as that is, coding in FORTRAN would be a lot worse without the Caps Lock key. My poor pinkies are cringing at the thought of it...

Enter?

[jc42]

Hey, I used the caps-lock key several times yesterday. But I don't think I've ever used the Enter (not Return; Enter) key. If you want to repurpose a useless key, Enter should be the first candidate.

But then, nobody ever accused our "standard" keyboard of having a logical design.

Re:Enter?

[mschaef]

" But I don't think I've ever used the Enter (not Return; Enter) key. If you want to repurpose a useless key, Enter should be the first candidate."

They're 'useful' on Macs. IIRC, Enter is LF and Return is CR (or vice versa).

Dunno if OSX changed this any, but I suspect not.

Re:Enter?

[Canthros]

I honestly can't think of the last time I saw a keyboard that had separate keys for enter and return. Anything I can remember using, they're the same key, and the same function.

Re:Enter?

[Jedi Alec]

If you want to repurpose a useless key, Enter should be the first candidate.

Are you our of your mind? What do you think people that use the numerical keypad do to confirm the value they just entered?

Re:Enter?

[jc42]

Actually, I typed that on my Mac Powerbook, and I don't think I've ever used its Enter key. Is there some Mac software that distinguishes it from the Return key (which for some reason also says "enter" in small letters at the upper right)? Simple tests show that the few apps that I tried all treat them identically.

The PC-style keyboard on my linux box also has separate Return and Enter keys. I'm not sure if they all do, but mine does. Again, they seem to act identically in a few apps that I tried.

And the keys don't really send CR or LF chars. They send more complex codes that the input software maps to those ASCII chars. Or to other things, depending on what software gets the input. If you're running X Windows, for example, you get a keyboard input event, which gives your program a keycode. If you don't intercept this event yourself, your software might map the keycode to a CR or an LF, or it might interpret the keycode directly. There are tables of these keycodes somewhere. You could use them, for example, to distinguish a Shift-Left-Down from a Shift-Right-Down input event, if you wanted the shift keys to behave differently. This isn't likely, but you probably will distinguish the Shift-Left-Down and Shift-Left-Up events.

The main reason for all this is to define different keyboard mappings for different languages. Otherwise, how would you ever input Chinese to your computer? There are more than a billion people who might like to do that, y'know.

So what software distinguishes the Return and Enter keys, when both are present?

Re:Enter?

[mschaef]

"The PC-style keyboard on my linux box also has separate Return and Enter keys. I'm not sure if they all do, but mine does. Again, they seem to act identically in a few apps that I tried."

They generate different scan codes (VK_* under Windows), but I don't think PC's ever made the same logical distinction that Macs once did.

"And the keys don't really send CR or LF chars.... They send more complex codes that the input software maps to those ASCII chars."

Keycodes are actually pretty simple: on the systems I've seen, it's pretty much 1-key=1-keycode. Mapping them (or sequences thereof) to characters is decidedly non-trivial these days.

"So what software distinguishes the Return and Enter keys, when both are present?"

My knowledge is old, as you might expect from my comment regarding OSX. I remember this from an old Pascal (!) IDE running on System 7 or 8 on a Macintosh Classic. This would have been from around 1992 or 3.

Re:Enter?

[jc42]

Out of curiosity, I checked around the home office (four keyboards + two laptops), and a few of the old ones down in the basement. All have two such keys. One is at the lower right of PC-style keyboards, part of the numeric keypad. The other is the usual "Return" key, though only a few say "Return". Most have that bent-arrow icon, but a few say "Return" instead. Most also say "Enter" in a small font at the upper left.

When I checked on my linux boxes (the only ones where I know how to do this), they did send separate input events to the software. The Return/bent-arrow key sends Return (Press and Release) events. The Enter key sends KP_Enter events. So they are distinguishable to the software. All the text software that I tested translated them both to "newline", LF on the linux box.

Our two Mac Powerbooks also have two such keys: One is labelled "return" in the usual place, with "enter" in a smaller font at the top right of the key. The other is labelled "enter" and is the 2nd key to the right of the space bar. Again, all the software seems to map both of them to a "newline", LF since this is OSX.

So all of our keyboards have both a Return and an Enter key, though the Return keys are sometimes labelled with that bent-arrow icon instead of "return". And I haven't found any software that treats them differently.

Re:Enter?

[Canthros]

Oh, I see. In that case, yes, every keyboard I have has separate keys. I think they're all such that the keys have the same name, though.

Re:Enter?

[Valdrax]

It's useful for people who use the numeric keypad to do long stretches of numeric entry. The reason it and the + key on that side of the keyboard are so large is because they simulate and old tape-reel calculator where the primary thing you would do is type a number, hit +, and repeat until the end where you'd hit enter/=.

Also, it's useful for obscure terminal formats like V103 on VOS or old IBM 3270 terminals where "next line within field" and "confirm entry of field in form" are semantically different and where arrow keys have their own separate purpose. Admittedly, these are uncommon situations in modern computer use.

Where to begin

[maynard]

I suggest you start with all the original Apple II and Apple II+ systems, every old TRS-80, PET 2001 and ZX81. Never mind them having a CAPS LOCK key - they don't even support lowercase! Not even in the character generation firmware... It's time to take a sledgehammer to those old UPPERCASE violators!

*bang!*

*bang!*

*bang!*

Re:Where to begin

[Anonymous Coward]

First a Deathmaze 5000 reference, then an all-caps TRS-80 reference? You're on fire, sir!

I'm totally against this

[dave-tx]

My sister sends all of her emails in all-caps. Since I can never catch her on the phone, email is the only way we really stay in touch. Without the caps-lock key, I'm afraid we'd have to resort back to snail mail. I'm sure there are a lot of us with relatives who have the same issue.

Bigger problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Try to find a keyboard with a true 101 key layout, in black, with a usb connection. You really have to search to find a keyboard without all the idiotic Windows keys, multi-media experience keys, and other crap on it.

Uh Oh

[spellraiser]

#ifdef C_PROGRAMMER
printf("BRING BACK CAPS LOCK!\n");
#endif

Great time to talk about Carolingian Miniscule

[blueworm]

CHECK IT OUT:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolingian_miniscule

other useless keys

[tverbeek]

While you're at it, please mention the pointlessness of the ScrollLock and Pause keys (they have almost never been used for anything), and demand that BIOSes ship with NumLock=on as the default (the arrow-key functions of the numeric keypad were rendered fully redundant almost two decades ago).

At least the scourge of the oversized Enter key (with an undersized Backspace key to make room for the VerticalBar/Backslash key) seems to have been mostly eradicated.

Re:other useless keys

[mschaef]

" please mention the pointlessness of the ... Pause keys (they have almost never been used for anything), "

On DOS, Pause used to send the BIOS into a loop that preempted user code from running: sort of an enforced pause.

I've also seen a bunch of games that use pause to... well... pause the game. Seems like a good use to mme.

Re:other useless keys

[geekoid]

(the arrow-key functions of the numeric keypad were rendered fully redundant almost two decades ago).

not really. Sure, for JUST the arrow funtionality, but having keys nearby to do other thing is usefull. Like using the 9 and 3 to adjust an angle of a weapon.

Re:other useless keys

[digitrev]

The Break key is great for programmers, it provides a nice easy way to stop programs from running. And Scroll Lock is great for running two computers on one monitor/keyboard/mouse. Just double tap Scroll Lock to switch over.

Useful when typing constant identifiers

[mrg123]

I am a digital ASIC design engineer. For a while, this occupation hasn't been much different than that of a software designer -- we use languages such as Verilog or VHDL rather than C, Java, etc. A common convention for programmers in all of the aforementioned languages is that constants are all caps. My left pinkie is trained to hit the caps lock key when I type constants, then hit it again when I'm done. This definitely speeds up my typing.

Why the CAPS lock key?

[thoriphes]

I find myself using it pretty often as I'm coding. Sure, there are two Shift keys but I can't afford that kind of temporary efficiency drop. If there's any key that they should nix, it should be the Insert key, or maybe the Scroll Lock key (do any of you even know what it's used for?). I've noticed some of the Microsoft keyboards have gotten rid of Insert key, which is a good start. I've never had a reason to use that damned key other than to hit it again to toggle it off. Keep the Caps lock key, get rid of these two mentioned above. F11 key, you're next...

Re:Why the CAPS lock key?

[MisterSquid]

If there's any key that they should nix, it should be the Insert key, or maybe the Scroll Lock key (do any of you even know what it's used for?).

Back in the days when there was ONLY a command line, backspacing (left arrow/CTRL-B) moved the cursor backwards without deleting anything. When one began typing again, it would overwrite the contents of the buffer from the cursor forward. The "INSERT" key changed this behavior so that the new keystrokes were inserted at the cursor and the buffer contents would flow to the end. This functionality is no longer needed because almost all modern day computing contexts assume insert.

Re:Why the CAPS lock key?

[schnipschnap]

I know what the scroll lock key is for

Seriously though, in some BSDs you scroll in the virtual consoles using the scroll lock key (instead of Shift+PgUp/Down). F11 is just another function key, which is actually even used in some webbrowsers to change the view (fullscreen is common, in Opera there are other functions when pressed together with something else, for instance Ctrl+F11 rearranges the web page in order to remove the horizontal scroll bar).

Also, I think the Caps Lock key is quite useful when typing certain stuff, for instance /etc/X11/..., especially if it acts exactly as if you'd press Shift the whole time. And Lars Clausen's suggestion is pretty cool, I must say.

the time is now!

[Anonymous Coward]

down with capitalism!

How about other uses

[Anonymous Coward]

For example several Chinese IME text inputting systems use caps lock to easily change between Chinese input and the normal US keyboard since Chinese doesn't make any distinction between lower and upper case characters. I believe there can be many other useful ways to use caps lock as well, after all I use windows meta-key regularly to change between desktops.

So instead of trying to get rid of the key, how about trying to find out some better uses for it if you think the current behaviour is not useful?

Legit Cap Use

[LeezardLvr]

I work in a law office and I end up typing large passages of double-spaced all cap documents. I would end up with VERY tired pinkies if they were taken away! Although, if someone worked it out so two keys pressed together would toggle caps like [ctrl]+[B] for bold, I could work with that.

what?

[Anonymous Coward]

lame

Programming

[geeper]

Nice to ignore all the programming environments and systems that use upper case for different reasons (SQL, AS400, etc). This must be one of the stupidest postings I've seen. Oh wait, I know, I'm going to declare a war on masturbation and post an article it.
I felt a great disturbance at ./, as if millions of ./ users suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced

I would agree with this but...

[jellomizer]

For the last couple of years I have been making a lot of money coding in FORTRAN. Although FORTRAN itself doesn't really care if you are Upper or Lowercase, but to keep my code consistant with the origional code I program in Upper case it keeps things neater. You could say FORTRAN and COBOL are dead language but they are still used all over the place and there are more people who programing this stuff then you think. That being said I wouldn't mine changing the caplock button and putting it as a small button even a switch on the keyboard or software emulate it say make a Window button on your frame of your window to allow you to turn it on or off. But it will need to be an OS level tool, because you shouldn't determine what App will need it or not.

Re:I would agree with this but...

[stud9920]

You could say FORTRAN and COBOL are dead language but they are still used all over the place and there are more people who programing this stuff then you think

FORTRAN and especially COBOL are ugly languages. (I speak from experience. It takes about two weeks of COBOL experience to see its limitation.) The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense, like the old pedantic fart once said. The only reason it stays in business and doesn't die a forgotten, well earned death is that businesses who were able to afford them in the 50s (banks) still are rich enough to afford whores who will maintain that codebase. This is actually very misguided seeing how cheap it is to replace with standard j2ee for which there are about 1b developers.

Re:I would agree with this but...

[jellomizer]

Well two weeks in a Language hardly makes you experienced in a languge you just learned enough to get the work done. But becides that it seems you don't realize how much code base with these "Ugly Languge there is". There is a Cost of paying an Expert FORTRAN program $100 an hour for 20 hours a week to maintain the code. vs. The cost of rebuiling it in a different language. The Cost of rebuiling is a lot more expensive then one normally thinks. First there is the Programmers Time, Then there is massive amounts of retraining (costs money), then there is deployment and migration issue which take time. Then there is no guanrentee that the code will run bug free out of the box, a bug could cost a lot of money or lives (My experience with manufacturing systems, which a bug could create the wrong mixture and boom!). Downtime is expensive too say you are a bank who has 2000 employees who use the application at any one time. And they are being paid an average of $10 an hour, the system goes down for 2 hours. That is $40k in lost buisness due to downtime.

Now one can go Pay now of pay over time, for most managers they would rather pay overtime. They can budget the expensive Dead languge developer, and the cost stays near constant over the years. Vs. Getting a new app in and massive fluxuations. But if your code is running rather well it is worth keeping it running, and just because it is made with an Ugly languge there is no means to go off kilter and change it because sum kid who just graduated from school says it is a dead languge and should be rebuilt (it is not the 90s anymore).

Re:I would agree with this but...

[stud9920]

I did not say I worked on COBOL for 2 weeks, only that it takes 2 weeks to see its blatant limitations. Also, you make the assumption COBOL code is bug free, which is far for true. In my COBOL days, most of the work consisted in finding failing exceptions on misguided spaghetti workaround to spaghetti bugs. Rest of the time was spent figuring out how to translate a structured programming concept into spaghetti code, or how to execute a 50 char select/join statement using pre-relational-database concepts. The BO in COBOL is more like "Buffer Overflow" than like "Business Oriented". Matlab is arguably a better language for its purpose. C is probably better for buffer overflows, at least it's written all over in the manual. While more obscure, RPG on an AS/400 is probably more elegant and stable (speculation). It's not like COBOL code nowadays is run on special purpose hardware with special binaries. It runs on Solaris or AIX systems. While throwing away everything at once may be risky, an evolutionary approach where a COBOL binary module is never adapted, always replaced, should always be considered. Only because normal people having to code in that horrible language want to die makes it a good reason. Once every recoded module is documented, it' feasible to reengineer the system, something that is impossible with the so called "self documenting [spaghetti] code".

Is this a joke?

[master_p]

Excuse me, but the world has more serious problems than this. I really can not explain how this made it on /., while more serious topics like a petition for adding garbage collection to C++ were rejected.

Re:Is this a joke?

[Anonymous Coward]

a petition for adding garbage collection to C++

But then there'd be nothing left!

Re:Is this a joke?

[O2dude]

Actually on the topic of C++... I think a petition for banning C++ forever is a much better idea.

Re:Is this a joke?

[mrsbrisby]

Actually on the topic of C++... I think a petition for banning C++ forever is a much better idea.

I'll agree, unless someone can give me an example of what C++ is best suited for. I've tried every language that I can find at least twice, and I can't find anything that C++ is the best at, or even a reasonable middle-ground.

C is much easier to read, and if I want objects, Objective-C allows me to reuse my C code. At least then, I get an object oriented language. C++ is some weird class and template based language, that requires I either taxonimize everything, or degenerate into a slower and hard to read C.

I'm still unclear why we need four different casts, and I'm still unclear why it's a good idea to have two functions with the same name and data types (save the const or signed keywords, which aren't really supposed to modify the data type)- lest the evil C++ genies make my code call the wrong one.

I'm completely lost as to why it's a good idea making: if (a << 1) mean anything but to check if anything but the highest bit is set, or a[0] mean anything different than *a.

I can't figure out exactly how to control deallocation order when calling destructors during stack unwinds, and I can't figure out how to control allocation order before main().

I don't know why C++ insisted on being completely forwards and backwards incompatible with C, and adopt its name. It isn't a better C, it isn't even a logical extension of C.

I might be able to wrap my head around C++ better if I didn't know C, and expect C semantics, but damnit, that's awful hard to do when it's called C++.

So right now, I'll sign your petition, but if anyone comes up with an example of what C++ is best at, I'll have to retract my signature and simply sign the petition that demands C++ be called (!C)<C.

Re:Is this a joke?

[diodeus]

"Excuse me, but the world has more serious problems than this. I really can not explain how this made it on /., while more serious topics like a petition for adding garbage collection to C++ were rejected."

Why, because it's BORING.

Re:Is this a joke?

[Anonymous Coward]

The first thing a garbage collector for C++ would have to do is to collect the C++ compiler, thus making futher development in C++ impossible.

Re:Is this a joke?

[0xdeadbeef]

but if anyone comes up with an example of what C++ is best at...

Pissing off academic language purists?

Re:Is this a joke?

[mrsbrisby]

but if anyone comes up with an example of what C++ is best at...

Pissing off academic language purists?

And for my next trick, note that C is more widely recognized and used than any other programming language, C is found in the kernels of nearly all modern operating systems, the display interface now known as Xorg, and pervasively throughout GNOME the Desktop.

Now how exactly is C an academic language?

Re:Is this a joke?

[utnapistim]

I'll agree, unless someone can give me an example of what C++ is best suited for. I've tried every language that I can find at least twice, and I can't find anything that C++ is the best at, or even a reasonable middle-ground.

Let me try my hand at an answer for you, altwough we're "a bit" offtopic here :).

C is much easier to read, and if I want objects, Objective-C allows me to reuse my C code. At least then, I get an object oriented language. C++ is some weird class and template based language, that requires I either taxonimize everything, or degenerate into a slower and hard to read C.

When properly written C++ can be very easy to read (but then again, one can write unreadable code in any language).

Also, you can write C++ code completly without either classes or templates.

C++ also fixes (or offers alternatives to) a lot of problems unresolved in C like namespaces, extensible IO library, a typesafe alternative to C macros, extensible type system etc. All of these can be easily abused (so one could argue that it only adds complications) but that's more of a matter of writing good code than a C++ problem.

I'm still unclear why we need four different casts, and I'm still unclear why it's a good idea to have two functions with the same name and data types (save the const or signed keywords, which aren't really supposed to modify the data type)- lest the evil C++ genies make my code call the wrong one.

The four casts state intent much better than the C cast; It's also easier to grep/search through the code to locate casts.

I'm completely lost as to why it's a good idea making: if (a << 1) mean anything but to check if anything but the highest bit is set, or a[0] mean anything different than *a.

iostreams are a decent answer for the first example (B. Stroustrup explained in his book why the shift operator was chosen and it seemed like a good enough reason for me).

The iostreams design is among the most powerfull and flexible input/output interfaces I've ever seen.

Regarding your second example, how about accessing custom container elements by key, like for example:

std::map<int,string> m;
m[-1] = "invalid";

I think the only reason not to see these is coming to C++ with a C/other language mind-frame and saying "I can progam C just fine in C; why would I do it in C++"?

I can't figure out exactly how to control deallocation order when calling destructors during stack unwinds, and I can't figure out how to control allocation order before main().

Static functions allowing access to global resources? Used like this, the pointers are allocated upon first access and deallocated in reverse order.

I don't know why C++ insisted on being completely forwards and backwards incompatible with C, and adopt its name. It isn't a better C, it isn't even a logical extension of C.

Actually I think C++ bent over backwards to remain (mostly) compatible with C (this is why the macros-as-functions were not completely eliminated for example).

I think it is a better C in the sense that it can do what C does (and much more), using safer code and avoiding C's pitfalls (although unfortunately C++ comes with pitfalls of it's own).

I might be able to wrap my head around C++ better if I didn't know C, and expect C semantics, but damnit, that's awful hard to do when it's called C++.

Then you're not really evaluating C++, but (again), writing C code in C++ (which is a different matter alltogether); It's not really the best frame of mind for evaluating the strengths of a language, as it ignores all advantages C++ would provide that are not there in C.

For some examples of C++ advantages over C (out of the top of my head):

Re:Is this a joke?

[Anonymous Coward]

The petition you mention, along with a petition to remove multiple inheritance from C++ was taken into account very seriously some years ago: Link

Re:Is this a joke?

[pthisis]

Actually I think C++ bent over backwards to remain (mostly) compatible with C

Not really, their type system is completely incompatible. Thinks like:

char *a = malloc(sizeof(char));

are commonly noted. The usual argument is that malloc is not good C++ practice, but the real issue here is that void pointers are hopelessly broken in C++. Their whole reason for being is to allow for some (crappy) polymorphism, but C++'s type changes broke that. Which would be fine if you're designing a whole new non-broken type system (C's typing is pretty bogus), but C++ instead opted to try to tighten up the C system resulting in something that is still broken but requires a lot more verbosity (and duplication) to accomplish very little else in terms of real type-safety.

Plenty of other stuff is C-incompatible too. E.g.

int how_big = sizeof('a');

how_big will be 1 in most C++ compilers on 32-bit platforms and 4 in most C compilers on 32-bit platforms (it will always be sizeof(char) in C++ and sizeof(int) in C).

There are tons of subtleties like this, where the C++ developers seem to have gone with how they think things should work instead of C compatibility.

Re:Is this a joke?

[JesseMcDonald]

but if anyone comes up with an example of what C++ is best at...

[Annoying] academic language purists?

And for my next trick, note that C is more widely recognized and used than any other programming language, C is found in the kernels of nearly all modern operating systems, the display interface now known as Xorg, and pervasively throughout GNOME the Desktop.

Now how exactly is C an academic language?

I believe the GP meant (academic (language purists)), not ((academic language) purists). I agree, C is hardly an academic language. Besides all the real-world uses, it doesn't have the theoretical elegance (or the inherent impracticality) necessary to qualify as "academic."

Re:Is this a joke?

[0xdeadbeef]

Now how exactly is C an academic language?

Excuse me.

Pissing off obsolete curmudgeons?

My biggest complaint about C++ is the lack of standardization for name-mangling and and v-table construction. The rest I can choose to ignore.

Re:Is this a joke?

[mrsbrisby]

Let me try my hand at an answer for you, altwough we're "a bit" offtopic here :).

Agreed, but it is fun :)

C++ also fixes (or offers alternatives to) a lot of problems unresolved in C like namespaces,

It seems to me that because there's no body that gives out namespaces (like SUN turning com, net, and org over to ICANN), and no way to resolve namespaces (as in python's "as" qualifier), I'd say C++ namespaces aren't any better than C's namespaces at all.

extensible IO library,

Now I'll admit, *stream does look like a lot of fun to use, but see below... I want to get the rest of this paragraph first :)

a typesafe alternative to C macros,

I question the usefulness of type-safety, because a lot of C++ code attempts to allow for automatic type-coercion. This means that the programmer needs to know (or as it seems more likely: guess) what kind of coercion will take place if trying one of these template functions on two different types.

extensible type system.

If you are talking about operator overloading, see below.

All of these can be easily abused (so one could argue that it only adds complications) but that's more of a matter of writing good code than a C++ problem.

It seems that adding more facilities with no clear direction for their use contributes to the abuse. I'd say that's as much C++'s problem as anything else.

The four casts state intent much better than the C cast; It's also easier to grep/search through the code to locate casts.

Thank you for this. I've heard a million different answers that all sound retarded. Saying that the four casts are simply annotations instead of actual code direction makes them make a lot more sense.

I'm completely lost as to why it's a good idea making: if (a << 1) mean anything but to check if anything but the highest bit is set, or a[0] mean anything different than *a.

iostreams are a decent answer for the first example (B. Stroustrup explained in his book why the shift operator was chosen and it seemed like a good enough reason for me).

but people don't write that. They write a << 1; without checking for errors, and so on. iostream's use of the << doesn't encourage error checking, and as a result, is a bad thing.

If that's not enough reason, consider: why is it you when you saw if (a<<1), you immediately thought ostream? Maybe the next line made it clear I meant bitshift, but seriously, any C++ class in the world could've overloaded << to mean anything, so the language can completely polymorph based on the class(ification) of a variable.

That leads to some seriously incomprehensible crap when the classification is known only as "T".

I think the only reason not to see these is coming to C++ with a C/other language mind-frame and saying "I can progam C just fine in C; why would I do it in C++"?

Exactly. So because C++ was here first, why don't we call it something else? It's clearly nothing like C, so why is it so important to confuse old C programmers like myself otherwise. This only brings confusion and animosity...

Static functions allowing access to global resources? Used like this, the pointers are allocated upon first access and deallocated in reverse order.

That's what I thought, but that's not the case. Consider accessing cout<< in a constructor of a object that's instanced before libstdc++.

Actually I think C++ bent over backwards to remain (mostly) compatible with C (this is why the macros-as-functions were not completely eliminated for example).

I think it is a better C in the

Re:Is this a joke?

[mrsbrisby]

Excuse me.

Pissing off obsolete curmudgeons?

Ad Hominum, and that's two. Are we sure we can actually program?

My biggest complaint about C++ is the lack of standardization for name-mangling and and v-table construction. The rest I can choose to ignore.

How big of you.

My biggest complaint about C++ is that it calls itself C++, instead of "NotAtAllCLike" or "CompletelyIncompatibleWithC" or something that at least displays knowledge of C instead of arrogance for ones own creation.

This confuses New Programmers into thinking C++ is somehow an improved (in any way) version of C, or that it will someday replace it and so, time is better spent not learning C.

It also confuses Real Programmers, because they want to know why they cannot apply good C algorithms and programming skills to C++ programs.

Re:Is this a joke?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lots of good points, but one thing really stood out for me. You really shouldn't be wrapping statements in ifs to check for errors in C++, you should be using try/catch blocks. The exception system alone makes C++ much more comfortable for me than C.

And regarding your complaints about overloading: yes, it's possible to write bad, confusing code in any language. I really don't think it's fair to hold that against it.

Re:Is this a joke?

[Anonymous Coward]

C++ is best at being the best C++ there is. You won't find any C++ that's better than C++. That's about the extent of it.

Re:Is this a joke?

[mrsbrisby]

Lots of good points, but one thing really stood out for me. You really shouldn't be wrapping statements in ifs to check for errors in C++, you should be using try/catch blocks. The exception system alone makes C++ much more comfortable for me than C.

Lots of languages have exceptions, and lots of them have it better than C++: Consider Java which explicitly names which exceptions can be thrown. As a result, it's a compile-time error if you don't catch the appropriate exceptions.

In any event, under C++, exceptions come at a dangerous price: Memory allocations may not get freed as a result of a misused pointer.

Maybe good habits help this, but good habits also help error handling in C. Here's an example:

...
char *tmpf=0;
do {
free(tmpf);
tmpf=generate_random_filename();
if ((fd=open(tmpf,O_CREAT|O_EXCL|O_RDWR))>-1)break;
} while(fd==-1&&errno==EEXIST);
if (fd==-1) goto FAIL;
if (write(fd,...)==-1)goto FAIL;
if (write(fd,...)==-1)goto FAIL;
if (fsync(fd)==-1)goto FAIL;
if (close(fd)==-1)goto FAIL;
if (rename(tmpf,targetf)==-1)goto FAIL;
return 0;/*success*/
FAIL:
unlink(tmpf);
(void)close(fd);
free(tmpf);
return -1;
}

This is crashproof in POSIX.1. Whether you do this in C or Python, all these contortions are required.

So substitute write for <<, and fsync for fstream.sync(), and to perform the requisite error checking, you've needed a mix of exceptions and if checking (fstream.sync doesn't throw an exception!). Of course, you can't check fstream.close()'s error- you need to check the failbit after calling fstream.close().

The result is three different methods of error checking. It may be helpful to note that I don't look at this example as error checking in C, but really as state-tracking. I include it here because it's a good example of how terribly unlike C++ is than C, because I do it a lot, and because the C++ solution is far from obvious. I think we can agree that if C++ is the best at something, error recovery isn't it.

And regarding your complaints about overloading: yes, it's possible to write bad, confusing code in any language. I really don't think it's fair to hold that against it.

Perl supports overloading, but it's much less confusing because perl doesn't consider const-ness, readonly-ness, or signed-ness as part of the data type. As a result, the "wrong function" doesn't get called.

I never thought I'd be saying perl was less confusing than C++, but there you have it :)

Re:Is this a joke?

[mrsbrisby]

What about C++0x? :)

Re:Is this a joke?

[stickb0y]

You really shouldn't be wrapping statements in ifs to check for errors in C++, you should be using try/catch blocks.

Argh. No. Where did people get the crazy notion of using try-catch everywhere? From Java? Ugh. You shouldn't be wrapping statements in ifs to check for errors in C++, because you should be using RAII and letting destructors handle cleanup.

The exception system alone makes C++ much more comfortable for me than C.

Ugh. The exception system alone certainly does not make C++ easier to use. If you have code that can throw exceptions, you now have a code with multiple exit points, and you can't tell where they are from a cursory examination!

That said, the exception system combined with C++ destructors make me prefer C++. Exceptions in languages that don't support the RAII idiom require try-catch-finally and make me shudder.

Re:Is this a joke?

[master_p]

All the things you mention are correct, but there is one thing that C++ excels at:

-writing large pieces of software without sacrifizing even the slightest bit of performance.

It is no coincidence that video games are written in C++. The Unreal 3.0 engine is more than 1 million lines of C++ code.

Re:Is this a joke?

[Keybounce]

What is C++ best at?

Class and objects, including polymorphism, with no noticable runtime overhead. Everything of interest is either known at compile time or link time.

By the time you're at run time, nothing is worse than "fetch a pointer from a known offset, subroutine call to that pointer".

There is no "Ask the class for the routine that provides this method name". There is no "Check the table of methods for a method with this atom number". There is no "Load this class in from a database because it wasn't loaded before". There is no "Bundle X has never been loaded yet, so add it in now at runtime, slowing the program down".

And, you have to admit, being able to say things like

Complex a,b,c, x1, x2 ...

x1 = -b + sqrt((b * b - 4 * a * c) / 2a)

is really nice, readable code. Just try turning that one line into method calls to objects of type (Complex *) in objective C.

C gave you efficient, fast code.

Objective C gives you nice, convinient, easy to use objects. But it makes some types of operations (such as math operations) harder.

C++ takes away some of that convenience, some of that ease of use, and gives you speed in return. And, as seen, with operator overload it makes some math type of operations much easier.

And, we all know, memory is cheap, so massive code bloat for templates isn't a problem at all, right?

(sigh).

How did we get from Caps Lock to C++ again?

Re:Is this a joke?

[shplorb]

I'll agree, unless someone can give me an example of what C++ is best suited for. I've tried every language that I can find at least twice, and I can't find anything that C++ is the best at, or even a reasonable middle-ground.

So you're a jack of all trades, but master of none?

C++ is like chess, something you can pickup relatively quickly, yet takes years to master. It's a language with extraordinary power because it's so full of features. Just because it has support for all sorts of things doesn't mean you have to use them. (Eg friggin' exceptions) It doesn't wrap you in cotton wool and shield you from the harsh reality of how computers actually work, so you get the power to do whatever you want with fast execution speed.

Re:Is this a joke?

[mrsbrisby]

-writing large pieces of software without sacrifizing even the slightest bit of performance.

That's not true at all. Behind-the-back memory allocations, vtable lookups, stack unwinding, and overloading all serve to hide the true cost of an otherwise seemingly innocuous operation:

x = x * 2;

If, this is using HP's vector classes, instead of the GNU vector classes, this runs at about 1/50th the speed (because it isn't taking advantage of the vector enhancements in GCC).

Nonetheless, if you were to use GCC's builtin vector extensions (instead of class-wrapped ones), you could have saved yourself the template unwinds and the typechecking done on x.

I'm not saying here that C++ is slow- I'm merely saying that you most certainly are sacrificing performance by writing in C++. Nothing is free.

It is no coincidence that video games are written in C++. The Unreal 3.0 engine is more than 1 million lines of C++ code.

Does that mean C++ is the best at making video games?

It may be so- after all, video games need a larger number of mediocre pogrammers (to assist the head developers) than a lot of other projects. Given C++'s pervasiveness this might be why C++ is used.

But if it is so, if (say) Java were more pervasive, then these games would be written in Java.

As a point on this: Most of a game isn't processor intensive, or even computationally expensive. Those operations are reserved to a small number of tightly optimized inner loops. With the general acceptance of OpenGL or DirectX, and dedicated physics processing systems, those loops no longer live inside the program, so people generally don't see them anymore. They most certainly, are not written in C++, and without them, you'd have a chunk of your code written in highly ordered C or assembly. Consider DOOM- largely written in C++, but not the fast bits!

So I reject this: Whatever language is "best" is because it's already the greatest common factor in a development group, because that doesn't really mean "best", it means "minimum acceptable".

Re:Is this a joke?

[mrsbrisby]

I'll agree, unless someone can give me an example of what C++ is best suited for. I've tried every language that I can find at least twice, and I can't find anything that C++ is the best at, or even a reasonable middle-ground.

So you're a jack of all trades, but master of none?

Well, my objective is to get the project done. I've noticed that the actual language proficiency is probably the smallest barrier in a big project. Usually, it's the engineering of the project itself- something that isn't exactly language dependant.

Consider, if I have a (small) project to collect a path a set of users took through an Apache logfile, I would use a combination of sed, awk, grep, join, and bourne-shell. Would a C++ "master" really resort to C++ for such a one-time task?

Consider a different project- a temperature sensor that I want to embed into the Linux kernel. My choice for this would be C, and probably do prototyped readouts in perl. Would a C++ "master" really build a bounce layer to do as much as possible in C++?

I think that tasks demand the best tool for the job. I find it hard to believe that C++- as pervasive as it is, isn't the best tool for any job, so I solicit that query: What task is C++ the best at solving? When is C++ the right-shaped hammer?

C++ is like chess, something you can pickup relatively quickly, yet takes years to master. It's a language with extraordinary power because it's so full of features. Just because it has support for all sorts of things doesn't mean you have to use them. (Eg friggin' exceptions) It doesn't wrap you in cotton wool and shield you from the harsh reality of how computers actually work, so you get the power to do whatever you want with fast execution speed.

I can accept your statement here. It's very similar to Bjarne's statements on C++. Note that I really only have two concerns here:

1. why call it C++ if it's nothing like C?
2. what kind of applied problems solving, does C++ solve best?

I think the general consensus on #1 is to trick people into learning C++ so that they'd think they were learning C at the same time.

But nobody has come up with a single thing for #2. The closest was a sibling post to yours that suggests that because C++ is pervasive, it's good at solving problems created by its pervasiveness, which is really quite unfair, IMO.

Despite those things, I do have certain disinterests in C++: namely that it does "wrap you in cotton wool and shield you from the harsh reality of how computers really work" -- not so much as that, but it does hide the true cost of certain operations. As a result, it's performance is often quite overstated.

This doesn't affect me or most people so much because optimization is quite overstated, but in writing secure software, one needs to be able to audit every step of the code to make sure it's operating exactly as expected. However, because C++ hides the actual operations so frequently, auditing C++ is several orders of magnitude more complicated to audit than say, plain C.

Read some other parts of this thread- particularly the part of how to correctly write to a file in a crashproof manner. I annotate briefly what's necessary to do it in C, and describe (briefly) how to do it in C++ and why it's so much more complicated there.

Re:Is this a joke?

[master_p]

That's not true at all.

It is. In C++, you don't have to pay for what you don't use.

Behind-the-back memory allocations

No one forces you to allocate anything. You can use custom allocators, too, for completely static allocation.

vtable lookups

Vtable lookups don't affect modern CPU performance, thanks to modern CPU architecture. And you don't have to use them.

stack unwinding

Only if you have objects with destructors on the stack. On the other hand, RAII is one of the best techniques available.

and overloading all serve to hide the true cost of an otherwise seemingly innocuous operation: x = x * 2; If, this is using HP's vector classes, instead of the GNU vector classes, this runs at about 1/50th the speed (because it isn't taking advantage of the vector enhancements in GCC).

I have no idea about what you are talking about, but how can you blame C++, the language, because one vendor screwed it up?

Nonetheless, if you were to use GCC's builtin vector extensions (instead of class-wrapped ones), you could have saved yourself the template unwinds and the typechecking done on x. I'm not saying here that C++ is slow- I'm merely saying that you most certainly are sacrificing performance by writing in C++. Nothing is free.

No. You only sacrifise performance if you don't know what you are doing. Typechecking is done at compile time, as well as template operations. As for using vectorization, no language except Fortran does it, so good luck using other languages with the performance of C++.

Does that mean C++ is the best at making video games? It may be so- after all, video games need a larger number of mediocre pogrammers (to assist the head developers) than a lot of other projects. Given C++'s pervasiveness this might be why C++ is used.

You have no idea about modern game development, do you? Writing a modern video game is way more difficult than any other kind of application.

But if it is so, if (say) Java were more pervasive, then these games would be written in Java.

No. You can't rely on Java, because video games are real time applications, and garbage collection does not play nicely. In Java, you pay for what you don't use.

As a point on this: Most of a game isn't processor intensive, or even computationally expensive. Those operations are reserved to a small number of tightly optimized inner loops. With the general acceptance of OpenGL or DirectX, and dedicated physics processing systems, those loops no longer live inside the program, so people generally don't see them anymore. They most certainly, are not written in C++, and without them, you'd have a chunk of your code written in highly ordered C or assembly. Consider DOOM- largely written in C++, but not the fast bits!

But you still have collision detection, AI, the various game scripts, game input, driving sound, real-time hard disk loading, network communications, etc. And you have to drive OpenGL and DirectX, and all those data going in out of these libraries are certainly faster to pump using C++ rather than Java.

So I reject this: Whatever language is "best" is because it's already the greatest common factor in a development group, because that doesn't really mean "best", it means "minimum acceptable".

You may as well reject it as much as you like, but you can't shadow the fact that C++ is one of the most successful programming languages around. And don't say anything about how other languages are much better, 'cause I can give you a million reasons why they are not (in many cases the reasons are not about the language, though).

Re:Is this a joke?

[mrsbrisby]

In C++, you don't have to pay for what you don't use. ... but how can you blame C++, the language, because one vendor screwed it up?

This sounds like Bjarne's FGA on the subject. The fact is that there is no perfect C++ compiler- Typechecking, virtual overloading, and so on, all come with a cost. But consider this, nonbeliever: If you avoid every C++ feature, how is it you're programming in C++?

You have no idea about modern game development, do you? Writing a modern video game is way more difficult than any other kind of application.

I doubt that. Do you have any facts to back that up?

No. You can't rely on Java, because video games are real time applications, and garbage collection does not play nicely. In Java, you pay for what you don't use.

Beware, "real time" means something very different to computer scientists than you're presently using it to mean. Java most certainly can deliver realtime performance- that is, deliver results within a hard and fixed time limit. Nearly all languages can be architectured in this manner.

But you still have collision detection, AI, the various game scripts, game input, driving sound, real-time hard disk loading, network communications, etc. And you have to drive OpenGL and DirectX, and all those data going in out of these libraries are certainly faster to pump using C++ rather than Java.

Again you use the term real-time, and I don't think it means what you think it means. Most video games are not realtime applications. They aren't, because they don't need to be. Not these days. Most hard disks and controllers don't deliver realtime results, and won't unless you do things like disable the cache, and use a realtime operating system- things that generally make the game slower, not faster.

But next time, if you ever decide to find out what it is you're talking about, I'll still be here.

You may as well reject it as much as you like, but you can't shadow the fact that C++ is one of the most successful programming languages around. And don't say anything about how other languages are much better, 'cause I can give you a million reasons why they are not (in many cases the reasons are not about the language, though).

Read the fucking message. "Better" is such an extremely subjective term that you're a goddamned illiterate retard if you have no idea what I'm talking about: If I have to write a program to process a logfile, and I'm only going to use it once, what fucking use is C++ going to be besides slow me down?

Perl, Awk, and Sed would all be excellent candidates for this. You want to cry about the fact that your favorite programming language sucks at something? Or do you really want to say that C++ is best at building video games because it's fast?

Guess what: Other languages are much faster. Some are faster because they're more deterministic (C), others are faster because compilers are simply more mature (Java). Others still are faster because they can cheat and solve the problem completely differently (Haskell, P/LISP).

Maybe it's because C++ is pervasive that it's good, maybe it's because C++ is as flexible as people keep pointing out that it's pervasive- after all, newcommers to computer science frequently only learn one or two languages, and I don't suggest for a minute that C++ probably isn't one of them.

But if you got this far, you've still missed the underlying philisophical problem with this: That C++ is "best at being known", instead of actually being the best tool for any particular given job.

Re:Is this a joke?

[master_p]

This sounds like Bjarne's FGA on the subject. The fact is that there is no perfect C++ compiler- Typechecking, virtual overloading, and so on, all come with a cost. But consider this, nonbeliever: If you avoid every C++ feature, how is it you're programming in C++?

You don't get it, do you? typechecking is always done statically at compile time, unless you use dynamic_cast; virtual overloading is not avoidable, if you want message passing. C++'s mentality is that you can avoid the cost of what you are not using; so if you don't need virtual methods, you don't use them. If you only need stack allocation, then you don't pay the cost of allocating everything on the heap.

I doubt that. Do you have any facts to back that up?

modern video games have incredibly tight loops, multiple threads of execution, network I/O, controller I/O, real-time file I/O (if they are using disk spooling), fully fledged guis (especially PRGs), etc. Check out any modern video game on the PC to see that.

The Unreal engine alone is over 1 million lines of code.

Also check out this link.

Beware, "real time" means something very different to computer scientists than you're presently using it to mean. Java most certainly can deliver realtime performance- that is, deliver results within a hard and fixed time limit. Nearly all languages can be architectured in this manner.

In order to use real-time Java, you have to pay for IBM's real-time scheduler and garbage collector. Mainstream Java ain't real-time, not even for games. There may be Java games out there (especially on mobiles/PDAs), but we are talking about games with millions of lines of code and many man years behind them.

Read the fucking message. "Better" is such an extremely subjective term that you're a goddamned illiterate retard if you have no idea what I'm talking about: If I have to write a program to process a logfile, and I'm only going to use it once, what fucking use is C++ going to be besides slow me down?

There is no need to get angry, or curse, or call names. Can't you discuss politely?

If you don't like C++, then don't use it. Personally, I like it a lot, and for certain tasks is the best language there is. I already told you which tasks are that. And if C++ had garbage collection, it would be suitable for a lot more.

Perl, Awk, and Sed would all be excellent candidates for this. You want to cry about the fact that your favorite programming language sucks at something? Or do you really want to say that C++ is best at building video games because it's fast?

We are talking about serious programming languages here; Perl certainly does not qualify.

Guess what: Other languages are much faster.

I am always reading that, but there has never been a conclusive benchmark that proves it. Especially the 'much' faster part.

Some are faster because they're more deterministic (C)

C is not more deterministic than C++. For the tasks C++ does, C would have to implement them at least in the same way, albeit with much uglier syntax. Take message passing, for example: you can't get faster than vtables. The only difference is that C++ does it in a better way, whereas in C it is more difficult and error-prone.

others are faster because compilers are simply more mature (Java)

I am still waiting for the benchmark that proves that. Guess what? there is not such a beast. Even if the Java hotspot compiler can optimize a series of instructions better on a specific machine, overall Java has enough 'hotspots' to make it slower, overall, than C++.

Others still are faster because they can cheat and solve the problem completely differently (Haskell, P/LISP).

I have never seen a benchmark proving Haskell faster than C++. When Haskell can sort 100,000 records in a database as quickly as C++, then come and talk to

Re:Is this a joke?

[mrsbrisby]

You don't get it, do you? typechecking is always done statically at compile time, unless you use dynamic_cast; virtual overloading is not avoidable, if you want message passing. C++'s mentality is that you can avoid the cost of what you are not using; so if you don't need virtual methods, you don't use them. If you only need stack allocation, then you don't pay the cost of allocating everything on the heap.

That's a lie. C++ most certainly does do type-checking at run-time.

modern video games have incredibly tight loops,

No they don't. They have an event-pump and a timer. Tight loops are done in hardware these days.

multiple threads of execution,

Only to work around API problems. Threads make for slower execution because the cost of context switching is high (esp. on x86).

network I/O,

No they don't. That's the operating system. Usually it's kernel. On most systems, that's written in C. Note that NDIS is written in C.

controller I/O,

What controller are you talking about?

real-time file I/O (if they are using disk spooling),

Ah, no. Real-time doesn't mean what you think it means. Furthermore, Windows doesn't have any Real-time File I/O interfaces. Nor should it, it's not a real-time operating system.

It supports asynchronous I/O operations, but then, the AIO interface is written in C.

Realtime does not mean "fast".

fully fledged guis (especially PRGs),

Ah no. GDI is written in C. GTK/GNOME is written in C. These things do not require C++.

The Unreal engine alone is over 1 million lines of code.

So what? Do you have the source code? Is it really all C++? What about the code for the GPUs actually drawing things? You know, the parts that have "tight loops"?

but there has never been a conclusive benchmark that proves it. Especially the 'much' faster part.

Here you go.

C is not more deterministic than C++. For the tasks C++ does, C would have to implement them at least in the same way, albeit with much uglier syntax.

But that syntax is explicit.

Take message passing,

C++ doesn't support message passing. Objective-C does.

you can't get faster than vtables.

Ah no. A perfect hash will always beat vtables.

The only difference is that C++ does it in a better way, whereas in C it is more difficult and error-prone.

No, that's wrong. What does if (a << b) do? What code does it evaluate? Do you know?

C++ hides these things, ergo, without knowing what a is, and having it's source code, you cannot tell what the C++ is doing.

I am still waiting for the benchmark that proves that. Guess what? there is not such a beast. Even if the Java hotspot compiler can optimize a series of instructions better on a specific machine, overall Java has enough 'hotspots' to make it slower, overall, than C++.

Here's one you can try at home: Compile this program:

#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
puts("Hello World!");
}

Compiled with gcc, this produces a file 4695 bytes long. Compiled with g++, this produces a file 5104 bytes long. To make sure this actually changes the code, main() starts at 0x8048384 and ends at 0x80483ab in C++, but only runs from 0x8048434 and ends at 0x804845f. Clearly, that dynamic type checking you were talking about, not only exists, but has a cost.

I have never seen a benchmark proving Haskell faster than C++. When Haskell can sort 100,000 records in a database as quickly a

Re:Is this a joke?

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

I'm completely lost as to why it's a good idea making: if (a << 1) mean anything but to check if anything but the highest bit is set, or a[0] mean anything different than *a.

a[0] means the first element of a, which is some sort of arrayish container. *a means what a points to. The only reason you expected them to be the same is that in C, arrays were implemented as a pointer and the elements that follow that pointer in memory. An array and a pointer have nothing to do with each other in theory. (In C, you can also use 0[a], because x[y] is defined as *(x+y). In C++, there's actually a meaning to each side.)

C++ is best handled when you quit thinking about "how" and look at "what". It's got encapsulation and stuff, after all: the operation [] implies nothing more than element access. I can have some crazy object mersenne such that mersenne[20] goes on the Internet and finds the 20th Mersenne prime. What exactly would you expect *mersenne to reference? The web page where it finds all this? (And don't say this should be a function, because this makes more logical sense as an array/container - a list of items - than a function - something that does something. The fact that it goes to the Internet is an implementation detail.)

And yes, there's a practical use for this. You can overload the indexing operator on an array to take a coordinate as the index. Then you can define coordinate addition (or if you're feeling technical, coordinate + direction addition). This lets you do convenient things such as map[location + NORTH]. Imagine looping over the 8 directions in C - you'd have to have int dir[8][2] and call map[x+dir[i][0]][y+dir[i][1]]. Much less elegant.

Overloading is really designed for when you know the types. I'm sure Stroustrop could reasonably have used += and -= for the string insertion and extraction, if you have a problem with the shift operators. But imagine what you get when you call stdout << "hello" in C. It takes the value of stdout and left-shifts it by the address of "hello" - what you'd expect if you're conversant in C, but it is the silliest thing ever for that command to do.

I can't figure out exactly how to control deallocation order when calling destructors during stack unwinds, and I can't figure out how to control allocation order before main().

Why? Your allocations and deallocations aren't idempotent and independent? And why, exactly, are you making global objects that interact before main() starts?

I'm still unclear why we need four different casts, and I'm still unclear why it's a good idea to have two functions with the same name and data types (save the const or signed keywords, which aren't really supposed to modify the data type)- lest the evil C++ genies make my code call the wrong one.

You shouldn't really use casts, if you're programming in pure C++. You use inheritance and operator int() to manage that. So long as your cast is reasonable (and not, say, to or from a void*), it will handle it automatically. The four casts are syntactic salt, so you know when you're going againsts the grain. C++ is supposed to be a different paradigm than C, where you leave type handling and overloading resolution to the compiler. Now it was designed as "C with classes" so it would use the same syntax - which is kind of silly, I'd admit. But if you can wrap your head around C++ as a different language from C, I think you'll understand it better.

Re:Is this a joke?

[master_p]

That's a lie. C++ most certainly does do type-checking at run-time.

Nope. That's not an example of C++ typechecking. That's an implementation strategy to solve a particular problem. It has nothing to do with typechecking.

No they don't. They have an event-pump and a timer. Tight loops are done in hardware these days.

Nope. They have multiple loops, one of them being the event loop you mention. But they also have other loops, some of them tight enough to need C++.

Only to work around API problems. Threads make for slower execution because the cost of context switching is high (esp. on x86).

Nope. Games do not have 100s of threads; the problem of context switching comes in only when the threads are many. Games have threads for I/O, for AI computations etc.

No they don't. That's the operating system. Usually it's kernel. On most systems, that's written in C. Note that NDIS is written in C.

Oh yes they do. All multiplayer games do that.

What controller are you talking about?

Joystick, mouse, keyboard.

Ah, no. Real-time doesn't mean what you think it means.

I never said "hard realtime". But it is real-time nevertheless, unless you want your game to frequently pause.

Furthermore, Windows doesn't have any Real-time File I/O interfaces. Nor should it, it's not a real-time operating system.

I never implied that it is.

It supports asynchronous I/O operations, but then, the AIO interface is written in C.

But it is used by C++, which C is a subset of (not an 100% subset, if you are pedantic).

Realtime does not mean "fast".

It does, from the user's perspective.

Ah no. GDI is written in C

GDI is not the GUI, it is the GUI engine.

. GTK/GNOME is written in C. These things do not require C++.

KDE is based on Qt. Full C++. And the BeOS? Full C++ as well.

So what? Do you have the source code? Is it really all C++? What about the code for the GPUs actually drawing things? You know, the parts that have "tight loops"?

I don't, but those quotes are from the makers of the engine. I believe them.

here you go.

Ha, ha, what a joke. I've seen this so called "benchmark" which benchmarks whole programs (including start up and cleanup) and uses heap allocation in C++ where it is not needed. Not only has this benchmark been debunked elsewhere (search for it, I am too lazy), but it does not actually count method call speed, but also heap initialization and allocation. If you don't allocate the objects with 'new' and you measure the loop repeately, C++ smokes Java. Especially if you compile it with Intel's compiler.

But that syntax is explicit.

So?

C++ doesn't support message passing. Objective-C does.

It does. Virtual methods is message passing.

Ah no. A perfect hash will always beat vtables.

No, it won't. A perfect hash, i.e. array indexing, will always be slower, because the target has to be calculated from an array's base, whereas with vtables there is no calculation.

No, that's wrong. What does if (a << b) do? What code does it evaluate? Do you know? C++ hides these things, ergo, without knowing what a is, and having it's source code, you cannot tell what the C++ is doing.

What a lame argument. And what 'form.show()' does? what code does it evaluate? do you know? Java hides these things, unless you read the fscking manual.

Compiled with gcc, this produces a file 4695 bytes long. Compiled with g++, this produces a file 5104 bytes long. To make sure this actually changes th

Re:Is this a joke?

[mrsbrisby]

Nope. Games do not have 100s of threads; the problem of context switching comes in only when the threads are many. Games have threads for I/O, for AI computations etc.

Wrong. Context switching on x86-based systems is about a hundread times more expensive than a PUSHALL/JMP operation.

[Networking] Oh yes they do. All multiplayer games do that.

No they don't. They use the BSD socket API (or a derivative) where the actual network communication occurs in kernel-space, a block of code, written in C.

The highest-throughput network applications are not written in C++. Consider the Net100 and the Web100 projects for details.

Joystick, mouse, keyboard.

These are examples of extremely low bandwidth devices. On x86 systems, they generate interrupts- and do not have to be polled. As a result, they aren't "realtime" on any system.

I never said "hard realtime". But it is real-time nevertheless, unless you want your game to frequently pause.

Stop using realtime to mean something other than what it is. It's not hard-realtime, it's not soft-realtime.

It does. Virtual methods is message passing.

No it isn't. It's a vtable lookup. Message passing is about the receiver knowing what to do with the message, whereas vtables require the function calling the virtual method know which methods are available (at least to the base class).

Consider Java or Objective-C message forwarding, or mach primitives to know what message passing is.

KDE is based on Qt. Full C++. And the BeOS? Full C++ as well.

Did I say you couldn't find an example of something written in C++? You can find entire operating systems written in Oberon. That doesn't mean that it's the "best" at it, or even particularly "well suited".

Nevertheless, QT is not written in C++. It's written in MOC because C++ doesn't (or at least G++ didn't implement at the time) have a message passing facility.

No, it won't. A perfect hash, i.e. array indexing, will always be slower, because the target has to be calculated from an array's base, whereas with vtables there is no calculation.

That's what I'm talking about. You think you get something for free. Use objdump to see what a vtable lookup actually looks like in assembly. Compare to the movl/addl/movl[] operation that a perfect hash can (usually) use.

What a lame argument. And what 'form.show()' does? what code does it evaluate? do you know?

It calls a routine called "form.show". It may or may not block. If I'm debugging code near a form.show() routine, I know to look at or near the source to the show() routine. If I see a line that says if (a<<b) I'd either have the choice of guessing that meant they're checking if the lower (32-b) bits of a are clear, or I'd have to check every single line of code in C++, hopefully with some really awesome crossreferencing tools.

I don't trust any human being to audit C++ in that manner: but at least with C, you know exactly where control can be transferred and where it cannot.

Also note: Java doesn't support overloading operators.

I've seen this so called "benchmark" which benchmarks whole programs

You've already contradicted yourself. You said you had never seen any benchmark.

So you've never programmed in C++ then?

I never said that. I just said I never want to use the wrong tool. I never said I never use the wrong tool.

Go to Bjarne Stroustrup's site and read the testimonies.

Bjarne is a second-rate programmer with a first-rate ego. At least, even He admits that C++ isn't best at anything, but good at lots of things (see his point in FAQ on "multi-paradigm")

I

Re:Is this a joke?

[master_p]

Clearly, you don't know how to debate. You always counter-argue my arguments without me actually having said what you claim I said.

Wrong. Context switching on x86-based systems is about a hundread times more expensive than a PUSHALL/JMP operation.

I NEVER SAID that. I said that the overhead for context switching is noticable only when there are 100s of threads.

No they don't. They use the BSD socket API (or a derivative) where the actual network communication occurs in kernel-space, a block of code, written in C.

Again, I NEVER SAID that. The BSD socket API is BLOCKING, and therefore you need THREADS to take advantage of it.

These are examples of extremely low bandwidth devices. On x86 systems, they generate interrupts- and do not have to be polled. As a result, they aren't "realtime" on any system.

I NEVER SAID those devices need realtime polling. I said that they need to be polled at some point, and that's a loop which, if the game should be responsive, is 'tight'.

Stop using realtime to mean something other than what it is. It's not hard-realtime, it's not soft-realtime.

I'll use it as I see fit - without changing its wider meaning, of course.

No it isn't. It's a vtable lookup. Message passing is about the receiver knowing what to do with the message, whereas vtables require the function calling the virtual method know which methods are available (at least to the base class).

Wrong. Vtables is an implementation of message passing. Message passing does not require a level of knowledge of the target.

Consider Java or Objective-C message forwarding, or mach primitives to know what message passing is.

Wrong again, about Java. If the type of the receiver does not support the message, the compiler does not accept it.

Did I say you couldn't find an example of something written in C++? You can find entire operating systems written in Oberon. That doesn't mean that it's the "best" at it, or even particularly "well suited".

How come BeOS, praised to be one of the most advanced O/Ses, coded mainly in C++, does not prove C++ is not 'well suited'? same goes for KDE/Qt.

Nevertheless, QT is not written in C++. It's written in MOC because C++ doesn't (or at least G++ didn't implement at the time) have a message passing facility.

Wow, don't say that to Trolltech, unless you want to be passed as an alien from outer space :-). Qt is totally C++, and the MOC simply compiles the macros to C++ files.

That's what I'm talking about. You think you get something for free. Use objdump to see what a vtable lookup actually looks like in assembly. Compare to the movl/addl/movl[] operation that a perfect hash can (usually) use.

Nope. Vtable lookup is one instruction in 80x86.

Also note: Java doesn't support overloading operators.

So? operators are just another way to invoke a function. It is only syntactic sugar, and nothing else.

You've already contradicted yourself. You said you had never seen any benchmark.

I meant I have never seen any benchmark which conclusively proves that other languages are faster. There is always bias.

Bjarne is a second-rate programmer with a first-rate ego. At least, even He admits that C++ isn't best at anything, but good at lots of things

Second-rate programmer? you know him personally?

But you can't demonstrate this?

What it is to demonstrate? you want the best filesystem around? BeOS, 64-bit, full journalling, metadata and indexing, written in 10,000 LOC, in C++. Qt, the

Re:Is this a joke?

[mrsbrisby]

I said that the overhead for context switching is noticable only when there are 100s of threads.

And I said you don't get anything for free. "Not noticable" sounds highly suggestive.

The BSD socket API is BLOCKING, and therefore you need THREADS to take advantage of it.

Someone needs to tell that O_NONBLOCK then. BSD sockets support nonblocking just like every other fd.

Wrong. Vtables is an implementation of message passing. Message passing does not require a level of knowledge of the target.

Close: Message passing requires that there not be knowledge of the target. If you take away forwarding and the ability to handle unknown messages, it's no longer message passing. vtables can't do either, ergo, vtables are not message passing.

Wrong again, about Java. If the type of the receiver does not support the message, the compiler does not accept it.

java.lang.reflection says you're wrong.

Wow, don't say that to Trolltech, unless you want to be passed as an alien from outer space :-). Qt is totally C++, and the MOC simply compiles the macros to C++ files.

I don't disagree that MOC compiles to C++, I'm saying that MOC works around problems with C++ and so therefore cannot be counted as C++.

The fact that many C++ programmers don't know the difference is discouraging.

Repeat after me: the MOC DOES NOT ADD OBJECTIVE-C FEATURES TO C++. THE MOC SIMPLY COMPILES MACROS TO LEGAL C++. IT IS A FREAKING PREPROCESSOR!

MOC adds message passing to C++. You may treat it as a "fraking preprocessor", but since the input looks like a normal method, and the output is a much more costly hashtable lookup, and two method calls, I call it hiding complexity.

Fortunately, that MOC does add those two objective-C features that C++ lacks: the ability to dynamically create and send messages, and the ability to receive and handle unknown messages.

Nope. Vtable lookup is one instruction in 80x86.

Check again. That's not a vtable lookup, that's an indirect function call you're thinking of. Vtable lookup is used solely for virtual method dispatch- i.e. the caller knows that the method is supported, but doesn't know where the implementation is.

So? operators are just another way to invoke a function. It is only syntactic sugar, and nothing else.

So you're telling me that when you see: a++ you immediately think oh shit, there's yet another line that can generate an exception, open/write to a file, etc? How can C++ ever be audited if you have to check every single operation that occurs.

Operator overloading is dangerous voodoo that makes any language supporting it, unsuitable for secure or bulletproof programs.

1) C is a subset of C++

No it's not. C++ is syntacitically similar to, but largely incompatible with C. int new; is completely valid C, but completely invalid C++.

2) you forgot SQLServer and Oracle.

No I didn't. This is about what is a language best at. If the best databases aren't written in C++, then what does it matter if there exists a database that is written in C++?

For what it's worth, the actual storage operations in Oracle happen to be written in C.

You are nitpicking. There are very few C features that C++ does not compile.

No I'm not. C++ treats a (void*) cast very differently than C treats it- I have to explicitly label all void* cast types before and after C++ use. C++ can't call C symbols unless they are surrounded with extern "C" { ... }. C++ has a large number of reserved words that aren't reserved in C. C++ assumes all struct{}s are also typedef'd into

Re:Is this a joke?

[master_p]

"And I said you don't get anything for free. "Not noticable" sounds highly suggestive."

Of course you don't get anything for free. If you would, you would violate Physics.

"Someone needs to tell that O_NONBLOCK then. BSD sockets support nonblocking just like every other fd."

Not on Windows. Windows have a different API for asynchronous networking. And when you use networking, you implicitely use context switching as in threads anyway.

"Close: Message passing requires that there not be knowledge of the target. If you take away forwarding and the ability to handle unknown messages, it's no longer message passing. vtables can't do either, ergo, vtables are not message passing"

Ok, since you are going to play that game, I'll be here all week: vtables IS message passing. When you have a set of polymorphic classes, you don't know the target.

"java.lang.reflection says you're wrong."

Wrong. Java reflection has nothing to do with message passing.

"I don't disagree that MOC compiles to C++, I'm saying that MOC works around problems with C++ and so therefore cannot be counted as C++."

The MOC does not work around C++ problems, it simply adds functionality to it. And the functionality it adds has nothing to do with message passing.

"MOC adds message passing to C++. You may treat it as a "fraking preprocessor", but since the input looks like a normal method, and the output is a much more costly hashtable lookup, and two method calls, I call it hiding complexity.

Fortunately, that MOC does add those two objective-C features that C++ lacks: the ability to dynamically create and send messages, and the ability to receive and handle unknown messages."

No! you are hugely mistaken! I am a Qt developer. The MOC does not add message passing at all. It simply creates a C++ file that adds introspection capabilities to Qt Objects. Introspection has nothing to do with message passing: I can not send any message to a Qt object like calling a method.

"Check again. That's not a vtable lookup, that's an indirect function call you're thinking of. Vtable lookup is used solely for virtual method dispatch- i.e. the caller knows that the method is supported, but doesn't know where the implementation is."

No, you check again. Vtable lookup in the C++ context means 1) a load of effective address and b) a jump (at least in 80x86).

"So you're telling me that when you see: a++ you immediately think oh shit, there's yet another line that can generate an exception, open/write to a file, etc? How can C++ ever be audited if you have to check every single operation that occurs."

In the same way Java can be audited.

"Operator overloading is dangerous voodoo that makes any language supporting it, unsuitable for secure or bulletproof programs."

You failed to explain why.

"No it's not. C++ is syntacitically similar to, but largely incompatible with C. int new; is completely valid C, but completely invalid C++."

No, it is largely compatible with C, as in 99% compatible. The example you mention does not fall into the incompatibility domain: any extension of a language could simply use a word that some program uses as an identifier.

"No I didn't. This is about what is a language best at. If the best databases aren't written in C++, then what does it matter if there exists a database that is written in C++?"

But that is what I am saying: Oracle and SQL Server are the best databases, and they are written in C++.

"For what it's worth, the actual storage operations in Oracle happen to be written in C."

Which is a subset of C++. And what about SQLServer? it is written in C++, you know, as all Microsoft apps.

"No I'm not. C++ treats a (void*) cast very differently than C treats it- I have to explicitly label all void* cast types before and after C++ use."

That does not change the meaning of a C program used in C++.

"C++ can't call C symbols unless they are surrounded with extern "C" {

Re:Is this a joke?

[mrsbrisby]

That does not change the meaning of a C program used in C++.

You say this alot, but if the program refuses to compile, or compiles but crashes in new and exciting ways, you're wrong.

No, it does not. sizeof('a') is 1. At least that what MSVC 8.0 and MingW32 give me.

sizeof('a') == sizeof(int) in C. Code compiles, but acts differently, and as a result: You're wrong.

Verify just how wrong you are if you like:

#include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { printf("%d\n",sizeof('a')); }

Prints "1" when compiled with g++, and prints "4" when compiled with gcc (on my system).

"C++ requires I define variables only once."

Watch this program compile in any C compiler:

int i;
int i=5;

Look, you're wrong again!

"Structures are scoped in C++ and not in C."

Watch this program compile in any C compiler:

struct foo { struct bar { int x }; }; struct bar y;
Look, you're wrong again!

"Function pointers can't be used unless they're surrounded with extern "C"."

Here, they'll compile on many systems, but they'll crash! You either have to compile all the code with C++ (including the bits that you only have binary-only blobs for), or edit the source.

"So what? Did I ever say there was no software written in C++ that was good? Did I say all C++ software is terrible? That it's always slow? That it's not fast? That C++ can write many different things?"

Yes, you implied that.

And you implied that you know C, you don't.

You might know C++, but since you don't know C, you're left with only two options: (a) You don't know C++ either, or (b) C++ isn't a superset of C. I'd hope it were easier for you to believe the latter, because it's much easier to not know something you don't use every day.

I declared it from the beginning: I am using the term 'real-time' in a wider sense. Are you too stupid to understand that?

Unfortunately, mathematicians and computer scientists aren't allowed to coopt definitions just because they feel like it. I rejected your wider sense because you haven't given me any reason to believe your definition is more useful than the ones I suggested, i.e. "quickly" or "interactively".

You may contend that as long as you like, but reality is different.

Reality is demonstrated.

You don't know C.

Can other languages do RAII?

Visual Basic.

Can other languages do as finegrained allocation as C++?

More so. I frequently use a big char[] or double[] buf, and allocate smaller chunks out of it. By using .bss in this way, I get a speed boost on startup (something very useful on UNIX) because the pages my program needs are already available, and my program never has to call brk()

But since allocation is performed by the object (especially in RAII), this performance-boosting method is completely unavailable when using C++.

Can other languages allow the programmer to use machine code so easily, as needed?

Err, unless your machine code is in a char*, that's assembly, and C++ has nothing to do with it. In any event, C is easier in this situation because objdump doesn't have to deal with demangling names.

But a language that is good at most tasks is preferrable from a language that is the best in less tasks. It allows the programmer to do more things with less trouble.

I disagree with your assertion, and this is probably why we're arguing in the first place. Languages are tools. I restrict my C programming to security barriers- where I have to write code that I, and others on my team must audit. 100% secure is what we need. I

Re:Is this a joke?

[master_p]

You say this alot, but if the program refuses to compile, or compiles but crashes in new and exciting ways, you're wrong.

The refusal to compile does not make the program behave differently. It does not change the behaviour of the program; in other words, it does not crash in places that it did not before.

sizeof('a') == sizeof(int) in C. Code compiles, but acts differently, and as a result: You're wrong. Verify just how wrong you are if you like: Prints "1" when compiled with g++, and prints "4" when compiled with gcc (on my system).

I did what you mentioned before and both MSVC 8.0 and Mingw32(i.e. gcc on windows) say sizeof('a') == 1.

Watch this program compile in any C compiler: int i; int i=5; Look, you're wrong again!

Nope. MSVC says "c:\temp\test1\main.c(3) : error C2086: 'int i' : redefinition".

Watch this program compile in any C compiler: struct foo { struct bar { int x }; }; struct bar y; Look, you're wrong again!

Ok, I admit I am wrong on this one, unlike you that you have not admitted all your mistakes.

I don't claim I know all of C, but I have used a large part of it, nevertheless.

Here, they'll compile on many systems, but they'll crash! You either have to compile all the code with C++ (including the bits that you only have binary-only blobs for), or edit the source.

Or you have to compile it with '#ifdef __cplusplus extern "c". It is not that difficult.

And you implied that you know C, you don't.

The fact that I have used C extensively in my professional career and in hobby project does not mean I remember 100% of it every time I am asked. If you claim you can remember exactly 100% of all the standards of the programming language you are using, you are either Superman or you are lying.

You might know C++, but since you don't know C, you're left with only two options: (a) You don't know C++ either, or (b) C++ isn't a superset of C. I'd hope it were easier for you to believe the latter, because it's much easier to not know something you don't use every day.

I will say it again: for all practical purposes, C can be considered a subset of C++. Please note the bold part. Maybe it gets in your head this time.

Reality is demonstrated. You don't know C.

So in that light, you don't know sockets, either. See previous discussion which you conventiently avoided to continue.

You also don't know Java, since the benchmark you presented is ridiculus (to say the least).

Visual Basic.

You wanted to say "Visual Basic Classic" maybe. Because Visual Basic .NET does not have it. And since Visual Basic Classic is obsolete, there goes your argument.

You also forgot D.

More so. I frequently use a big char[] or double[] buf, and allocate smaller chunks out of it. By using .bss in this way, I get a speed boost on startup (something very useful on UNIX) because the pages my program needs are already available, and my program never has to call brk() But since allocation is performed by the object (especially in RAII), this performance-boosting method is completely unavailable when using C++.

use an allocator pool. There are several available. Or write your own; it is trivial. And if you use a statically allocated block of memory, then Windows will allocate the pages for you on start up. I have actually used this on the copying garbage collector I wrote once.

Unfortunately, mathematicians and computer scientists aren't allowed to coopt definitions just because they feel like it. I rejected your wider sense because you haven't given me any reason to believe y

Re:Is this a joke?

[mrsbrisby]

The refusal to compile does not make the program behave differently. It does not change the behaviour of the program; in other words, it does not crash in places that it did not before.

Are you kidding?

Read the rest of my post. It most certainly crashes in places it did not before. Refusing to compile/run, means it acts differently. Either metric you chose, you're still wrong.

I did what you mentioned before and both MSVC 8.0 and Mingw32(i.e. gcc on windows) say sizeof('a') == 1.

Then according to Bjarne, MSVC 8.0 isn't a C compiler. Regarding MingW32, I have no idea what you did wrong. Perhaps mingw was setup to emulate MSVC for compatability purposes.

Nope. MSVC says "c:\temp\test1\main.c(3) : error C2086: 'int i' : redefinition".

Then MSVC isn't a C compiler. Have a good day. GCC compiles hapily.

I don't claim I know all of C, but I have used a large part of it, nevertheless.

Or you have to compile it with '#ifdef __cplusplus extern "c". It is not that difficult.

But these are changes! How can something be a superset if it requires changes to be compatible?

I accept Objective-C as a superset as it doesn't require changes. There is no extern "C" in objective-C, there is no new casts, all C code is valid Objective-C code.

If you REALLY THINK C++ is a superset of C go ahead and compile something big like the Linux kernel with a C++ compiler and see how far you get.

use an allocator pool. There are several available. Or write your own; it is trivial. And if you use a statically allocated block of memory, then Windows will allocate the pages for you on start up. I have actually used this on the copying garbage collector I wrote once.

It's not the same thing. You cannot allocate multiple objects out of a static pool in C++ and still get initialization. All of your constructors would need to shadow their allocations against the static buffer, which means uglier code.

So in that light, you don't know sockets, either. See previous discussion which you conventiently avoided to continue.

So let me get this straight. You'd rather not know C or C++, just so I don't know Winsock?

I wasn't going to argue with you on it because this wasn't my point, and it wasn't your point. Your point is that C is a subset of C++, so I wanted to focus on those elements. But if you insist: Winsock most certainly responds to ioctlsocket(h,FIONBIO,...). Yes Virginia, you most certainly are wrong.

You also don't know Java, since the benchmark you presented is ridiculus (to say the least).

Boo hoo. You said you had never seen a benchmark demonstrating Java as being faster than C++ at some things. You never said a valid one, nor gave a criteria of what a valid one would look like.

You wanted to say "Visual Basic Classic" maybe. Because Visual Basic .NET does not have it. And since Visual Basic Classic is obsolete, there goes your argument.

Why? Because you say so without justification?

Fine. I accept that you're wrong.

I will say it again: for all practical purposes, C can be considered a subset of C++. Please note the bold part. Maybe it gets in your head this time.

Can be considered a subset by you, a person who admittedly "doesn't know C all that well."

Besides, Bjarne disagrees with you.

Oh, and before you bring it up, my favorite part about that link is how he lies three times in the same answer:

``However, C++ supports every programming technique supported by C.''
-- As I've established, not true. C++ cannot mak

Re:Is this a joke?

[master_p]

Read the rest of my post. It most certainly crashes in places it did not before. Refusing to compile/run, means it acts differently. Either metric you chose, you're still wrong.

Nope. Take any C program, put in C++, modify it a little with trivial changes which don't alter its meaning, and it runs as before.

Then according to Bjarne, MSVC 8.0 isn't a C compiler. Regarding MingW32, I have no idea what you did wrong. Perhaps mingw was setup to emulate MSVC for compatability purposes.

MS VC++ is a C/C++ compiler.

Then MSVC isn't a C compiler. Have a good day. GCC compiles hapily.

You are a GCC funboy, aren't you?

But these are changes! How can something be a superset if it requires changes to be compatible?

I never said 'subset' with the mathematical meaning. I said the term loosely. Just like Stroustrup said: Well written C tends to be legal C++ also. For example, every example in Kernighan & Ritchie: "The C Programming Language (2nd Edition)" is also a C++ program.

I accept Objective-C as a superset as it doesn't require changes. There is no extern "C" in objective-C, there is no new casts, all C code is valid Objective-C code. If you REALLY THINK C++ is a superset of C go ahead and compile something big like the Linux kernel with a C++ compiler and see how far you get.

I doubt you can compile the Linux kernel with anything else other than GCC.

It's not the same thing. You cannot allocate multiple objects out of a static pool in C++ and still get initialization. All of your constructors would need to shadow their allocations against the static buffer, which means uglier code.

Of course you can. It's called 'placement new'.

So let me get this straight. You'd rather not know C or C++, just so I don't know Winsock?

Thanks for proving my point about your debate qualities. I just mentioned an example of your wrong way of thinking.

I wasn't going to argue with you on it because this wasn't my point, and it wasn't your point. Your point is that C is a subset of C++, so I wanted to focus on those elements. But if you insist: Winsock most certainly responds to ioctlsocket(h,FIONBIO,...). Yes Virginia, you most certainly are wrong.

Nope. My point is that, C programming can exist in C++: for most purposes, C can be considered a subset of C++ (even though it is not a subset in the strict sense), thus allowing programming techniques of C to exist in C++, making C++ hitting directly the metal if there is a need.

Regarding winsock, internet is your friend (and certainly with this kind of communication you have all the time to look something up).

Boo hoo. You said you had never seen a benchmark demonstrating Java as being faster than C++ at some things. You never said a valid one, nor gave a criteria of what a valid one would look like.

If you want to measure method call performance, you don't include allocation and startup time in your benchmark. Long before this debate, I have known the benchmark you presented, analysed it, and modified it to be a proper test: I measured how long a virtual method call takes without measuring object allocation and application startup. And C++ was slighly faster than Java.

Fine. I accept that you're wrong.

Fine. And I accept you are wrong in the Java benchmark, as well as in a couple of other points.

Can be considered a subset by you, a person who admittedly "doesn't know C all that well."

I never said that. I said I don't remember all of C by heart.

You are very good at twisting the other person's words though.

As I've establi

Re:Is this a joke?

[mrsbrisby]

Nope. Take any C program, put in C++, modify it a little with trivial changes which don't alter its meaning, and it runs as before.

Then, once modified, it's no longer C.

I never said 'subset' with the mathematical meaning. I said the term loosely. Just like Stroustrup said: Well written C tends to be legal C++ also. For example, every example in Kernighan & Ritchie: "The C Programming Language (2nd Edition)" is also a C++ program.

No, you just make up terms as you go to serve your purposes. Bjarne says a lot of things that aren't true.

I doubt you can compile the Linux kernel with anything else other than GCC.

Well surely, G++ would support any GCC extensions. That is, if C truly is a subset of C++.

Of course you can. It's called 'placement new'.

In other words, you have to modify the classes in order to support this allocation behavior.

Nope. My point is that, C programming can exist in C++: for most purposes, C can be considered a subset of C++ (even though it is not a subset in the strict sense), thus allowing programming techniques of C to exist in C++, making C++ hitting directly the metal if there is a need.

Alright then. So C is not a subset of C++.

So if you restrict yourself to the capabilities of C++ that are similar to C, how is it that you're taking advantage of C++?

I've already established that there is a cost to each of those features, and that it is difficult for most programmers (including yourself) to see those costs.

Bjarne outlines a very specific manner of coding which is considered "good C++ form", and that form is decidedly different than C.

I already told you about that. You can audit every line of C++ code too. And if you meet an overloaded operator, you can go the file it is declared and audit the function.

Absolutely, except how do I know what's an overloaded operator without checking each and every one of them?

I didn't say auditing C++ code was impossible, I said it was impractical, but I'll accept practically impossible as well. C++ hides code branches.

You are fooling yourself if you think that it is feasible to code in such a manner. Clients do not want 150 different executables for an application. This style of programming is not applied in Unix any more, as even commands and facilities have become quite complex.

Of course it's still in UNIX. gcc is made up of a few dozen executables. Postfix is made up of about a dozen executables. Qmail is made up of about a dozen executables. TinyDNS is made up of a dozen executables. Even something simple like making and compressing an archive still takes three executables. And there's nothing wrong with this!

Clients don't care how many executables something is. They care about performing a task. If it's one executable, or a dozen, they don't care. It doesn't affect how their tasks are accomplished, just how concious the developer is to tha gains to be had.

Next thing you're going to tell me, is that you know UNIX too.

Good luck making an application like Word or Excel broken into 150 pieces and have it work properly.

Good luck making Word or Excel work properly.

Anyway, Word and Excel most certainly are broken up into many different pieces, or are you going to tell me that DLLs can't live in their own address space in Windows? What exactly does DCOM do again?

Excuse me? Where is my err? You said you don't know C

That's one error.

Really now?

Your exact words were I don't claim I know all of C, but I have used a large part of it, nevertheless. and yet, you insist on making a claim that requires knowledge of all C, and that is that all C is a subset of C++.

It d

Re:Is this a joke?

[master_p]

"Then, once modified, it's no longer C"

It is not C by the ANSI standard. It is C by any practical measurement.

"No, you just make up terms as you go to serve your purposes."

Initially I clarified how I use the term 'subset'.

"Bjarne says a lot of things that aren't true."

Stroustrup is one of the most clever people out there.

"Well surely, G++ would support any GCC extensions. That is, if C truly is a subset of C++."

G++ is a member of GCC, i.e. the GNU compiler system (*term used loosely gain).

"In other words, you have to modify the classes in order to support this allocation behavior."

Wrong. You have to allocate your classes like this: new(memory_block) Foo; you don't have to modify the classes.

"Alright then. So C is not a subset of C++."

It can be considered a subset for all practical purposes.

"So if you restrict yourself to the capabilities of C++ that are similar to C, how is it that you're taking advantage of C++?"

I never said that you should. You should use whatever is appropriate. The point is that C++ allows you to mix C techniques with OO with functional programming etc.

"I've already established that there is a cost to each of those features, and that it is difficult for most programmers (including yourself) to see those costs."

The cost is unavoidable if you want to do certain things; for example, the cheapest way of doing OOP is with vtables (no, perfect hashes ain't better).

"Bjarne outlines a very specific manner of coding which is considered "good C++ form", and that form is decidedly different than C."

Bjarne also says "in C++ you don't pay for what you don't need".

"Absolutely, except how do I know what's an overloaded operator without checking each and every one of them?"

By checking the type of the variable, then going to its definition. Usually very few classes have operator overloading.

"didn't say auditing C++ code was impossible, I said it was impractical, but I'll accept practically impossible as well. C++ hides code branches."

No, C++ does not hide code branches.

"Of course it's still in UNIX. gcc is made up of a few dozen executables. Postfix is made up of about a dozen executables. Qmail is made up of about a dozen executables. TinyDNS is made up of a dozen executables. Even something simple like making and compressing an archive still takes three executables. And there's nothing wrong with this!"

But those are all different programs who do not need to communicate with typed information. They are essentially different applications. They have a loosely coupled interface between them. Whereas different parts of Word (for example) have a strong coupling between them in various terms and therefore they can not be different executables.

I would accept your argument if the C compiler was composed of different executables: a lexer, a parser, an AST processor, an IR generator, a back end. Unfortunately for you, such modularization exists only at source code level, for performance reasons.

"Clients don't care how many executables something is. They care about performing a task. If it's one executable, or a dozen, they don't care. It doesn't affect how their tasks are accomplished, just how concious the developer is to tha gains to be had."

Of course they care. The maintenance cost is just as important.

"Good luck making Word or Excel work properly."

They already do. Millions of people use them every day. And Word is a little shaky, but Excel is rock solid.

"Anyway, Word and Excel most certainly are broken up into many different pieces, or are you going to tell me that DLLs can't live in their own address space in Windows? What exactly does DCOM do again?"

DLL modularization is different than executables communicating through pipes.

"Your exact words were I don't claim I know all of C, but I have used a large part of it, nevertheless. and yet, you insist on making a claim that require

That is rediculous

[TylerMoney]

Man, you know how terrible it would be without that key? I use that key all the time. Sure there are some programs I use in which there are quick keys to do it, but sometimes it's still faster to just HIT CAPS let that be that.

Re:That is rediculous

[Anonymous Coward]

So is your spelling.

Solutions already exist!

[myom]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colemak ...and of course the multitude of methods to remapping the CAPS key tome something more useful, such as a second backspace key (just as in the Colemak keyboard layout)

Re:Solutions already exist!

[Anonymous Coward]

multitude of methods.

Consider this

[Stormcrow309]

There is a reason for the CAPS LOCK key. Some times, like in business, people need something to be in complete caps. Just be a good hacker and get everyone who abuses it's name and home address and Jay and Silent Bob it. I suggest an ergonomic axe handle, easier on the wrists.

Notice: This is a work of farce and I in no way advicate the use of violence to hurt people who abuse caps (as much as we would like too) or destroy property (for example: keyboards, cable modems, computers, houses). Anyone who seriously would use such tactics needs to be on some good medicine. (Might I suggest this, this, or even this and this. Such same approaches as someone who would wage war against the caps lock key. As I am not a physician, if you take my advice without consulting a physician, then you are jacked up crazy.)

April 1st

[voya]

April 1st called. They want their joke back.

Re:April 1st

[Wooloomooloo]

The sad part is that right now this is the most commented article on the front page.

worst...idea...ever

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoever doesn't use their capslock key doesn't know how to use their keyboard.

Whenever you have to type more than one capital letter in a row you should use capslock. It saves keystrokes, is faster, and easier than using shift keys. Would you like to trade repetative stress injury for shouting?

Anyone who says they don't use more than one capital letter in a row is a moron. This idiot is so against shouting thats all he can think of. What about acronyms and abbreviations? RIAA, MPAA, SCO, MS, DHS, QT, C++, USA, UK. Try typing that without your Caps Lock.

parent is a troll

[oliverthered]

The image isn't a Goatse image is just an image of a keyboard with the caps lock button highlighted and the title DONT USE CAPS LOCK.

Not very intersting but not Goatse.

Re:parent is a troll

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you were hoping for teh GOATSE?

Used Extensively in Construction Industry

[SFBwian]

While I hardly use it outside of my employment, those of us in the construction industry use it all the time. If you've ever seen a Architectural, Structural, Civil, etc. drawing, it would be hard for you to find lowercase letters.

What will we have to do if caps lock goes away, press shift 5 times?

Re:Used Extensively in Construction Industry

[Anonymous Coward]

What will we have to do if caps lock goes away, press shift 5 times?
Nah, just hold it...

Re:Used Extensively in Construction Industry

[pebs]

What will we have to do if caps lock goes away, press shift 5 times?

Honestly, I just hold down shift whenever I need to write in all caps. Caps lock just screws me up, because I end up doing sTUFF lIKE tHIS.

Re:Used Extensively in Construction Industry

[Stu22]

There are two shifts, how about shift-shift?

Re:Used Extensively in Construction Industry

[Overzeetop]

kIND OF FUNNY...shit, been in autocad all morning. ( really should look at the monitor instead of my fingers when I type)

Anyway, the bit about architecture is true. Though I did have a friend/CAD tech who wrote a small lisp routine for AutoCAD at a previous employer that would reverse the caps lock functionality in AutoCAD only. By leaving the caps lock off, you had normal text everywhere else and caps in CAD. it was spiffy, but I didn't take it with me when I moved.

Re:Used Extensively in Construction Industry

[geekoid]

Sure, make more work for others because you can't type.

in addition

[yagu]

If you're going for getting rid of keys, let's add the WINDOWS Menu key to the mix. First and foremost I'm offended any keyboard gets the privelege of "branding" by Microsoft without my choice in the matter. Secondly, I don't know how many times I've bumped that frigging key only to have unexpected chaos on the screen when subsequent keystrokes go for unintended targets (usually some application I wasn't looking for).

It's the first key I remove from my keyboard.

Re:in addition

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah!! Thank YOU! Agree totally with you! Not only has a brand it's own keys they modyfied the STANDARD layout to make them fit!! What more, on a laptop with limited space for keys the manufacturers has to cram in those extra "windows" keys!! Amazing that a company has that strong influence on the hardware makers. I can hardly imagine they appeared because the masses demanded it?!?

Total elimination shouldn't be the goal....

[King_TJ]

I see a few comments already from people defending Caps-Lock for reasons such as having a requirement of keying large amounts of data in upper-case only for business systems. (Yes, there are still a lot of "legacy" databases out there that allow people to enter a person's name or street address in upper or lower-case, but subsequent searches are case-sensitive. Therefore, the data entry folks are asked to enter everything in caps to avoid issues.)

While I'd rather see this addressed as a software change, I realize that's not always going to happen. Still, the fact that something like this is becoming the best argument available for a Caps-Lock key illustrates the overall lack of usefulness of it.

I would never suggest that it's somehow an "advantage" to completely eliminate a feature. So I don't advocate removal of a Caps-Lock option. I like the idea of standardizing on moving it to another place. Heck - I'm not even sure it needs to be another typable "key". What about a toggle switch or push-button in the corner of the keyboard someplace where it won't accidently get hit?

SHIFT LOCK KEY!

[Anonymous Coward]

wHAT WE REALLY NEED IS A SHIFT LOCK KEY INSTEAD

(all small letters to make slashdot happy wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww)

Re:SHIFT LOCK KEY!

[Snarfangel]

I'd prefer a shift lock (located underneath the shift key) rather than a capslock next to the A. It would make it easier to type out comic book profanity !@@%!$%%^*&^!

Actually, we should just scrap capital letters altogether, and use a Shavian "naming dot" if we need to indicate proper names.

Just do it yourself

[paulatz]

I have removed the "suspend" key from my keyboard a long time ago, why don't you just remove the CAPS-LOCK key from your keyboard and don't even try to teach me what I need and what I don't?

There are far more important fights

[UnHolier than ever]

First of all, take off the scroll lock and pause/break keys. You need to read history books to figure out what they're for. Then get rid of the windows key and that weird "Start menu" key on keyboards (not just microsoft keyboards nowadays, pretty much all keyboards have those). Then get rid of the "Email" and "Media" and other buttons they so helpfully add to pad the top part of keyboards, because they weren't large enough already. What is "Email" suppose to do anyway? Is it receive, or send, or check inbox, or just open Outlook Express? Or is it a tube-cleaning button to make sure you receive all those internets as fast as possible? THEN we can talk about the capslock, a key which I actually use from time to time.

Programmers use it

[Anonymous Coward]

When doing lots of #defines, for example.

cut-n-paste #define a dozen times, then turn on caps lock and type in the values.

Meh!

[WED Fan]

Now there's a cause...no, nevermind.

I learned typing the old way, on a mechanical Underwood. I still love my CAPS LOCK key. If modern computer users can't figure out how to use it properly, then maybe we should declare war on them.

Maybe it's time for the hunt-and-peck gang to learn to type?

I'll write you in for Senator!

[swschrad]

about time that friggin useless thing got blasted. there should be a blank space in that position on the keyboard. or a noise key... hit the former caps lock key, the phaser sound squeals. that way, you get your satisfaction on posting flames and trolls, and nobody else suffers. oh, and NO CAPS appear.

I'll sign up, IF

[JetScootr]

You also delete the useless keys that Microsoft forced us to accept:
F11, F12 (F1-F10 are seldom all used), Those two stupid "windows flag" keys, whatever the hell they do, and that key next to the right CTRL key that I keep hitting that changes my window focus and pops up the start menu. There's also those buttons on the newer keyboards - buttons that have no apparent function whatsoever: one's symbol is an envelope, another is a house that I'd like to burn down, one has a "Q" and one has the universal symbol for "outhouse" (a crescent moon). Or maybe that has something to do with Islamic symbols, like "push this button to make a donation to the Red Crescent (instead of the Red Cross)".

And I've never see the "Pause" button pause anything. Ctrl-Pause will break into Unix/Linux apps, but I can do that with Ctrl-Z easier. "Print Screen" only does so when combined with Ctrl. "SysRq" has never done anything at all that I'm aware of, I don't even know of any apps that use or what scan codes it generates.
I could go on, but I'm beginning to rant...

Re:I'll sign up, IF

[ledow]

F11 F12 - fair enough but then, why get rid of two keys that don't get in the way of anything and can reprogrammed to do lots of "generic" commands just like the other 10.
Windows keys - arguably more useful, especially for Windows OS, but reprogrammable on Linux to do similar jobs
"Extra" keys - ARGH... scrap them,
Pause - Erm... used as Pause in a lot of games/emulators although that's not it's original usage and is WELL NAMED and out of the way. Leave it alone.
Print Screen - Although badly named nowadays it does work on both KDE and Windows without needing Ctrl (ctrl limits it to just a single window IIRC) and everybody knows that it's really a "screenshot" key - rename it if you must but it's actually, again, out of the way, and has a clearly defined use (albeit not it's original intention).

Re:I'll sign up, IF

[geekoid]

funny, I use thjose keys often.

When I need to watch information during post, before the window logon, I use pause.
I use all the f* keys.
I use the sindows keys to get out of full screen apps quickly - I am looking at you WoW.

As for those other keys, well if you don't want to figureout how to use the keyboard, thats your problem.

the print svreen captures the screen, and in fact alt-printscreen only grabs the window that had focus. very usefull when user have an error message you need to see.
Some games use print screen as well to capture screen shots.

As for the Sysrq - I don't recal using it, but that doesn't mean someone in a different industry isn't using it all the time.

Here is a good rule - Before changing something, figure out what it does first.

Re:I'll sign up, IF

[geekoid]

"thjose "
Apparently I like the j key a little too much.

Re:I'll sign up, IF

[toddestan]

I do use the pause button occasionally, as on most computers it will pause those BIOS screens that flash up when you turn on the computer which you usually don't have enough time to read.

caps lock and cnrl

[notjim]

I have swapped caps-lock and cnrl, i thought everyone did: how can you use emacs with the cnrl key over there? http://www.cabochon.com/~stevey/blog-rants/effecti ve-emacs.html

Dell Bios

[mombodog]

On a serious note, how will anyone reset the NVRAM in a Dell Bios without the caps lock key? Why can't we have choices on Keyboards anyway? I think I will start a new business, Custom Keyboards Inc. Don't want that key(s) on your custom keyboard, no problem! Too late.... http://www.fentek-ind.com/keyboard.htm

I AM BIFF

[Anonymous Coward]

"WHO IS BIFF?"
  BIFF IZ A REELY K00L D00D !!1 HE P0STS 2 THE NET FR0M HIZ
BIG BROTHERS C-64 !!111 BIFF IS AWESUM

Re:I AM BIFF

[neuraljazz]

DAMN. I do miss BIFF at times.

Probably, other than Kibo, the first real internet attention whore.

Other prime targets...

[TopShelf]

There are other old-school keys that should be removed long before CAPS LOCK, like Scroll Lock and Pause/Break. Actually, the most annoying thing I see on newer keyboards are keys for Sleep and Power. After the first time I accidentally hit the Power button and watched my PC shut down in the middle of a WebEx, I tore the damn thing right out of the keyboard...

Option "XkbOptions" "ctrl:nocaps" does exist!

[giggls]

Option "XkbOptions" "ctrl:nocaps" does exist for years now, so where is the Problem?

Sven

Panic

[ursabear]

I love my mother, but IT'S IRRITATING THAT SHE TYPES IN ALL CAPS. IT'S HARD TO READ, AND MAKES ME IMAGINE HER SCREAMING THE WORDS. So, I'm not fond of all caps...

Perhaps we could lobby to replace the caps lock key with the return of the Panic key?

I have found the Panic key to be more useful, and, in many situations, much more satisfying to press (especially repeatedly and with ever-increasing force?)!

Re:Panic

[British]

We should have a widespread "lameness filter" on every input form on the web. If someone types in something in all caps either

1. reject it outright
2. Convert to lower case.

Re:Panic

[geekoid]

yes, change an industry screw up the millions that use it because you can't communicate netiquitte to you mother. May she IS yelling at you?

I mean really, she could just yell down the stairs to get your attention.

Useless key? I think not.

[mrjackson2000]

the capslock key is NOT useless, mine is on 90% of the work day, and almost everyone else in the office has theirs on 100% of the day, CAD drawings are all caps, and thats what capslock is for, all caps.

Kill insert while you're at it!

[dens]

Great idea, I wholeheartedly agree! I recently bought a new PC (from Cyberpower) and the keyboard came without an Insert key. I thought immediately "this is sheer brilliance!". I've never pressed that key on purpose, and whenever I do, a lot of cursing follows when I notice that I've pressed it. The same thing goes for CapsLock! Kill 'em both!

When I first started programming, in character-mode DataFlex, just about all existing source code was written in all uppercase. What a bloody pain in the neck to read and maintain!

I don't know ...

[wanab12]

how anybody in our company would send an email. It seems that everything is so urgent that all email requires ALL CAPS!

Isn't it still needed

[MECC]

Isn't the caps lock key still needed to enable a player to run all the time in Doom? Isn't that reason enough to keep it?

if you have to hold down another key to run all the time, aren't you more likely to die from lack of speed? Without the caps lock key, wouldn't we would have to evolve another digit to hold down some other key to run, manuver, and shoot more effectively?

Think of the emacs!

[JabberWokky]

On behalf of emacs users around the world, let me ask you to please stop your efforts... Caps Lock makes for such a perfect meta key when reassigned. It would be a crying shame if you were to persist and that lovely key, so large and handy and reassignable, were to disappear forever.

--
Evan

Agreed

[MichailS]

Make a bigass SHIFT instead. Move Caps Lock to the Print Screen island, begone the Windows keys and MAKE USE OF BUCKLING SPRINGS AGAIN.

The above typed capitals were all typed with right little finger on the right SHIFT button, as any computer literate should do it.

Why not

[eebra82]

I do need the capslock key occationally, so I am not sure why you want it removed. After all, there is a plethora of key remappers for all major operating systems. If you don't like that key, then remap it to whatever makes you happy.

On a sidenote, my old guy still uses the capslock whenever he's typing a capital letter. In other words, to type "Hello", he uses Capslock, H, Capslock, ello. :)

Re:Lost developer productivity? Health issues?

[pslam]

Couldn't agree more.

All these people declaring the capslock key useless are simply slow typists who have missed a trick all this time. Using capslock when you're typing a long string of uppercase letters is just plain efficient.

I suppose at some point in the future I'll be one of those guys who has to pay extra for a damn capslock-layout keyboard so I can keep that advantage vs you slow typists.

absolutely ridiculous

[stormi]

This idea is absolutely ridiculous. Capslock is a very valuable key when you're typing a lot of acronyms, and even with an acronym once in a while it has been proven that it's faster to type it with capslock down rather than use shift for each letter. We learned as much in middle school typing class. Secondly, I happen to utilize the capslock key quite often at my job when I type in supplier codes which are sequences of capital letters and numbers. If it bothers you so damned much rip the key off your keyboard.

Caps Lock is already dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Read all about it: http://www.qliner.com/hotkeys/capslock/

Pry it off

[McWilde]

Just pry it off already! It takes about a second (or a bit longer if you can't find anything to pry with) and doesn't require all the world to join you in your goal. I've been removing Caps Lock and "windows" keys for years. Some of my friends and co-workers are doing the same.

Is this a fucking joke?

[phlegmofdiscontent]

I mean, seriously, I know some people really hate the caps lock key (despite its usefulness to other people), but this is one guy who started a group on Google and acts like it's some massive grassroots campaign. I think Slashdot got punk'd on this one.

And really, if you don't like a key, remap it or remove it. I myself have removed the "Windows" key (it always interfered with my Doom playing) and the letter Q (because who the hell needs to use that one?).

Re:Is this a fucking joke?

[Aladrin]

Punk'd? It's the owner of the site saying this. I really really doubt he fooled himself into posting this... Unless he had access to a timemachine or possibly a short-term memory eraser... Or he was tattooing himself with notes because he had no short-term memory at all.

Re:Is this a fucking joke?

[skinnytie]

If you've removed the Q key, how did you type that?? Alt 081?

Re:Is this a fucking joke?

[ToxikFetus]

If you've removed the Q key, how did you type that?? Alt 081?

You know, I think you're on to something here. We could make a keyboard with just 11 keys: the numerics and the ALT key. Sure, it would be a pain in the ass to use, but think of the simplicity! What could be more elegant than a teeny-tiny one-handed keyboard? I better get moving on this before Steve Jobs steals my idea...

Re:Is this a fucking joke?

[skinnytie]

http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/6c82/

Re:Is this a fucking joke?

[carambola5]

I myself have removed ... the letter Q (because who the hell needs to use that one?).

Whoa! How'd you type...

My mind reels.

Re:Is this a fucking joke?

[Anonymous Coward]

the letter Q (because who the hell needs to use that one?).

My name is Quagmire Q. Quincy, you insensitive clod!

Re:Is this a fucking joke?

[JamesD_UK]

> and the letter Q (because who the hell needs to use that one?).

The Queen you treasonous clod.

Re:Is this a fucking joke?

[Yer Mom]

Just remember: if you do remove the letter Q, do not throw it into a privet bush.

Re:Is this a fucking joke?

[phlegmofdiscontent]

What I mean is the poster may have started his site as a joke and Taco took it seriously. So now his site is flooded with traffic and he's laughing his ass off because thousands of Slashdotters are taking it seriously too.
Maybe it just comes down to the wrong categorization. If there had been the Monty Python foot instead of the spoon, things would be different.

What will we have to do if caps lock goes away?

[JetScootr]

Stop yelling at each other.
Then there's the guy who says "I have to be able to yell at people - My doctor told me to reduce stress!"

Re:What will we have to do if caps lock goes away?

[b0s0z0ku]

Stop yelling at each other.

This is the construction industry, boy, not some namby-pamby cubicled office. How else will we hear each other above the noise of jackhammers and power saws?

:) -b.

Some wars must be fought

[cycojesus]

Yes, thiS KEY IS QUIte annoying. I alWAYS HIT IT AT THE wrong tiME !

$ LS
zsh: correct 'LS' to 'ls' [nyae]?

I physically removed them years ago

[ctdownunder]

With caution and some a good fitting pliers I have removed the caps lock key from all my keyboards for years. You can easily put them back if needed.

This has stopped for good the accidental "caps lock on" very annoying problem for high speed -but admittedly my own low quality- typing.

And in fact...

[lm747]

several other equally useless keys could be removed just as easily.
Caps Lock, Num Lock, PrtScr/SysRq, Scroll Lock, Insert, and the entire keypad that activates with num-lock.

With so many keys reduced, maybe we could get keyboards to be a buck or two cheaper and less intimidating to new users...

FORGET CAPS LOCK

[fatdaveinthesky]

The real villain is the Windows key. Does anyone EVER use this key? How often have you been typing and accidentally hit the windows key? You can't even use backspace, you need to stop, use the mouse, and then get out of whatever menu has just opened. Oh, and the "any key"...when are they going to finally install that one?

Double U, Tee, Eff?

[Chas]

How the fuck is self-promotional bullshit like this "News for Nerds"?

Last I checked, April 1st only came once a year, and we've already celebrated it.

yeah!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a regular Richard Pryor!

Especially on SUN Keyboards

[acomj]

As someone who switches between machines frequently at work, I always have trouble with SUN keyboards which insist on switching the caps-lock and control keys. I always hit "control" (caps lock on sun) AND THE REALIZED CAPS LOCK IS IN A DIFFERENT PLACE SO TYPE THE REAL CONTROL KEY THEN AFTER TYPING relize I hit the caps lock key.

Switching these keys would increase Suns market share 10%.

Re:Especially on SUN Keyboards

[Temkin]

Sun makes several types of keyboards. The PeeCee layout has the caps lock next to the "A". The proper sanctified & holy Unix keyboard has the control key next to the "A".

Re:Especially on SUN Keyboards

[sien]

I was wondering if someone would bring this up.
It does feel odd, but the thing is, Sun is right and the rest of the world is wrong. Putting a big CTRL key in place of the caps lock key is a great idea, emacs becomes so much nice like that.
Of course, because it is isn't the standard it's annoying, but well, they are 'right' in some way.

Leave me alone

[CAPSLOCK2000]

Please don't do this, or explaining my nickname will take even longer.

rip it off

[ALpaca2500]

I rip the caps lock key right off of my keyboard, because i'm always accidentally pressing it when i'm aiming for tab or shift. on the rare occasion i need to turn capslock on, i can stick a pen through to press the button...

Am I the only one...

[Spritzer]

...who feels like he's just read an article on theonion.com

Why get rid of it... Just move it out of the way.

[Anonymous Coward]

And why do we have F1 through F12? (Earlier computer keyboards only had to F8, if any) And why waste the real estate with that nasty numeric keypad (real typists learn where the number are above the QWERTY line, assuming standard keyboard) And of what use is the Scroll Lock.. etc. Some people/systems seem to need or like these enhancements. The big problem is that the Caps Lock key is placed where it is too easily "hit" by a typist. And unlike the old fashion keyboard where you had to really press it and "lock" it into place, a simple touch and you are tOAST. Moving it to a new location (standardize this location immediately) would solve most of the problems.

Case sensitivity in programming languages

[Jeremy Singer]

Billions of person hours are wasted by developers because of case sensitivity in programming languages.
If you want to use case for readability, by all means. Just don't require uniqueness based on case sensitivity.

C, C++, Java...

[DrPizza]

... all of these benefit extensively from caps lock. As all have a de facto standard of writing certain kinds of thing (macros, constants) in all-caps, I find I use my caps lock rather frequently. Much quicker to hit caps lock and type normally than have to bounce my shifting from left to right.

I use Caps Lock to switch languages

[Anonymous Coward]

This is possible to configure with Unix-like systems, and much better than Ctrl-Shift-whatever.

Discriminatory

[LittleGuy]

If we get rid of the Caps Lock key, how will the Hard-Of-Hearing be able to read messages?

Re:Discriminatory

[thewierdnut]

WHAT?

Re:Discriminatory

[hugzz]

If caps-lock keys are outlawed, only outlaws will have caps-locks keys!

Think of the poor....

[Jaguar777]

You can't get rid of Caps Lock.

Won't someone think of the COBOL programmers?

I could not agree more.

[Jerk City Troll]

Capitalisation, with the exception of the first letter of sentences, proper nouns, and acronyms, is a presentation effect. That is to say, your data should use proper capitalisation and only when presenting it should you modify that. (To give an example, this is what font-variant and text-transform are for in CSS.) Allow me to put it another way: the authoritative instance of information should always be in the correct form, and you can mangle it to your hearts content after that. And since we do that programmatically, there is never any reason for someone to create data replete with capital letters. Hence no need for the caps lock key.

Re:I could not agree more.

[smash]

Yeah i'm sure going to use a presentation engine to format my C code so that I can read it tomorrow...

Let me guess, you'd be an EMACS users? :D

CapsUnlock

[dargaud]

Download and install CapsUnlock. Problem solved. And you can still use it if you really want.

Re:CapsUnlock

[daskinil]

seems like that might be the reason to why I hate windows and windows users. All their applications or problems are solved by running another deamon,... some little system tray icon that exists to take up rescources. Now wether a caps unlock program takes up any rescources isn't my point. But i love fixing a friends computer and finding that they have 10 or more programs they rarely use installed in their system tray at boot up. Do you really need programs such as quicktime running beforehand so... it opens faster when you actually use it (like once every 6 months). Either way, i agree with the founder of this thread- the CAPS Lock key belongs in that group of 3 buttons (you know what i mean, Print Screen, Scrooll Lock, Pause) the buttons you rarely use but you sometimes wish to activate. Either that or make it some hotkey like Ctrl+shift+L. I don't know how many times i'm programming and hit the cap lock in place of tab key. very annoying.

Re:CapsUnlock

[Wisconsingod]

It's not about disabling caps lock, it's about real estate. The caps lock holds alot of space on the keyboard, much more than it's worth. It's like parking a mobile home in the middle of a 3 acre lot in the middle of manhatten, refusing to build anything else on the property. There is nothing wrong with having that mobile home, it's just in the wrong place.

Re:CapsUnlock

[spyrochaete]

BS apps like Quicktime are an assault on Windows users, not a result of their "active ignorance". Anyone with an iPod is forced to run Quicktime at all times. You can thank Apple, makers of a popular non-Windows platform you may have heard of, for that gem.

If Windows users installed memory-resident apps implicitly then you can be sure there wouldn't be so many running behind the scenes. Alas, greedy companies like Adobe and Apple and Nero think computers have nothing better to do than be ready to pounce like a jungle cat the moment their bimonthly updates are released.

Long story short, it's not fair of you to hate Windows users for their "passive ignorance". Most Windows users are too dumb to know what's going on behind the scenes, just like most car users are too dumb to know what's going on under the hood. Amongst other things, computers are a tool to do a job - a means to an end. You can use a ratchet for years without knowing that it's getting rusty inside.

Re:CapsUnlock

[hab136]

BS apps like Quicktime are an assault on Windows users, not a result of their "active ignorance". Anyone with an iPod is forced to run Quicktime at all times. You can thank Apple, makers of a popular non-Windows platform you may have heard of, for that gem.

You can turn the system tray thingy off. Go to control panel and double-click the QT icon. Select 'Browser Plug-in' from the drop down list, you should see 'Quick Time system tray icon' option.

So "force" is the wrong word, since it doesn't actually force you.

Apple Quicktime, Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Office and yes - even Firefox - all have an option to have a system tray applet stay resident, so that when you access the application, you don't have to wait for it to load. If you have lots of memory and use the application often, it's actually a decent compromise. You can turn off all of them.

Re:CapsUnlock

[spyrochaete]

Firefox has a tray app? Mozilla had one but I haven't found a Firefox one. Please link me a URL if you know how to install this because that's one app I use often enough to benefit from a resident quickload!

I still say "force" is the right word, though. Installing an app and providing an option buried in menus is not as honourable as asking whether you'd like the memory resident app installed in the first place. Most of those apps must be disabled with msconfig which is a very roundabout procedure and is too complex for most ordinary Windows users.

Unneccesarily memory-resident apps are a big problem in the Windows world. Have you seen a new Dell machine the first time it is turned on?

Re:CapsUnlock

[marcosdumay]

Complain all you want about resident programs on Windows, but don't EVER suggest another combo to get the function of a key.

The legacy CTRL + s is trouble enought (Windows user rejoice, you are better than Linux on that - hell, one can't win everytime :).

Re:CapsUnlock

[daskinil]

i agree force is still the right word, all my best friends when i fixed up their computers cause of rediculous lag (old laptops mind you) i'd ask why they had all this stuff in their system stay. The answer "it came that way" didn't think it did anything bad. After i systematically removed them- they thanked me when their computers actually ran again, not 8 minutes to open firefox, however noone that firefox has that option is nice. Good to know they have the decency not to enable it by default, *stares at netscape*. Although netscape has a good reason,... it takes about 15-20 times the wait to open the browser from scratch.

Either way, I do hate the way dell does their computers. When i got my laptop, after unistalling the 50th app. (not making this number up) i decided there was nothing i could do to get a truly clean Windows Environment, and formated. While i was at it i free'd up 5gb more space taken up by the restore partition. First think i want on a 40gb drive is to lose a massive portion to a backup cause dvd restore's cost an extra 50 cents.

And I chose my words badly the first time. I was not flaming and 'hate' was a strong word but i overly use it. Its frustrated trying to help a friend who has thoroughly abused his OS. Btw, I've heard of Mac OS but i fail to see what their OS has to do with their use of a system tray by default on Quicktime for Windows. Although I love the feigned ignorance sarcasm approach. However I';; conceed, I did forget they packaged quicktime with ITunes, I always install Quivktime Classic for my distaste of having iTunes forced on my for use of watching a video. And i do not have an iPod so it never phased me.

Re:CapsUnlock

[daskinil]

its almost disgusting your implied suggestion that save should become its own button. I wasn't aware Ctrl + S was legacy. And if thats a troublesome keystroke then i suggest you practice. Cause it comes as fast as a normal keystroke for me.

Are you saying does windows have an alternative to that ? Cause ctrl + s works in most linux apps i use.Unless you think its faster to take your mouse and hit File->Save while typing, (which, of course, linux has too)
Please reply though, still use windows and can't tell the difference of saving in either.

Re:CapsUnlock

[hab136]

Firefox has a tray app? Mozilla had one but I haven't found a Firefox one. Please link me a URL if you know how to install this because that's one app I use often enough to benefit from a resident quickload!

Hmm, may have been Mozilla that I was thinking of. Try this: http://minimizetotray.mozdev.org/

(In development) -Turbo option for Firefox and Thunderbird. MinimizeToTray implements this popular feature from the Mozilla application suite. Have a Firefox tray icon and menu always available, even if no browser window is open. Or have Thunderbird launch directly into the tray only to notify you if you receive mail.

Unneccesarily memory-resident apps are a big problem in the Windows world. Have you seen a new Dell machine the first time it is turned on?

Yeah, I have. Ugh. http://www.yorkspace.com/pc-de-crapifier/

Re:CapsUnlock

[marcosdumay]

Boot Linux. Now go to a text console (CTRL + ALT + F1). Now press CTRL + s. Look at the bright "scroll lock" light.

See the problem? CTRL + s is very easy to misspress (near CTRL + c, but easier yet if you are using emacs, and mispressed CTRL + z while trying to press CTRL + x), and it is very confusing to have the console locked without you wanting it.

Re:CapsUnlock

[daskinil]

sure- but thats assuming windows has a terminal editor in which you can hit ctrl s to save, as far as graphical editors, like Kmail, gedit, kate, and openoffice. The applications which are most similar to notepad, wordpad, outlook, and word... they save as ctrl s. Although i must admit i can't base this on anything since i don't know how to use console editors in windows. Although editors like Emacs and VIM aren't meant to be used by people who don't use the tutorial. As assides from saving - they are wholly unusable without knowing the keystrokes. Also, emacs is an advanced text editor designed mostly for programming needs. Having asside from that I think you might know some information about windows that might help me during graphical errors. How do you switch to a virtual console in windows (equivalent of ctrl alt F1) and what console text editor are you comparing?

Two observations...

[jpellino]

A. and I thought my rants were trivialities foisted on an unsuspecting public, and
2. so go spec one, have a mess made in Taiwan, see how they sell.

Rather than demand this, build the better mousetrap, market the hell out of it and see what happens!

WHAT ABOUT COBOL PROGRAMMERS?

[JavaLord]

MANY OF THEM STILL program in all caps. They would be unhappy.

Re:WHAT ABOUT COBOL PROGRAMMERS?

[fa1uzure]

COBOL? without caps? blasphemy.

While we're at it, War on Backslash

[Durandal64]

Seriously, down with the backslash. It started out nobly enough as an escape character for Unix operating systems, but the poor little guy has been beaten and abused by clueless Windows users. How many times have we all seen fliers on a school bulletin board with URLs that looked like http:\\www.site.com\bla.html? How many times have we heard narrators on radio and TV commercials spell out a URL like "www.site.com backslash bla dot html"? How many times have we all told our relatives "Okay go to this link, 'www.site.com slash bla dot html'" only to spend five minutes figuring out that they think slashes are backslashes, causing them to type in a syntactically incorrect URL?

Our poor friend the backslash has been warped into a disgusting visage of its former self. It's begging to be taken off end users' keyboards. It can't take being typed into browser address fields anymore. It wants us to take it out back and, with a lone tear, put it down for good. And I think we all know the source of our friend's misery: Windows.

Re:While we're at it, War on Backslash

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, a compromise: let's get rid of them both and replace them with the straight up slash thingy. This one: | .

Re:While we're at it, War on Backslash

[mopslik]

Seriously, down with the backslash.

Never tried C/C++ programming, have you?

Yes, I realize you're being facetious.

Re:While we're at it, War on Backslash

[Anonymous Coward]

Erm.... us C programmers like the '\' character... it gives us newline, carriage return, and a literal '\' character, among other things.

Don't make us use Alt+092.... please? Think of the programming children.

Re:While we're at it, War on Backslash

[Durandal64]

Uh, yeah. I know. I was joking.

Re:While we're at it, War on Backslash

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, I have always hated the verbosity of the _\/- Characters and have (in my head) renamed them as follows:
    _ Slack
    \ Slant
    / Slash
    - Dash
I've always felt it to be more intuitive...

I just realized how incredibly dull my life is.

Re:While we're at it, War on Backslash

[JKConsult]

How many times have we all told our relatives "Okay go to this link, 'www.site.com slash bla dot html'" only to spend five minutes figuring out that they think slashes are backslashes, causing them to type in a syntactically incorrect URL?

I've found it easiest to say "type blah blah blah slash, which goes up as it moves left to right". It takes them a second to realize what I mean, but then they don't forget it.

Re:While we're at it, War on Backslash

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we should start calling the Backslash the NASCAR slash.

Re:While we're at it, War on Backslash

[dodongo]

beaten and abused by clueless Windows users

Now just one second. It started because of DOS conventions, not Windows. Not spekaing in defense of Windows, of course, because that would hurt my karma. But seriously, ever used DOS? E.g. command prompt:

c:\>

And path names:

c:\windows\pr0n\ascii\

Having used Linux / BSD for a gazillion years now, it feels like I'm reaching up to Maine in order to type those paths. Yay frontslash!

Re:While we're at it, War on Backslash

[blake3737]

Don't take backslash away, How else am I supposed to explain how \m/ the next Hair band album will be?? You really want me to write out METAL Everytime??

Wait did I use caps lock when I typed METAL or just shift? I Guess i've had two chances to figure that out and havn't bothered to use EITHER of them. Oh no, here I go again!

Re:While we're at it, War on Backslash

[Durandal64]

DOS was simply the first perversion of the backslash. But I think we all know that Windows' popularity is what drove "backslash" into the mainstream's consciousness. And NTFS still uses it as a path separator. Hell, people use it in fucking English papers as a separator because they think it's the correct one. This isn't even limited to computer illiterates. A lot of people who know Windows well pull this shit too. People who post on web boards, too. Why? Because it's littered all over Windows. Windows uses it for network share URIs, paths, digging around the registry, etc ...

It used to be a simple escape character. Now it's like a fucking plague.

Re:While we're at it, War on Backslash

[dodongo]

For some reason, my brain has escape-character backslash stored in a completely different way than file-path-whatever BS backslash. I literally didn't even think of them as the same character until I read the last line of your comment.

Bizarre.

I need my CAPSLOCK

[Jaysyn]

I use CAPSLOCK everyday at work, where nearly all of my AutoCAD text input has to be in capital letters. I don't want to have to press the shift key down everytime I type. Seriously, don't people have better things to do with their energy?

Jaysyn

Caps lock is nothing, the windows key must go

[andrewjj20]

Do you have any idea how much pain and suffering that windows key has caused in game, good thing logitech put the ability to turn the damn thing off on their gaming keyboard. The windows key must go.

Re:Caps lock is nothing, the windows key must go

[anexkahn]

I tottally agree, its unbeleivable how many Frags I have lost due to that key....I ripped it off all my keyboards, well except the laptop :)

Get rid of Shift Instead?

[GoRK]

I knew a guy once who for a period of many months did not realize that the shift key in conjunction with alphabetic key on the keyboard made capital letters. He knew how to use the shift key - but he only used it for symbols and the like when a key was labelled for it. To type capital letters, he pressed CapsLock, typed the letter, then pressed CapsLock again. He never complained, and he had become very proficient with the technique by the time I showed him the alternative. I'm not sure I ever looked to see if he had changed his ways.

Re:Get rid of Shift Instead?

[langedb]

Actually my wife types using the CapsLock instead of Shift for capital letters. She claims that was how they taught her in school. Really odd watching her type things, but it works for her so she sees no reason to change. Yes, I've tried to explain how using Shift was faster, but she still wants no part of it.

Re:Get rid of Shift Instead?

[Willy Wong]

I use caps lock that way and find it much faster than the shift key. When using the shift key I have to hold down two keys at once which makes my finger movement less fluid. It also helps greatly when I need to type a word in all capitals.

Gotta disagree with you there...

[Phil John]

Gotta disagree with you there...the numpad is one of the most useful parts of the keyboard if you are doing a lot of numeric entry (or even just a lot of sums), you can enter numbers, do arithmetic and show the answer without moving your hand more than an inch in either direction. To do the same with the numbers above the QWERTY (or AZERTY for our french cousings) keys you must move your hands much farther and use the shift key if you want to add or multiply.

Hold on...

[trazom28]

Without "Q", there would be no FAQ. Unless you never read that sort of thing.. ;-)

Re:Hold on...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm kwite familiar with frekwently asked kwestion files. In fact, I kweried one for Kwake III the other day.

CIVIL WAR

[Goostoff]

CIVIL WAR: I'm with Num Lock!!

*ahem*

[pbhogan]

I think that's an unfair evaluation. Slashdot is all about garbage collection... this topic proves that. *hides*

Forget about the Caplock key...

[monopole]

kill the Insert key!

aol users?

[bung-foo]

But, if we get rid of the caps lock key how will AOL users out themselves?

Pop it out!

[enven]

I don't want to sound insane...but... Pop the CAPS LOCK key out..with a Screwdriver and you're set...

The keyboard you speak of...

[Anonymous Coward]

The keyboard you speak of already exists. Perhaps you've just joined a group of pirates? Their keyboard does not have a capslock key either: http://carcino.gen.nz/images/index.php/04980e0b/0e 296006

ibm/lenovo has this solved on thinkpads

[philo_enyce]

the keyboard customizer utility that comes with thinkpads totally solves this problem. i have it set to require a few second delay before a click to the caps key is recognized. now caps only comes on when i need it, not when i accidentally press it. i do the same for the f1 key to prevent windows help from popping up. it's good stuff. lenovo just added windows keys to the keyboard, but on older thinkpads you can use the utility to remap the ctrl and alt keys to be the windows keys if you miss them.

i haven't looked for something similar for desktops, but there's got to be some share/freeware out there that could do it.

philo

OK, but can we get rid of some other keys first..

[Anonymous Coward]

like, say, scroll lock? How about insert? Or my pet hate, the stupid fscking WINDOWS keys (hey, I just used CAPSLOCK :) that get in the way of the space bar (I habitually prise them out anyway, but its still a pita). Or that utterly pointless array of "special" keys (with the pretty pictures) that huddle at the top of most keyboards like anally obsessed aliens hovering over a drunken redneck on a back-country road in Arkansas.

Once that's all fixed, sure, go ahead and remove CAPSLOCK. But don't come crying next time you have to edit some old-school fortran or assembly code.

just because you can't use it correctly

[Anonymous Coward]

just because you have difficulty using the caps lock key doesn't mean you have to ruin it for a lot of other people. programmers are one example i can think of where you would need a caps lock key. what about data entry people? just because you have issues using the caps lock key doesn't mean its useless. you just arn't an advanced computer user that needs to use it once in a while. yes it maybe should be RELOCATED on the keyboard, but getting rid of it entirely is the classic example of a selfish want for someone who doesn't have a need to use it. like i said..what about everyone else who NEEDS it. sacrafice the needs of the many for the needs of the few? good logic. :P

No problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I honestly don't have any real gripes about the Caps Lock key. I never use it, but its nice to have just in case. I would perfer if it were up in the area near the Scroll Lock key, since I don't use it except for rare occasions.

As Long As there is Shift

[pete-classic]

AS LONG AS THERE IS A SHIFT KEY I CAN ALWAYS MAKE DUE WITH A PIECE OF MATCHBOOK COVER LOL

(Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.)

STICKY SHIFT KEY!

[nickyj]

Seriously if you have to enter CAPS for alot of things then just hold down shift for 5 seconds, that will bring up the sticky shift key thing in windows XP, (which I think is more annoying than CAPS LOCK).

But I do use CAPS LOCK almost like a temp shift key press. I use it all the time when I'm programming as I name my class globals are in CAPS, just get used to it. What would you put in it's place? People just need to be banned/kicked/etc. for abuse of the CAPS. As I said before... I could just hold down shift and BAM! CAPS are back.

Or worse use a font that the lowercase set is just a dupe of the uppercase set.

Re:STICKY SHIFT KEY!

[way2trivial]

tap it, either side, 5 times.
not hold it 5 seconds

proper keyboard layout.

[uioreanu]

The legend goes that the QWERTY keyboard was also made intentionally clumsy to slow down original typewriters that typed too fast and broke mechanical keyboards. Since we're proposing such a change, why not do it properly this time and create the proper optimum layout?

In other news, the keyboard layout will never change. we're just too used to it, period. These are the lessons that we need to learn We might switch to a better system someday, like this one:

Jeff Han on TED

Re:proper keyboard layout.

[Ansonmont]

DVORAK

Young whippersnapper...

[thewiz]

In my day all we had were CAPS! These new-fangled lower-case letters, "special characters", and function keys are just a waste of keyboard space! All we had were punch cards and paper-tape readers and teletypes! And don't get me started on FONTS...

Caps Lock

[jrmiller84]

As much as I hate the caps lock key, I find it an easy way to filter out the definite idiots from the possible ones.

It's time for a change of the whole layout!

[jimmoores]

I've never understood why people are willing to put up with such a crazy layout as modern 102/103/105 key keyboards anyway. Why doesn't anybody offer a keyboard that has a normal layout in terms of the main keys but with some sensible changes:

* Function keys are rarely used - you need them (I use Eclipse too!), but they can be de-emphasised.
* The numeric keypad is stupid. There should be space, tab and comma keys on it so that it might actually be useful for one-handed data entry!
* Get rid of the stupid windows keys. Most people don't even know what they do anyway.
* Why are there no keys for multiplication, division symbol, bullet point, and a ton of other common symbols? It's like we're still being limited by baudot code or something.
* PrtScn/SysRq, Scroll-lock, Pause/Break and Num-lock are virtually never touched. What is the point of num-lock now that there's an inverted T cursor cluster and related keys.
* Alt Gr - don't even get me started...
* What the hell is that back-tick key doing up in the top left anyway? And why does it look so odd paired with a normal quote?
* As for putting control back where it belongs (I think this one depends on what you first used), the best argument I've heard for not putting it where caps-lock is now is that it belomes very easy to in one stroke hit CTRL-A (often 'Select All') with the following keystroke replacing your entire document with that character. I know Linux doesn't have this problem so much, but since most of the world is using Windows at the moment, it is a consideration.

Re:It's time for a change of the whole layout!

[fritzk3]

What is the point of num-lock now that there's an inverted T cursor cluster and related keys.

Come on, man! What about when I'm playing Civ II and I need to move my Settlers diagonally? Do you expect me to try to push two of the arrow keys at the same time? Hell no! :)

PrtScn/SysRq, Scroll-lock, Pause/Break and Num-lock are virtually never touched.

I actually use PrtScrn once in a while to do a quick-and-dirty screen-cap that I can paste into another app. The one I never use, and still can't figure out why it's there, is that key that simulates a right-click. Do people really use this key?

Re:It's time for a change of the whole layout!

[AK Marc]

The one I never use, and still can't figure out why it's there, is that key that simulates a right-click. Do people really use this key?

I use it all the time when showing off that a computer is quite navigable without a mouse. People bitch and moan that they can't do anything with a broken mouse, then I hop over and use the keyboard only in a manner faster and better than they can use the keyboard and mouse combined. I'd lose some of my geek stature if that key wasn't there, so let's keep it.

Re:It's time for a change of the whole layout!

[DragonWriter]

I've never understood why people are willing to put up with such a crazy layout as modern 102/103/105 key keyboards anyway. Why doesn't anybody offer a keyboard that has a normal layout in terms of the main keys but with some sensible changes:

* Function keys are rarely used - you need them (I use Eclipse too!), but they can be de-emphasised.

I've gota Microsoft keyboard with F1..F12 as secondary functions accessed through an F-lock key, with standard windows shortcuts (Help, Undo, Redo, etc.) now the primary functions of those key. (I got it because it was a wireless ergonomic keyboard and it had the best feel of any I could find; I'm no particular MS fan, but I am a fan of reducing the pain in my fingers.)

* The numeric keypad is stupid. There should be space, tab and comma keys on it so that it might actually be useful for one-handed data entry!

For numeric data entry, the only thing it really needs is a tab. Space and comma aren't really needed. IF the "+" and enter keys were 1½ size instead of double-size, there'd be room for a single-size tab key (I'd actually prefer a single-size "+" with a big Tab and Enter, though.)

* Get rid of the stupid windows keys. Most people don't even know what they do anyway.

Most people might not, I do, and I use them. If you use two hands on the keyboard, they are let easier than reaching for the mouse for some things.

* Why are there no keys for multiplication, division symbol, bullet point, and a ton of other common symbols? It's like we're still being limited by baudot code or something.

Because it would take a metric assload of keys, and there aren't probably aren't enough people who want to use any particular set of additional characters directly to create a clear set of a reasonable number of additional symbols. And the people that really need an expanded set of characters have plenty of available tools to let them remap their existing keyboards to add them.

* PrtScn/SysRq, Scroll-lock, Pause/Break and Num-lock are virtually never touched. What is the point of num-lock now that there's an inverted T cursor cluster and related keys.

Lots of people I know use PrtScn a lot; I'm sure some people use hte rest. Personally, I find the "NumLock off" navigation keys a lot easier to use than the T cursor cluster and separate Insert/Home/PgUp/PgDown for navigation if I have to do a lot of it in, say, a large wordprocessing document. Maybe because many of my early years on a computer were with the old 84-key PC keyboard, but I doubt I'm the only one.

* Alt Gr - don't even get me started...

??

* What the hell is that back-tick key doing up in the top left anyway? And why does it look so odd paired with a normal quote?

I dunno, but TeX would be no fun without it.

* As for putting control back where it belongs (I think this one depends on what you first used), the best argument I've heard for not putting it where caps-lock is now is that it belomes very easy to in one stroke hit CTRL-A (often 'Select All') with the following keystroke replacing your entire document with that character. I know Linux doesn't have this problem so much, but since most of the world is using Windows at the moment, it is a consideration.

The funny thing with "Control" and where it "belongs" is that it was probably only ever where CapsLock is on newer computer keyboards (and on typewriter keyboards old and new) because teletypes, using only a single case of letters (shifting for some symbols) had a shift but no "Caps Lock" key, and so put the "control" key where Caps Lock was on a typewriter to keep everything else the same as typewriter, and early computer keyboards used the layout (and shared the limitations) of teletype keyboards.

Re:It's time for a change of the whole layout!

[Quietust]

* Alt Gr - don't even get me started...

You must be using a European keyboard - US ones don't have "Alt Gr" of any sort.

* What the hell is that back-tick key doing up in the top left anyway? And why does it look so odd paired with a normal quote?

It actually isn't a backwards quote, from what I can tell - it's a grave accent. Why the standard keyboard layout has a lone grave accent key, I have no idea; it probably dates back to typewriters so you could backspace and type the accent on top of an existing character (and ^ for a circumflex and ' for an acute accent, back when it was actually slanted to make it multi-purpose). This is probably also why people still use it for a backward quote in stuff like old man pages, even though ``text'' looks really odd in most modern fonts (there's probably some reason why normal "quotes" can't be used, but I don't know it).

reply.c

[Keith Russell]

#define HEY_SOME_OF_US_HAVE_A_USE_FOR_THAT_KEY 1

Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

It's a post about the Caps Lock key!!! Of course, I'm yelling!!! God, this lameness filter is so bloody stupid!!!

Think of the acronyms, please!

[stuntpope]

I'm sure the folks at SOUTHCOM, ODASD(CN) or JPEO-JTRS sending correspondence to the DEPSEC would disagree with you!

You sir...

[shoolz]

...are the greatest hero in the history of the world.

I mean it.

awhh, cute.

[Anonymous Coward]

I consider this about as serious as "the war on terror"

MODULE ACK.IMP

[kafka47]

W H A T A B O U T M O D U L A T W O ?

MODULE AckAck;

FROM IO IMPORT WRITELN;

CONST MAXACK = 88;

CONST
ackName = "Ack! Ack!";

PROCEDURE ACKACKACK( VAR f: CARDINAL );
BEGIN
WHILE ( COUNT < MaxAck) DO
WRITECHAR(ackName);
WRITE("!!!!");
WRITELN;
END;
END DoUnpack;

Make your new keyboard then!

[Twopher]

Why not make your new keyboard and market it to companies, maybe they'll buy it. That might be more successful

SQL

[jwocky]

I don't agree, especially since I spent my morning writing things like

SELECT MH_ORIG
FROM CSTCDDTL
WHERE yada yada yada

Re:SQL

[scotch]

Man, who invented these conventions for SQL? Why use all caps for the SQL keywords AND for all of your db construct names? Makes no sense. The dbs I use are quite happy to accept "select ... from ..." - why do we pesist in the excessive capitalization?

Windows users, reclaim that valuable real-estate!

[greendoggg]

You can merge the following into your windows registry to swap your left control key with your caps lock key:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlS et\Control\Keyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,03,00,00,00,1d,00 ,3a,00,3a,00,1d,00,\
00,00,00,00

Save that text to a .reg file and then you can easily merge it in. Then reboot, and presto, windows remaps those keys at a very low level. Enjoy.

We need caps

[secesh]

I am telcom technician -- some of the systems I work with require caps to be on to program them. I would not want to hold down shift while trying to make entries. While caps is very annoying in the mainstream, it is still a valuable computer tool.

Mac OS X Tip

[Anonymous Coward]

Mac OS X 10.4 Control Key Remapping?

Disable your Windows Keys

[CritterNYC]

I have registry files up on my site that allow you to easily disable one or both Windows keys.

Meta-key

[Anonymous Coward]

I was thinking up there is a fine place for the rarely used caps-lock key. But with its relegation to the far reaches of the keyboard, maybe we could bring back the Meta-key and put it where the caps-lock is currently. Having a meta-key would be so much easier. And for those on Windows, we could just call it the any-key.

Get rid of Caplock and restore CTRL to its place

[SgtChaireBourne]

Sounds like maybe a grand but futile gesture, but who knows, maybe it will get the CTRL key(s) back to the right place. So I'll support the gesture in case it does work.

Caps lock is never used that I know of. I've seen numlock used, only rarely, but never capslock.

The CTRL keys, however, are used all the time, yet are currently in an ergonomically unsound position. For some of use, they're used even more than the shift keys. Either way, they should be back away from the space bar and up above the shift keys where they belong. If that can be done by ditching the capslock key, then more power to it.

Fear Not.

[danaris]

Yeah, he's just spreading FUD with that. While it's true that there are no separate PgUp/PgDn/Home/End keys, they're secondary functions on the arrow keys (so Fn-Up is PgUp, etc).

I've heard various people say, "But I can't possibly manage with the extra modifier keypress to access PgUp/PgDn/Home/End! It will totally ruin my productivity! I will never buy an Apple laptop!"...frankly, I think these people are nuts. I've been functioning this way for 3 years, and never had a serious problem. Of course, YMMV (and just because they're nuts doesn't mean they're wrong, I suppose...).

Dan Aris

Bankers

[fdiskne1]

I know bankers love the caps lock key. Back in the terminal days, everything was uppercase. When they went to PCs and terminal emulation, they started using caps lock because the emulation required it. Now that we are no longer using terminal emulation, bankers still think it is required and you can't convince them otherwise. Whenever I have to grab remote control of someone's computer, I need to ask them to please turn off the caps lock key. I tell them they no longer need to use it, but they insist they do. I'm sure if they ever get rid of caps lock on normal keyboards, we'll get requests for special-order keyboards with caps lock keys. You think I joke? Not in this case.

The Solution

[synesis]

1. Remove Caps key.
2. Add drop of super glue.
3. QUICKLY REPLACE KEY.
4. OH CRAP!

Re:The Solution

[chownrus]

1. Remove Caps key.
2. Add drop of super glue.
3. QUICKLY REPLACE KEY.
4. OH CRAP!

5. PROFIT?

Remove it entirely?

[tscheez]

There are times when caps lock may helpful. I wouldn't remove it entirely, just put it up with the scroll lock key or something, just to avoid accidental use. (Maybe make ctrl+scroll lock be a way to toggle caps?)

Cruise Control

[Salzorin]

Capslock is like hitting the cruise control to awesome... don't take away my CRUISE CONTROL!

I agree

[matt328]

And what's up with the 'e' and 'r' keys being so close together? I'm always interchanging thr two. Fuck it, let's campaign against them, too. Ah you know what, maybe my time and effort would be better spent LEARNING TO TYPE PROPERLY

Re:I agree

[smash]

Ah you know what, maybe my time and effort would be better spent LEARNING TO TYPE PROPERLY

Call of the thread. Building devices for idiots just ensures you have idiots for users...

Disable Caps Lock Easily

[CritterNYC]

I have some simple registry files up that allow you to easily disable caps lock, turn it into a control key or swap it with the left control key (for some old school keyboarding goodness). Just head to Disable Caps Lock.

Re:Disable Caps Lock Easily

[patro]

Alternatively you can use AutoHotkey and rebind it to anything you want.

What about one armed people?

[whyloginwhysubscribe]

I remember a guy at university who used to use the caps lock instead of shift - it was painfull watching him type - caps lock - press key - caps lock off - carry on typing... ffs he was on a comp science course! (He had two arms and hands)...

Bloody non-programmers

[mustafap]

Honestly, non-programmers shouldn't be allowed to use computers.

Maybe microsoft could come out with some crappy 12 button keyboard so he can have a "mobile phone" like user interface.

I wonder though, if a predictive-text entry numeric keypad wouldn't actually be good for programming. I could update the dictionary with my variable and function names.. hum... nah. My thumb is half broken as it is.

And while we're at it: Kill the INS key as well!

[Otis_INF]

How many times per day do you want to overtype something? Not a lot of times, the INS key is more a frustration trigger than a helper. Get rid of it too, with its buddy CAPS and it's dead step child SCROLL-LOCK.

Saves 2 leds as well

This fight is for ...

[Van Cutter Romney]

... the Chinese and Japanese who have to type more than 10,000+ characters using a 104 keys keyboard.

Too Much Coffee!

[wizkid]

Obviously, this guy has a serious caffine addiction! There are much more pressing matters to worry about! Compared to the more important issues, this pales in comparison! There are much more important things we need to address first! For Example:

1) Get a 4 day work week implemented!
2) More HD Channels!
3) Ban Light Beers! (Light Beers are for Wimps)

There's more to add to this list, but this will at least get it started!

How to do it on Windows

[pilkul]

Copy the following into a .reg file (not including the --- lines) and run it to replace Caps Lock with Left-Ctrl:

------------

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\K eyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,1d,00 ,3a,00,00,00,00,00

------------

If you want to replace it with Escape instead, use this:

------------

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\K eyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,01,00 ,3a,00,00,00,00,00

------------

You'll need to remove some spurious spaces added by Slashcode (in "Keyboard" and before "3a"). Note that this works on the scancode level and will affect all users and applications, including DirectX ones. It's as close as you can get to physically rewiring the key. You need to reboot for it to take effect. (Stolen from here and here.)

Re:How to do it on Windows

[Vadim Makarov]

Do you know how to disable the Insert key under Windows (but keep the Ctrl+Insert and Shift+Insert combinations working)?

Re:How to do it on Windows

[pilkul]

I'm afraid you can't do that with this method. You can kill the insert key dead but then no combinations will work either. You'd need to download some kind of program to do it, but I'm not sure what's out there.

I'd rather declare war on the "Windows" key

[Anonymous Coward]

1. It often gets in the way of the control key
2. It is ignored by the majority of applications (i.e. mostly useless)
3. If you hit it in the middle of a game [... pause 1 ... 2... 3 ... Windows desktop ... damn it! ... clicks on tool bar ... (continues)] it can interrupt.

At least the "command" key on Macs, which the "Windows" key attempts to emulate, is actually and consistently useful.

Yes, I know I can remap the keyboard. I'm just bitter that the default Windows behaviour is so uselessly stupid, and that even if I change it on my computer, every other one I go to has the same stupidity by default.

Pause

[Superblargo]

In Windows 2000/XP, you can enable a setting in the registry so that when Ctrl+Pause Pause is invoked, the BSOD appears. I guess pause is actually useful for something!

BF2

[Anonymous Coward]

Caps lock is the default key used to toggle the map/spawn screen on BF2.

cat ~/.xmodmap

[Laxitive]

remove Lock = Caps_Lock
keysym Caps_Lock = Escape

Happy vimming :)

Remove the Caps Lock???

[darrenadelaide]

Hey

Why Remove the Caps Lock key, its QUITE USEFUL.. but lets look at the design of the modern keyboard.

Im from the old school as a programmer of 20+ years experience, and as someone who does a lot of data entry you appreciate a good keyboard.

Look at the logisitics.. do you know what key we use most? think about it.. the Space Bar.

When I got my old at keyboard many years ago the space bar was 11.5cm.. (about 4.5 inches) which makes a lot of sense, and whilst the days of sensible keyboards is long gone at least i take some solice from my teco typists keyboard which like my sense of humour is a little warped!.

The Modern keyboard has a small space bar given you have a windows key.. (the second most useless key on the bottom line) which is usually made out to be a larger key and on the other side of the space.. what?? ANOTHER ONE.. next to that is the most useless key.. and guess what its a large right click key.. Um.. who doesnt use a mouse/trackpad/ball and uses windows.. All taking space from the most important key on the keyboard.

Next part of insanity (BELIEVE ME IVE TRIED!!) try BUYING a keyboard with a decent size space bar? think its easy? hummm.. so did I.. UNTIL i actually tried to buy one..

FORGET IT!!!!

So leave the poor Caps Lock key alone, its on an upper level, it has its uses.. but maybe the manufacturers should actually think about ergonomic design and get the useless windows and right click keys and stick them somewhere else if they MUST have one.. maybe above the print screen and scroll lock, that way we have the most useless keys in one place.

Darren
Adelaide,
South Australia

hhgthg

[mcai8rw2]

I move to replace the CAPS LOCK key with a Delicate Blue velvet clad button, emblazoned with the pleasant calm round looking words:

"Don't Panic"

Pushing said button could be an automatic transfer to http://babelfish.altavista.com/ babel fish.

Or it could bring up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page/ Wiki pedia ; the closest thing we have to the guide .

Some systems practically required CAPSLOCK

[MattHawk]

I work with a mainframe-type financial system on occassion. It doesn't like you when you send it lowercase. Therefore, we must use capslock in order to do any data entry, as otherwise either our shift keys would all be worn out in very short order, or we would get no work done aside from the production of error messages and warning beeps :)

Might be the mainframe program's fault... but we've gotta use what we have. Thefore, Capslock lives on.

Hate to tell you this man

[jonfields]

The capslock key is still in full use in video editing software. It usually toggles real time rendering on and off. Also caps lock is also simply useful for when a program was set in all caps and you're trying to copy it onto the computer.

Childishness

[arthurpaliden]

What is it with all the childishness going on, first its you can't use my software if you are in the military laying your life on the line. Now we have anti caps lock. Did you know that people are starving in the world, doo something usfull put your energy there.

Declare a war on messed up del/ins/pgup block

[dindi]

What bothers me a lot more is that all the "natural" line of MS keyboards have their phup/dn, end/home /del ins block
completely messed up. Took a month to get used to it after 15+ years of AT kb usage, and now I sit in front of a normal keyboard and feel like an idiot..

What is shame about the caps, is that windows does not allow an easy solution to convert the button to something useful

I just use this :

!add Lock = Caps_Lock
remove Lock = Caps_Lock
keycode 0x42 =Control_L
add Control = Control_L

not that an extra ctrl left is that useful, but at least it does not bother me:) anyway Synergy (that connects my 2 machines win/lin with 4 monitors) together keeps to mess with CTRL and Caps settings, so it is good to have a Caps sometimes at least on the other kbd

Along this thought

[d_54321]

I for 1 can't stand that friggin 2nd vowl ky. Can us ban that too?

definitely waste of time

[coquelicot]

I don't get it. I don't even notice the CapsLock on my keyboard, usually it's somewhere under my left palm and I have to try really, really hard to hit it 'by accident'. What's the point in finding out problems that do not exist?

I use CAPS LOCK everyday.

[JesusQuintana]

I use it on business systems that only accept capital letters. It will not convert lower case to capital and if you type in lowercase letters into the system, you get nothing but errors. I would have to tape down my Shift key or suffer a stiff pinky finger. In some applications it has unique properties. For example, in After Effects, it toggles between preview on or off. I use it when I am entering serial numbers that contain numbers and letters. I tap it a couple of times when a system is unresponsive to see if it is still alive. Sometimes I pound on it when I am frustrated. Why? Because it is there and it won't hurt anything.

It is shortsighted to declare a key useless. And arrogant. My suggestion for people who want to eliminate the key:

LEARN TO TYPE.

Then you won't go around accidentally hitting keys whose value you are too ignorant to appreciate.

Re:I use CAPS LOCK everyday.

[Vinnie_333]

Why take the effort to learn to type when you can spend an equal amount of time and energy blaming your inadequacies on someone else?

ToggleKeys

[billmarrs]

In Windows, I turn on ToggleKeys from the "Accessibility Options" control panel applet. So, if I hit Caps Lock, Num Lock, or Scroll Lock -- it's almost always a mistake when I do -- I hear a beep.

I know, I'm using the worst, most evil operating system ever and this is just a lame workaround, but it's something.

marketing opportunity being missed

[gemtech]

So why don't you have a custom keyboard designed that doesn't have the Caps-Lock key?
Or more simply, just pop that cap off of your existing keyboard.
I tried to submit this comment in ALL CAPS, but was rejected for lameness. How lame.

Don't banish it!

[brundlefly]

Just remove it. Manually. On every keyboard I own there is a nice hole where the caps lock used to be. A little unsightly, sure, but I never ever press it by accident, and if I need the functionality I just push on the little stub of where a key used to be.

And I'm a very happy man!

Now, if you wanted to move it to where the "Help" key is on a Mac, be my guest....

Re:Don't banish it!

[rucs_hack]

you're a very odd chap, I hope you realise this :-)

Hardware solution (screwdriver)

[FormOfActionBanana]

If you are not using a laptop, it's super easy to defang ALL the modal keys from your keyboard by popping them out with a screwdriver or tough pen... I do it all the time:

• cAPS lOCK
• Scroll lock (will screw users up in Excel; you can't navigate cells)
• Insert (my least favorite key of ALL TIME; the only key that destroys work in Word, notepad et al.)
• NumLock (if your BIOS/OS supports setting it the way you want automatically. If not: a pen sufficies to set/reset numlock when you need to toggle it)

Doug

Re:Hardware solution (screwdriver)

[digitrev]

Insert can be quite useful, from time to time. Especially when working with programs that are Ctrl+V incompatible.

Re:Hardware solution (screwdriver)

[LindseyJ]

I always pop out the three superfluous keys at the bottom: The two "Windows" keys and the other "Menu"(?) key. I remember they seemed kinda neat when keyboards first started using them, but after the third or fourth time I got reamed in some game because I accidentally minimized it by pressing that key instead of the CTRL or ALT I was reaching for... Out they came.

Not to mention, their very presence on my keyboard defiles it with M$ paraphenalia. Yeah. Screw Microsoft.

Re:Hardware solution (screwdriver)

[HK MP5-A3]

Also, the screwdriver can be used as a hardware solution to replace the caps lock functionality if you do need it after the caps lock has been removed. Just wedge the screwdriver in the small gap next to the shift key pinning the key in the depressed position and the caps lock functionality is restored until the screwdriver is removed.

Re:Hardware solution (screwdriver)

[vodhner]

The first thing I do with a new keyboard is to bend a paper clip into a clever shape, so that it fits under the Caps Lock key to hold it up, and runs beneath the keyboard where it is strapped in place with tape. If my finger hits Caps Lock, the key doesn't move. The tactile feedback has a handy "training effect" so I rarely hit that key.

Prompted by a post in this discussion, I'm now going to do that with my front-tier Insert key which bites me repeatedly each day.

Re:Hardware solution (screwdriver)

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you should just work on your aim?

Re:Hardware solution (screwdriver)

[pmcc]

Maybe as a gamer they're useless to you, but having to work as a sysadmin on many Windows machines, the Windows key is very valuable. Windows-R (to bring up the Run prompt), Windows-D (to hide/show everything - allowing access to the desktop), and Windows-L (to lock the machine) are all especially useful. Windows-Break is also a nice shortcut for getting to computer properties. There are a few others that I once knew but use infrequently and have since forgotten. But those 4 get used multiple times per day.

Re:Hardware solution (screwdriver)

[Ana10g]

Don't forget Windows-E, which brings up the windows explorer (filesystem view, not internet view)

Re:Hardware solution (screwdriver)

[LindseyJ]

I've never worked much on Windows boxes except for gaming, so I never knew anything about the Windows-key shortcuts (except that they existed).

But thanks, that's good to know. :)

Re:Hardware solution (screwdriver)

[FragHARD]

Personally I just use an awl or an ice pick in place of a screwdriver, you just swing it at any key that you want to stay down sTAYS dOWN ;)

Ps. this also a great way to keep the cat from moving when attempting to skin it!, but it may requrie the use of multiple tools. :0)~~~

Re:Hardware solution (screwdriver)

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Maybe as a gamer they're useless to you, but having to work as a sysadmin on many Windows machines, the Windows key is very valuable.

As a Unix-like operating system user, I find it equally valuable: My Windows key opens xterm windows.

Re:Hardware solution (screwdriver)

[plover]

Then you want the Logitech G15 keyboard. It comes with a curiously iconed switch, with a picture of a monitor in one direction, and a joystick in the other. I had no idea what it was for. After reading the manual, I discovered it was to lock out the Windows key, with the intention of preventing a gamer from accidentally switching applications during a firefight.

A clever solution.

But what will we then celebrate on 22 Oct

[rokka]

But what will we then celebrate on 22 Oct?
http://www.derekarnold.net/capslockday/

YOU INSENSITIVE CLOD!

[Waffle Iron]

11. MY PROFESSION IS
WRITING WARRANTY
DISCLAIMERS FOR
EULAS. ARE YOU
TRYING TO DESTROY
MY LIVELYHOOD?

12. Posts comprised
of all capital letters
may not be valid in all
states. Consult your
local authorities for
more information.

ALL SLASHDOTTEERS ARE FAILING IT!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

What is wrong with you people? Don't you see the foot icon, the ha-ha funny icon? All this where-God-meant-the-control key-to-be and CAPS LOCK being an abomination except when programming in FORTRAN.

Don't you know that, and I quote, CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR AWESOME.

Sheesh.

Re:Lost developer productivity? Health issues?

[B3ryllium]

are simply slow typists who have missed a trick all this time
a long string of uppercase letters

I, for one, can go MONTHS between typing long strings of upper-case characters. I consider myself a swift typist, but not necessarily super-fast.

I'm against elimination of the Capslock key, but I'm *also* against its current position. The greater sin, however, are those few keyboards that put the "?/" key to the immediate right-side of a shortened left-side shift key.

Worst. Layout. Ever.

Actual use for the Caps Lock key

[DrBdan]

Just a little anecdote on how the Caps Lock can actually be useful. When I was in University I tutored younger students in Comp-Sci. One of the students that I tutored was physically disabled and couldn't use his left hand to type. This made it rather difficult to hold down shift and type keys at the same time. His solution was to hit caps, type the letters and then hits caps again. I'm pretty sure if you asked him he would say that the caps lock key is incredibly useful.

I don't really take this article seriously but at the same time the caps lock key does serve a purpose for some users. You'd think they could make a better use of their time.

B

Get rid of the 'make me die' key

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're looking for a pointless key to get rid of, how about getting rid of that stupid Ctrl-Esc (it's labelled as 'Start') key that's located right between Crouch (CTRL) and Strafe (ALT), and seems to be solely responsible for 85% of the times I die in any game.

I can't believe that nobody else wants to get rid of the Windows key... This is Slashdot.. what's wrong with you people... drink some coffee and wake up or something :D

I'm So Old...

[Greyfox]

I remember when the way to disengage the caps lock key was to press shift... on your MANUAL typewriter. It was mainly used for typing titles. With the keys on tiered rows you seriously did not want to hold down shift to type entire words in upper case.

You can get away with using shift on modern keyboards, but apparently some combinations of keys don't work so well when you're holding down that shift key. Pretty much any word ending in CK will have the K dropped most of the time when I'm typing with shift held down. If I engage caps I do not run into this problem, allowing me to type words ending in CK in upper case without issue. Is it LUCK?

So anyway I'm against this because I have to use the caps key to type my uppercase words ending in CK using it. If I didn't have the caps key, I'd often have to go back and add the K. I have thus far not found a keyboard that does not exhibit this behavior and I've tested plenty. I guess I hit the C and the K close enough to simultaneously that I haven't completely released the C key when I hit the K key. I've never had the problem with any other key combination. The fact that it doesn't happen when caps is pressed instead leads me to believe that it might be a problem in the keyboard controller.

As far as crusades against other keys go, I usually prefer to run with Numlock off because the number key pad still feels like a more natural way to navigate in my favorite text editor. I occasionally enable it, though, when I'm typing big numbers and don't want to have to look down at the keyboard (I can touch type numbers on the number pad but not on the number row.) The Windows key maps nicely to Meta in Emacs and I guess Syslock is a magic key used if you enable an option in the Linux kernel. The F keys are good in any FPS or MMORPG that allows you to remap keys -- back when I was playing UO I exhausted all the F keys and moved on to remapping the unused keys on my logitech keyboard to be extra F keys.

If you want to crusade against something, crusade against wireless keyboards. Most of the local computer stores only carry a couple of ultra-low-end keyboards with wires anymore, and I don't see why I should have to pay $50 for a keyboard that's never going to move more than a foot from my computer anyway.

Sun Style Keyboard

[AndyG314]

I am a firm believer in the sun style keyboard layout, whith the ctrl and caps lock keys switched. This puts a much more frequently used key in the eaiser to reacy spot.

QWERTY is nearly optimal

[Theovon]

Some time back, some studies were done to determine the ACTUAL improvement of the Dvorak keyboard over QWERTY. Although Dvorak proponents often proclaim the massive benefits of their favorite keyboard, one should take their biased statements with a grain of salt. More recent studies have shown that Dvorak is indeed more efficient (for proficient typists) than QWERTY, but not significantly so. IIRC, they compared alphabetic arrangements, Dvorak, QWERTY and perhaps a few others. Alphabetic arrangments were decidedly bad. Dvorak was very efficient. But QWERTY wasn't much less efficient than Dvorak. The reason? The primary advantage of Dvorak is that it is optimized to cause one to alternate hands for each letter typed. QWERTY is closer to random, but due to that randomness, QWERTY requires nearly as much alternation as Dvorak. Other Dvorak optimizations seem to have almost negligible effect on efficiency.

I do believe that some of the 200WPM+ claims from Dvorak proponents are true. But Dvorak proponents tend to be keyboard enthusiasts that put well above average time and effort (and probably a fair amount of natural coordination) into becoming very good typists. I believe that that same effort expended on QWERTY would yield nearly as amazing results. This reminds me of proponents of esoteric programming languages who claim that their favorite language is a major part of their ability to produce amazing code; while I'm sure that their choice of language has SOME effect, I believe it's primarily their innate intelligence that makes them amazing coders, and they would be just as amazing with mundane languages like C.

So, no. Dvorak isn't an amazing keyboard. It's just that many Dvorak users are amazing typists. How's that for a back-handed compliment? :) Either way, there doesn't seem to be much incentive to switch from QWERTY.

Re:QWERTY is nearly optimal

[Keybounce]

This may sound silly, but are you certain that those studies were unbiased?

I was under the impression that QWERTY was designed to slow typists down because early mechanical typewritters had a very slow rate of keystroke without causing jams.

In any event, there are a number of things that seem strange to me about keyboards:

1. Normal touch typing has the right hand fingers stroking up and to the left, in a nice natural extension, but left hand fingers stroking up and to the right -- opps, left, requiring an unnatural bend in the wrist on the left.

2. Even split keyboards keep the left-hand keys angled in the wrong direction.

3. The "y" key is easier for me to hit with my left big finger than my right big finger; ditto the B with my right big finger. On split keyboards, these keys are never duplicated -- they always assume that you use textbook perfect strokes. Why?

4. There is no system (as far as I know) that allows programs to say "Key at location X" versus "Key with symbol Y printed on it" versus "Key intended to send Z".

Keycodes, as I understand them, are "Key intended to send Z". But different keyboards (such as american versus finnish) send different keycodes for keys at the same location. And I'm not sure that every keyboard layout uses the same keycode for "a" no matter where it is.

There are many, many programs that use keys based on location on the keyboard; these programs don't actually care which key letter is on the keys, only the location. But it's impossible to properly move those programs to Dvorak, because location is now broken.

As for the numpad, there are four possible uses of the numpad keys:

1. Numbers.
2. Arrows, including diagonals (very useful for Civ type games).
3. Mouse movement (keyboard mouse)
4. Normal arrows plus home/end/pg up/pg down (in other words, what's printed on them).
5. Laptop letter keys :-).

Ok, that's 5 uses.

Tell me how many modifier keys you need to properly use the numpad. Combine Numlock and Capslock, and ignore the laptop keys, and you can make it happen. But I haven't seen any software that actually does this.

As for ctrl versus capslock and location: Who in their bleep can use the side of their palm to hit ctrl and still type keys? I just tried that, and I cannot do that at all. It is far easier to move my fingers over and press the old ctrl location (the new caps lock location), and then A or Z or C.

Finally, am I the only person that thinks the pinky fingers are both weaker and shorter, making them unusable for typing, and therefor use a 5-6 finger (plus thumb) typing system that has hands moving around all over?

Q forever!

[Seto89]

And imagine the life without Q! It's like laying WoW and you can't find party for any quest, cause you can only sat 'uest! And no chance of getting a decent CV! No Qualification! And the James Bond wouldn't have all his cool gadgets and would just run around with a gun, becoming rambo in a suit! And no quotes would exist! How would we remember all the cool stuff said? There would be no quality in World! This is like zinc movie in Simpsons: "I don't wanna live in a World without Zinc!" "Well you cant' shoot yourself, cause without Zinc you're gun is useless!" "Nooooo!!!!" SAVE THE Q! (notice the caps lock used :P)

SharpKeys

[Stavr0]

And here is your WMD against the Caps Lock: Sharpkeys applet Simple program that reassigns any keycode to any other. War is over.

Same thing for OS X

[porneL]

System Preferences -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Modifier Keys... -> Caps Lock Key = Control (on Panther you'll need uControl tool instead)

Think of the EULAs

[sasdrtx]

How will poor law secretaries type the 4th and 5th paragraphs of EULAs? They're always in ALL CAPS. I don't know why, I've never read a EULA, but some require scrolling to the bottom before the button activates.

Bah - I have a solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Remap the caps lock key to something infinitely more useful like the SysRq key. An then (this is the brilliant part) grab a lead DND figurine, when you need to use all capitals, move your character into battle while it sits on one of your shift keys...

Have you considered Killing QWERTY

[folstaff]

It would make more since and faster, more accurate typing. The Caps Lock key can be annoying, but really, QWERTY is a bigger problem.

Who Needs a Keyboard?

[neonprimetime]

All computers should be based on voice recognition. Keyboards are so unsanitary anyways ... ewh

Well that's nice

[Punkster812]

That's nice that you don't use Caps, but there are many people who do. And who says not to use Caps? The only time Windows talks about it is when you are typing in your password to give you a heads up that it's on in case you didn't mean to (which isn't very secure if someone is watching but is convenient when you forgot you had it on). I don't use it very often, but when I do, I am glad it's there. And if you can not keep from hitting the Caps Lock while typing, LEARN HOW TO TYPE!

Manual typewriter

[digitalhermit]

I had a "manual" typewriter once (yes, I'm really old). For those of you who don't know anything about them except from what they saw on "Murder, She Wrote" or some old movie, this won't matter. Anyhoo, when a "key" was struck, it would cause one of a series of metal arms to rise. On the end of the arm was either a letter or a symbol. There were two symbols on each arm. If the shift key was pressed then another metal rod underneath would shift the arm up by about 1/2" causing the second character to strike the "ribbon" (a black strip of cloth soaked in ink). On my old typewriter the CAPSLOCK was called SHIFTLOCK. When you reached the end of the line you would strike the right part of the doohicky to perform a carriage return. This would also cause the paper to shift by one line. If you wanted to add another line, there was another lever at the side that you could shift to advance the paper by 1/2 line. If you needed to "eject" the paper, you'd turn the platen knob (heh, I said "knob").

At the end of the day we blew out the candles and went to bed.

(yeah, the spurious quotes were intentional)

Put control back where it should be!

[ALecs]

No! Don't get rid of that key. It's a nice, large, pinky-accessible key that should be used....for CONTROL! Bring back control to its rightful place on the keyboard. Don't get rid of the key just make it do something more useful. .Xmodmaprc:

remove Lock = Caps_Lock
keysym Caps_Lock = Control_L
add Control = Control_L

Or, /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

Section "InputDevice"
           
            Option "XkbOptions" "ctrl:nocaps"
EndSection

-Josh

Re:Put control back where it should be!

[asuffield]

Most keyboards already have a control key, so duplicating it is a waste of a button. This is far, far more useful:

Section "InputDevice"
            Option "XkbOptions" "compose:caps"
EndSection

caps lock mangles EDA tools

[amigabill]

Every now and then at work, the chip layout tool we use will completely stop responding to keypresses and sometimes mouse commands. The first few times was weird and annoying as heck, because I didn't have a clue how to get it back working again. Youcould quit and restart, but the new session would be hosed from the beginning. Eventually we realized that the caps lock was lit up when the tool went into this state, and the problem as cured by turning off the caps lock. I think it's rediculously stupid for the EDA vendor to allow such a thing to happen when caps lock is on, but not much I can do about it and the boss wouldn't likely let me break my keyboard.

I'd love to get rid of it on my work keyboard, even if we do know what to look for now. I never use caps lock as intended, I'm pretty good at holding down a regular shift key with my pinky finger while I type along...

War on Caps Lock?

[neonprimetime]

Pretty soon the United Nations will try to intervene and come up with a peaceful resolution. They have nothing else to do these days.

001100100110101101100101011110010111001100100001

[gjuk]

Let's all learn unicode binary and we will all be happy with just 2 keys. Imagine the efficiency! I've been doing it for some time now. Who needs 108 pesky keys. Or should I say 01001100011001010111010000100111011100110010000001 100001011011000110110000100000 01101100011001010110000101110010011011100010000001 110101011011100110100101100011 01101111011001000110010100100000011000100110100101 101110011000010111001001111001 00100000011000010110111001100100001000000111011101 100101001000000111011101101001 01101100011011000010000001100001011011000110110000 100000011000100110010100100000 01101000011000010111000001110000011110010010000001 110111011010010111010001101000 00100000011010100111010101110011011101000010000000 110010001000000110101101100101 01111001011100110010111000100000010010010110110101 100001011001110110100101101110 01100101001000000111010001101000011001010010000001 100101011001100110011001101001 01100011011010010110010101101110011000110111100100 100001001000000100100100100111 01110110011001010010000001100010011001010110010101 101110001000000110010001101111 01101001011011100110011100100000011010010111010000 100000011001100110111101110010 00100000011100110110111101101101011001010010000001 110100011010010110110101100101 00100000011011100110111101110111001011100010000001 010111011010000110111100100000 01101110011001010110010101100100011100110010000000 110001001100000011100000100000 01110000011001010111001101101011011110010010000001 101011011001010111100101110011 00101110?

William T. Sherman declares...

[beaverfever]

CAPSLOCK WAR IS HELL!!!

Wow. Where are the touch typists?

[Kalvos]

I use every key on the keyboard, including the numeric keypad, with one exception: Scroll Lock.

Caps lock, yes. Windows key, yes. Menu key, yes. Insert, yes. F11, sure -- full screen mode. Caps lock, of course -- I typeset books and articles. Esc -- all the time, just to be safe on a menu that isn't clear.

The expansion of the keyboard from typewriter style was a great advance ... but I go back to manual typewriters, so I remember the workarounds (such as centering by counting backspaces in 2's, and half-spaces created by holding the spacebar down).

Laptops are an enormous pain because of all the extra keystrokes. Engraving music with Finale uses the numeric keyboard all the time, and special characters (the contorted Fn+Alt+nnnn) too.

The biggest trouble in adapting to computer keyboards wasn't the extra keys, it was the change of characters above the numbers (' to @, moving parens from 8-9 to 9-0, etc.).

Dennis

Re:Wow. Where are the touch typists?

[fullmetal55]

see and a lot of people in my area use the scroll lock key a lot... mostly with KVMs you hit scroll lock twice and up arrow to switch computers... I personally use all the keys on the keyboard with the exceptions of the right click button... or menu button... i hate that key... i have used it, in emergencies and in emergencies i love it... so hands off my keyboard!

but I need it!

[Zackbass]

Those of us who work for the Army need our caps locks! A quarter of all the official documents I write are in all caps. We even have special rules of punctuation for dealing with all caps (special cases for appostrophes and such). Just think of how badly it would hurt to write a document that starts with DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A: APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE without my caps lock!

I don't get it

[edmicman]

I know it's tongue-in-cheek, but still. I'm working in a system where the code standards say everything should be in all caps. The caps lock makes it a whole lot easier. Yes, I could write it in lower case, copy and paste it into something and then convert everything to all caps, but that's what the freakin' caps lock key is for!

Mostly, I think this stems from the people that complain about hitting errant keys while typing - caps lock, ctrl, the Windows key, etc. I've seen people that have pried off keys from their keyboard, disabled them through the registry, etc. Jeez people, pay some damned attention to what you're doing! In my 17 years of computing (ack, I feel old now...I'm only 26 :-/ ) I can't say I've ever had a time where I kept hitting the wrong stupid key on my keyboard. Pay attention to what the hell you are doing! Are there that many of you that are clumsy fat-fingered oafs? Maybe keyboards should just have the 10 most common keys on them so I can just mash my fists down and have my work magically come out. ...

Bah! NOOOO!

[dreamchaser]

I'd have to redo all of my keybinds for various first person shooters. It's the only thing I use that key for, but it MUST STAY! (points railgun at the submitter menacingly)

Key Tweak for Windows users solves the problem

[Neologic]

Use Key Tweak (found here: http://webpages.charter.net/krumsick/) if you use Windows.

It's a great, FREE, little app that will also allow you to remap any of your others keys, so if you don't like the Windows key or have a hatred for the number 9, you can remap them to whatever you want.

what about other languages

[Patrick13]

In Spanish, it is very common to type in all caps - somehow it is considered acceptable to type words without accent marks if they are in all caps.

Only point being is that just because the caps lock is not useful in your language/culture, it doesn't mean that other languages/cultures don't find it useful.

Re:what about other languages

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm Spanish and I don't know why you're saying it's common to type words in caps in my language. I think we use them as frecuently as you do in English (just sometimes for titles or ads), maybe you've visited webpages written by teens or something like that. However, it's true we often don't use accent marks in caps (but we should do it).

And of course, excuse me for my bad English ;)

Re:what about other languages

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not common, nor correct. At least here in Mexico.

Re:what about other languages

[calambrac]

Don't other languages/cultures already have different keyboards?

Re:what about other languages

[Anonymous Coward]

"..excuse me for my bad English"

Don't apologize, it's better than most EngL|5h speakers around here.

Re:what about other languages

[Abu Hurayrah]

You make the common mistake of assuming that people care about other cultures & languages. That's something that happens quite frequently outside of the "civilized world" - i.e., America. At least, this is what I pick up from Lou Dobbs on CNN every night...

Re:what about other languages

[caffeine ninja]

[i think the author really just wants everything to be xhtml-strict compliant. i mean come on guys, support the standard /] (stupid lameness filter)

Re:what about other languages

[Anonymous Coward]

Spanish/latin/hispanoamerican keyboards are not the same as american/brit keyboards. Spanish keyboards have not only accents but "ñ" and a couple other differences. So CAPS LOCK could stay on latin keyboards, but why not eliminate from US?

Re:what about other languages

[Anonymous Coward]

You could switch to Hindi.

I've been told that it has none of that uppercase/lower case nonsense...

There might be an outsourcing joke somewhere in there.

Re:what about other languages

[WilliamSChips]

Indeed, Daniel Jackson. For example, German has y and z swapped because z is much more common than y in German.

Re:what about other languages

[SheeEttin]

While we're on the topic of Stargate and keyboards, have you ever seen the keyboards in the Gate control room? They don't have letters, they have the Gate symbols (constellations?) on them. One-finger pecking FTW.

Re:what about other languages

[zakezuke]

In Spanish, it is very common to type in all caps - somehow it is considered acceptable to type words without accent marks if they are in all caps.

Only point being is that just because the caps lock is not useful in your language/culture, it doesn't mean that other languages/cultures don't find it useful.

I don't know about spanish, but I know using the Microsoft Japanese IME... you can easily switch between roman charaters and hiragana by using shift capslock. That's not just a little bit handy... that's super duper handy.

Re:what about other languages

[Anonymous Coward]

You make the common mistake of assuming that people care about other cultures & languages.

A Bolshevik error, to be sure.

Re:what about other languages

[JimBobJoe]

I'm Spanish and I don't know why you're saying it's common to type words in caps in my language.

It might be a generational thing. My latin-american mother defaults to caps all the time, and I had to convince her that it's bad style in English.

Re:what about other languages

[TommydCat]

It is very common in English to type in all caps as well.

This fact doesn't mean that we have to like it, ergo this discussion.

Re:what about other languages

[__aatjxn8377]

No, no, no, no, no! In spanish you look like a perfect idiot if you write an email in all caps!
And of course it is incorrect not to use accent marks in capital letters. The reasons sometimes they are not there are various: With at least some typewriters it was impossible to place the accent over a capital letter; It is, or was, easier (and cheaper, I am sure) to find fonts without them for some applications; They take up space, so if you want your store's sign to be as big as possible you will maybe do away with them...

Maybe you have seen a lot of posts written in spanish in all caps, I know I have, but spanish is not the magic language that you can understand better in caps. Whenever I have to read one it feels like some idiot shouting nonsense. Of course it does not help that more often than not these same posts do not offer the slightest clue to the reader in the form of punctuation or a basic respect for grammar. If that is what comes out of that "person"'s head, I am confident s/he is an idiot.

Please do not go around saying these things, I don't need more texts in all caps.

Re:what about other languages

[Anonymous Coward]

So don't remove it on the Spanish localized keyboards.

Re:what about other languages

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm argentinean, I speak spanish. I hate when people (well.. "people") writes in all caps, it makes it very difficult to understand, and i'm pretty sure they do it because they actually doesn't know the punctuation rules, so they take cover behind the "writing in caps it's ok to not use punctuation"

kill the caps lock, kill it now. :)

(sorry for my bad english)

Re:what about other languages

[kolme]

That's completely false. We don't usually write in all caps (fortunately), and when we do, we *have* to write with accent marks. (e.i. MELÓN)

It's true that some people don't put the accents but that's grammatically wrong. I think it's a mith from the times of the typewriters, when you couldn't write uppercase letters with accents because they overlapped. But the RAE (Royal Academy of Spanish) dicts the rules, and they are very clear about this.

I Agree!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I completely agree. I always rip the Caps Lock key of every keyboard (apart from laptop), but Home PC & Work PC have a nice dirty, empty hole there!

Windows key

[Petronius]

there's a key I wouldn't mind getting rid of.

I use it all the time

[Anonymous Coward]

I use the Caps Lock key all the time for Graphic Design. Shame on you Slashdot!

Re: QWERTY is better is a Myth

[skidv]

According to reason magazine the superiority of QWERTY over Dvorak keyboards is based upon studies obviously funded by Dvorak himself.

How about a "save" key?

[rnws]

As saving files is one of the more common functions, why do we not have a "Save" (current file to disk) key? Or how about making "Print Screen" just "Print" (the current document to the printer). Maybe a help key.

I know we have combo's or function keys that do things like this already Ctrl+S, Ctrl+P and F1 but dedicated keys would still be better.

Actually what would be great is a key that actually immediately halts the current action - it sucks when a web-page slowly loads, you hit the "Stop" button on the toolbar, yet the damn app grinds on and on. When you tell an app to stop, it should stop NOW goddammit! (Somewhat akin to a "PANIC" key as well...)

Just think of the children!

[batura]

I'm afraid that I just can't support such a ban due to the overwhelmingly severe impact it will have on childern that don't know how to properly use the shift key.

I was in a computer lab a few years ago at a high school and watched some girl use the caps lock to capitalize the first letter of the sentence. Not wanting to damage her sense of who she was ("Caps Lock Girl" in my mind anyways), I couldn't bring myself to demonstrate the power of the shift key. To this day, I hope she still uses the caps lock key for all things shift related.

Re:Just think of the children!

[Goffee71]

We of the Judean People's Front CAPS LOCK removal suicide squad suggest replacing the function with a double tap of the shift key to engage and disengage caps lock. The space can be taken up by a SafeSearch On/Off button for all our Google, um, research.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

The reason why CAPS LOCK is where it is.

[Comboman]

That's certainly a better option than getting rid of it altogether. The reason for the current location of the caps lock key actually has nothing to do with usability but rather was for compatibility with old typewriters. The caps lock key on typewriteers (actually a 'shift lock' key which affected the numbers and punctuation as well) had to be directly above the shift key since it was a mechanical latch that physically kept the shift key held down.

Re:The reason why CAPS LOCK is where it is.

[MrCopilot]

I agree with your wife judging from this post. Sorry no mod points today else +1 Informative

True story...

[Johnny5000]

A group of us were at my friend's house watching TV as he used his computer.
We kept hearing a BEEP BEEP coming from his computer, and finally one of us asked what that beeping noise was.

He said that every time the caps lock key was hit, the computer would beep.

Next question: "Why do you keep hitting the caps lock key so much?"
Answer: "How else am I going to type capital letters?"

CAPSLOCK KEY

[Anonymous Coward]

YOU KNOW I HAVE FOND MEMORIES OF THE LATE 80S AND EARLY 90S WHEN WE RECEIVED EMAILS FROM SOME PEOPLE THAT WERE ENTIRELY IN UPPERCASE. NEVER WAS A LOWERCASE LETTER SEEN.

Although it has gotten to be entirely tedious today to see entire messages in uppercase, although this is also entirely offset by the illiterate, 1337 crowd. Unfortunately eliminating the CAPSLOCK key won't eiliminate them.

As to languages that need CAPSLOCK?! Come on, you mean that you can't pre-process your sources BEFORE sending them to a compiler/interpreter that is so ancient that it cannot deal with lowercase?! Or even hack one up yourself in a couple of minutes?! Alternatively you could just edit the sources anywhere then post-convert the files permanently to uppercase for remote storage or some combination of the above.

Scroll lock and Num lock would also be good targets for elimination or replacement, as long as home, end, delete(not backspace), etc. aren't touched.

Must be a slow news day, eh?

The WHAT now?

[houghi]

I have not had a keyboard with a Caps Lock key in years. I use a Happy Hacker keybord. There is s way to get all caps: [Fn][TAB] Or just keep the [SHIFT] key pressed.

So if the GP worried about keyboard real estate, buy another estate. There are several ones that don't have CapsLk key.

For all I care, link it to `Format c:`.

A company in Russia (lost the URL) had keyboards where you could decide what key represented what. So no pre-produced keys with QWERTY on them, but LCDs instead.

So if the GP is willing, there are plenty of solutions for him already. Now will he put his money where is mouth is, or is just just anothe feable way to declare war on something that you know you will never win, just to get money?

Let's get rid of those other keys, too

[Stuart Sierra]

A good idea. And while we're at it, let's dump those silly Ctrl and Alt keys. Who uses them? F1 - F12 can certainly be abandoned, as well as that triumvirate of uselessness, Print Screen / Scroll Lock / Pause. Don't get me started on Microsoft's "Windows" and "Menu" keys (or Apple's "Apple" key). "Insert" has outlived its usefulness, and Page Up/Down were obsoleted by scroll-wheels. That leaves "Home" and "End," which I could live without. "Delete" is kind of redundant if you have "Backspace." "Tab" never works the way you want it to. "Escape" is a false hope. And number keypads are an obvious waste of space. What does that leave us with? This.

I'm not being entirely facetious here. Most of the keys on a modern computer keyboard are relics of some older technology, be it a typewriter (tab, caps lock) or a text terminal (scroll lock). They increase the likelihood of typing mistakes and make computers look more intimidating than they need to.

Of course, there will always be some user screaming if you remove his favorite key, so it's easier to keep the legacy keys than remove them. And for power users, mouse-driven interfaces still can't match the speed of Escape Meta Alt Control Shift. This will have to change, and I think it will with large, multiple-contact, flexible touch screens. Keyboards will stick around for a long time, because there's nothing better for getting a lot of text down fast, and the tactile response is important. But they will be more "peripheral," stripped down to their essential function and used only occasionally.

Just move the key!

[Psychofreak]

I find that the location of the CAPS key is clumsy being next to the A key. Why not just move it up by the function keys so it is out of the way. This might be an acceptable compromise for most people involved. It will make typing in all caps a more deliberate act.
Phil

Re:OK, but can we get rid of some other keys first

[fullmetal55]

but if we get rid of scroll lock how will i quickly switch computers on my KVM? frankly, get used to it... people aren't going to stop putting the capslock on keyboards anytime soon. too many HIGH up people in corporations use them. Lawyers use them lots in declarations, using all caps is used a lot in headers, acryonyms, logos, warnings etc. Killing the Caps lock key is stupid, and a waste of resources. and will piss many many people off, and the capslock key will return anew... there isn't a single key on the keyboard i don't used with the exception of the "right click" key, howver I use that in emergencies when the mouse is dead and i'm just navigating by keyboard alone.. I've had days like that, oh sure some /.ers will be talking about you don't use those keys in linux... well, I work in an office with thousands of windows boxes. i like being able to use the winkey shortcuts... saves me headaches and time... so frankly... it ain't gonna happen.

What would replace it?

[pseudorand]

So what do you propose putting in it's place? Maybe the ever elusive "Any" key?

YEAH BUT!

[Anonymous Coward]

CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL!

ZOMG! SLASHDOT THINKS I'M LAME!?:

Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

REMEMBER! CAPS LOCK -> COOL!

Sun "UNIX" keyboard

[IvyKing]

The Sun "UNIX" keyboard has the control key next to the "A" key as God intended. Sun has the "PC" key for the infidels.

Re:Sun "UNIX" keyboard

[lokedhs]

The problem with the Sun Unix keyboard is that it's only available with US layout.

Fortunately, remapping is easy. Even for Windows.

Well according to Apple...

[rmdyer]

...the keyboard should only really have one key anyway. ;)

+8

truly optimized keyboard.

[nblender]

I figured out how to optimize the standard keyboard for speed and space utilization. It can also be used one-handed, popular for those late night IM sessions. Requires only a little bit of memorization and is easily interfaced to the 1-wire PC Keyboard interface. Can even be used by the limbless: As long as you have a forehead, you can still use a computer.

I give you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegraph_key

Dont be silly.

[Anonymous Coward]

The cPS LOCK KEY IS HARMLESS.

Re:Valid points... but it still remains an issue

[Psykechan]

For most people, the caps lock key is useless. Even for someone who uses it, you should at least agree that it certainly doesn't need to be right in home row. A lot of manufacturers will actually change the shape of it to prevent accidental pressings of it.

There are several useless keys that could be removed; print screen, and pause and the other two "lock" keys: scroll lock and num lock. I hate the num lock key as I usually use it immediately after keying in what I thought were numbers only to move the cursor around. I can't fathom why someone would chose to use the number keys as arrow keys when there are actual arrow keys sitting right there. Once those arrow keys were added back in the PC-XT days, they should've removed the num lock key.

No, the reason we still have useless keys is that something will break if we remove them. Scroll lock hasn't had a use that pertained to scrolling in years but some people still use the key for changing displays on a KVM. Your UniQuery work would be torture without that precious caps lock. It's called legacy.

We have shloads of function keys that people rarely use. We have recent additions like the "Windows" keys and the application key because we apparently need more modifier keys. Eventually these become useless legacy keys that continue to propagate to the next generation of computer keyboards.

Sure, get rid of the caps lock key but why stop there? Get rid of the other useless keys too. Change the letter layout to something that makes a bit more sense like Dvorak. People will complain because it does not have legacy support.

Best of luck to you though, you'll be heading down a long and painful road.

Priorities

[Anonymous Coward]

I BET YOU CAN'T READ THIS SENTENCE WITHOUT IMAGINING SOMEONE SHOUTING IT AT YOU!

Actually, I'd rather they get rid of those two keys with the corporate logos on them. How can Microsoft claim not to have a monopoly when they have actual Windows keys on everyone's fucking KEYBOARDS...?

Moderate Posting -1, Dork

[hanshotfirst]

Do suppose he's starting this campaign using his l33t gaming keyboard?

YES! I have long felt exactly the same!

[aschoeff]

I just weirded out my colleague by throwing up my arms and proclaiming an exuberant "Yay! I have found my kindred!"

For years, I have removed the caps lock key from every keyboard I use. The frequency of my typing errors related to grazing the caps lock key is such that my productivity is significantly lowered with it remaining. Backing up and correcting after my text would go aLL CAPS ONCE I NARROWLY MISSED THE 'A' KEY seemed like an unavoidable consequence until I allowed myself to think it permissible to physically deface my keyboard. I thought i would miss the caps lock key too, but I quickly found that I didn't.

Why did this work for me, but not most of the typing world? The reason is that I have huge hands and big fingers. I can palm a basketball easy. If I try to touch-type, my fingers are ALL still touching, and my error rate both goes way up as a result, AND my fingers and wrists begin to ache! Therefore I have perfected the art of four-finger-plus-thumb touch typing. I can do it fast, and the size of my hand enables me to have my pinky on the shift key while typing away as long as I need to, thereby eliminating my need for the caps lock key.

So I don't advocate eliminating the caps lock key altogether, most people can't type the way I do because their hands aren't big enough. But if you look at MY keyboard at work, home, and on my notebook, now you know why that caps lock key is gone and stored away in my desk drawer.

All right, Einstein...

[b1t r0t]

Our campaign mission is simple: to send a message to the computer industry to force it (by any means necessary) to retire the CAPS key.

So tell me, Brainiac, what are you going to put there instead? A nice black hole burned into the keyboard by a Sony laptop battery?

I usually end up hitting it by accident when trying to hit the shift or tab key, so I would be happier to see both of those keys made slightly larger (like the ENTER key on a Euro or Japanese keyboard), then banish the stupid caps lock key up there with the other useless keys like Scroll Lock.

I know some of you emacs weenies want the control key in that location, but that wouldn't be balanced now that most full-size keyboards have two control keys. I'd rather be ignoring two control keys in symmetrical locations than ignoring a control key left of the A.

Re:All right, Einstein...

[geekoid]

It needs to be where it is becasue of data entry operations.

You have someone transcribe a lot of data, some of whish will be in caps, moving the caps lock key would slow them down. Before you say 'not much' remember theses are people doing over 100 words a minute all day long. So a minor decrease in spead does have an impact.

Change keyboard map

[AlecLyons]

How difficult would it be (for people who'd care about this) to change the keymap so it does something else?

Remap Capslock in Windows XP

[TechGooRu]

Regedit /s this file (and reboot) to remap your Capslock key to the Windows key. Great on laptops that don't have a Windows key, too!(for those of us who use the shortcuts Windows+E , Windows+R, etc the Windows key is a must). Cut between the ---- and put into a file.

--- CUT HERE ---
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contr ol\Keyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,5b,e0 ,3a,00,00,00,00,00

--- CUT HERE ---

The One-Point-Five Inches that Destroyed the World

[sirrobert]

yeah, that extra 1.5" is an unbearable distance to reach..

Hold on. Take a step back and look at the big picture:

Doing some basic, preliminary research while reading the article (and extrapolating the data), I've found that I use the escape key an average of 2983742 times per day. Now, that inch-and-a-half may not seem like much, but do some conversion: that's around seventy extra miles I'm moving my arm per day. Now, I'm an above average escapist, so I figure that if I'm moving my arm an extra 70 miles, the average user is probably moving only about 68 miles per day. I'm not an expert, but from what I gather from 60 Minutes, I'm probably burning calories equivalent to those I would take in consuming an entire cow. We know that forfty percent of cows are fed on the burning corpses of amazon rainforest trees. I saw a movie once (starring Sean Connery and someone else) in which they found the cure for cancer in the Amazon! And think of all the heat emitted from those trees, coupled with the MEGAJOULES of energy being emitted in the form of heat from the burning of the cows (for food) each day, per person. Now, INSFBCL (I'm Not Some Fancy Big City Lawyer), but you don't have to be teh inventor of the intarweb to know that that much heat escaping into the atmosphere is at least quintupling the effects of Global Warning every year.

Move the escape key to the caps-lock slot? Is there really any question? Is there really any choice?

Think of the children. And their melty ice-cream cones.

And cancer.

Easily solved with free software

[psykopotat]

I agree caps lock has wasted potential so I went out and found a completely free solution, I've put the caps keyboard real estate to good use. Using AutoHotKey, free from www.autohotkey.com I've configured caps lock to shift the keyboard to a whole new set of functions.

For example the left hand side of the keyboard is mapped to the keypad - left, up, down, right, ins, del, home, end, backspace and a few other commonly used shortcuts and macros pretty much allow me to get through the whole day with out moving my hands from the comfortable asdfjkl; location or even looking at the keyboard at all. The configurations are virtually limitless since the scripting language is pretty powerful and the forums have most answers you seek.

Fuck IBM!

[nsayer]

Once upon a time, back in the golden age, the key to the left of the letter "A" was a useful one. Back then, it was control. And life was good. Life was very good. Then IBM came along and shit all over everything with the PC. The industry still hasn't recovered from the damage they did. Even Apple caved in and banished the control key to the bottom left corner.

I always swap caps-lock and control, but since they're designed to live on different rows you can't swap the key caps themselves because they'll look funny. So you either have to stick a label on the key (which also looks lame) or just live with them being mislabeled. The better solution for me was to buy a Das Keyboard and remap the keys the way I like. In my case, not only did I swap caps-lock and control, but I swapped alt and command so they'd match the normal Apple layout (for some reason, lots of keyboards get these two backwards. Probably something to do with IBM's partner in crime).

Re:Fuck IBM!

[Anonymous Coward]

The original IBM PC had the control key in the correct place. It wasn't until the PC-AT that they moved it to the bottom. They also added the extra set of cursor keys, and moved the function keys to the top. Then we had today's keyboard which, when centered in front of you, places the main key section to your left. Real stupid design.

I loved the original PC keyboard.

I LIKE the caps lock key. Computer user since 1980

[ClioCJS]

You know, I have enough problems with carpal tunnel / RSI. Holding down the shift key while typing an entire word is simply MORE PAINFUL than hitting the caps lock key before and after typing the word. A 2-key extended stretch is much harder on the muscles/nerves/joints. Keep your laws off my body! (hahahaha)

And yes, I used the CAPS LOCK key to type "MORE PAINFUL" as well as "CAPS LOCK". MUCH MUCH MUCH less "work" than holding down the shift.

Useful in signaling multiple processes!

[mattr]

I just realized that typewriters used to have a real physical toggle key that could be depressed for caps lock and then undepressed. Now they are just normal keys. However, note that it is an unimportant key so that if your left hand strays too far left, it will not create extraneous output.

Also I would like to state that I found a good use for the Caps Lock key. I wrote a program called kami-shibai (Japanese for an old fashioned manual slide show) for an artist. One program would check a POP3 mailbox for incoming email, and attached photos would be stored in a folder. Another program would look for new arriving photos and insert them into a running slideshow (windows, perl gui app). I used different programs because I wanted to be able to easily stop and restart the network side so as not to interfere with the artist's own email program when it was being used.

Because there was a slideshow player program running in the foreground, if you told the slideshow player to quit you would quit the slideshow but not the control program, and you would get an ugly error or worse. However, by simply, elegantly, and mysteriously clicking the Caps Lock key, the control program would notice your intent and gracefully close everything down.

It seems to me that Caps Lock is far more useful than most people think and is definitely an unsung hero! In fact it seems that you could signal a whole host of simultaneous processes at once with a single key that can be toggled into a state that can be interrogated at any time, regardless of input sequences.

You could use the three available toggles to specify up to 8 different states under which a program is to be run, without any overt GUI interaction, which might be useful to evade spyware. One such key might be useful to switch a keyboard map too; I used to use a BlackBox software widget to go between French and English keyboards but now that we are going to web 2.0 we need a cross platform solution.

I definitely think it would be useful to increase the uses of Caps Lock and promote the inclusion of more wild keys. Maybe adding thumbwheels (yeah Sony's Vaio had it too, it was cool) to match Irix's window scaling widgets. Now maybe someone can explain the Pause/Break key to me..

More important things...

[Autonomous Crowhard]

While an interesting point, the caps lock key is still useful for things like THE_C_CONSTANTS and such.

What would be a far better task would be to fight to standardize the keyboard location tilde/back-tick and pipe/back-slash. Using xmodmap to standardize keyboards is ok, but it means that other people could break thing is they have to use your machine.

The end of 419's?

[angusmci]

Could this mean the end of Nigerian spam?

"Olubi - this keyboard has no caps lock key! How can I send my emails?"

Smiley

[szembek]

I fear that if they did get rid of this very important key, they would end up putting a goddamn smiley faced key there!

Legitimate question...

[tacokill]

Your question, Okay... If the task requires a field to be in all caps why didn't the programmer just convert what every was entered in that field in all caps??? is a very legitimate question.

Now, let me give you a legitimate answer.

We would have loved to do that. But due to time, resources, and budget, this feature is NOT IN THE SOFTWARE.

You now have 3 choices:
a) don't use the software
b) use the software as-is (ie: use the caps lock key)
c) Spend $xxxx, that you don't have, to implement this feature and convince your software vendor to actually do it.

This is the difference between the real world and the theoretical world. In theory, we'd all love to have perfectly engineered software. In the real world, that very rarely, if ever, happens. And sorry to pick on you....its just that your post summed up a pet-peeve of mine. Sometimes it's not possible nor cost-effective to fix these things. So we deal with them the best way we can.

Re:Legitimate question...

[LWATCDR]

I do understand. I write software for a living.
Your answer isn't an answer to my question as to why they didn't put in that feature. It is a statement that the software you are using is lacking that feature.
You have hit on one of my pet peeves of software development. A disconnect between the people that write the software and those that use and support the software.
The feature I mentioned really is easy to implement. Why was this simple, error preventing , time saving feature left out of this piece of software?
How long have you been using this software? How long since that last update? Is it so perfect and bug free in every other way that no updates have been issued?

You have hit on one of my pet peeves. The idea that it is impossible to fix things. If you are paying for updates and support for a program you should have the option of requesting features that would make every users life easier. Your vendor should love the idea of putting in a 2 minute fix that would save many hours of work for it's users. It would help sell more systems or endear them to their current customers.
I don't think that deleting the caps lock is a requirement. I am all for remapping it to another function. However the idea of keeping a feature that is only helpful to .001% of all users and is harmful or useless to the rest of them seems a bit silly.
"And sorry to pick on you....its just that your post summed up a pet-peeve of mine. Sometimes it's not possible nor cost-effective to fix these things. So we deal with them the best way we can."
I don't feel picked on. But here is an answer to your statement. Why should I have to pay for your problem. Why should I have a useless key on my keyboard just because you don't want to fix a problem? It is right up their with why should I have to live with IE7 not following current standards because a bunch of retards built IE only websites that depend on a broken browser?

Like I said, I don't care if they delete the caps lock or not. I do care about bad software.

Re:Legitimate question...

[ajs318]

You could always add the feature to the software yourself -- that's what Freedom Three means.

Re:Legitimate question...

[hurfy]

"Your vendor should love the idea of putting in a 2 minute fix that would save many hours of work for it's users."

Your vendor is obviously not my vendor......

Quote was $780 to remove a couple lines of code and save reams of paper.
Why should a couple keystrokes concern em :(

Of course the menus/programs only recognize CAPITALS anyway so it is a non-issue ;(

Re:Legitimate question...

[kimvette]

I do not want the capslock key to go away. I'd rather it get renamed to "META" or "aux" something like that (yes, I know, some unixy environments refer to other keys as meta) because it is very easily remapped to other functions in xmodmap.

Windows/AOL users who insist on TYPING IN ALL CAPS can keep their precious 'feature' for all I care - I'd rather skip such a user's post in entirety rather than read a couple of lines (thanks to the missing capslock) of drivel to discover that the user's post is not worth reading. Time is a precious resource, and with the ability to know at a mere glance that "WARNING: this idiot's post should be skipped" I will not have wasted two precious, precious seconds of my life discovering that yes, the user is an idiot. From that perspective, legacy CAPSLOCK functionality is something I hold dear to my heart.

(obviously this post is made in half-jest but the first paragraph is intended to be taken seriously)

Re:Legitimate question...

[LWATCDR]

You see I am a vendor! We have over 10,000 users and yes we have added code like that as part of our standard updates.
If it was a contract job and you are the only customer than the problem is that when your people wrote the specs they did a bad job. If it is a product with more than one user then you have a crappy vendor. Now that $780 to save reams of paper seems like a price to performance ratio. I hope your company did it. It wouldn't take too many reams of paper plus employee time to pay for that.
We charge $700 a year for support plus updates. That includes 24 hour a day toll free telephone support. While we don't do custom work our customers get many new features and improvements a year. We are in a competitive market and have three of four companies that compete with us. Competition is a good thing. Shame we are not in the Medical Billing software market. Seems like you can treat your customers poorly and the keep coming back for more.
I do feel for you as an end user. Your vendor should take a bit more pride in doing things right.

Re:Legitimate question...

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

It is right up their with why should I have to live with IE7 not following current standards because a bunch of retards built IE only websites that depend on a broken browser?

Erm I think you mean, a bunch of retards built IE, and a bunch of websites were built to conform to the broken browser that 95% of the marketplace was using. This is a case where you really can blame the tools, not the craftsmen.

Re:Legitimate question...

[LWATCDR]

Nope I blame the people that made IE only websites. If they wanted to support standards and IE then that is fine. To only support a broken browser is retarded.

Re:Legitimate question...

[tacokill]

Agreed. In an ideal world, everything gets fixed that SHOULD be fixed. And nothing is impossible to fix. But fixes cost time and money and my choice is not quite as clear cut as you make it out to be. Believe me, if I thought I could push and make this software "perfect", then we would be pushing for that. Hell, I would LOVE to have an SEI/CMM level 5 operation. But there are only a few operations that can spend the money to acheive that level of quality -- NASA and Motorola being two of them that I know. I am certain that the software vendor we are using is not that tight.

And you don't have to pay for the poor implementation -- I do. You see, I don't design or implement software for a living. I used to. But those days are behind me and now I have a business to run that is dependent on other people's software. When you get your business up and running on a vendor's software and that software doesn't do exactly what you want it to do, then you have two choices:
a) Switch (with HUGE costs in both IT, training, business operations, etc)
b) Deal with it as best you can and hope that you can get it fixed at some point (and it IS a negotiation with the vendor).


The point of my previous post was that it's very easy to say "well, if your vendor isn't doing things right, then switch or push harder" -- but the reality is far different. Just look at any SAP implementation and you will see what I am talking about. The IT world is riddled with failed implementations. Some are due to technology. Many more are due to poor requirements, poor training, poor documentaiton, and an overall poor understanding of what it was supposed to do.

In sum, you have to pick your battles. And the caps-lock key is NOT a battle I am going to pick with my vendors. There are other, larger issues to worry about.

You said it yourself that you can re-map the caps-lock. So just go do that. And let the rest of us keep using the caps-lock since it's been there, well, since we started using keyboards.

(note: We certainly agree on detesting badly written software but my comments were more about -- what do you do when you already HAVE badly written software)

Re:Legitimate question...

[LWATCDR]

I do understand. The thing is that you and I don't decide if the the Cap lock key goes or stays.
There are a lot of useful custom hardware that only exists on ISA cards. The ISA slots are a lot simpler to design hardware for than PCI. ISA is gone.
The good old centronics port is great for some custom hardware. Things like microcontroller programmers and such. It is very hard to use under NT/2000/XP and is also getting harder and harder to find.
Same goes for serial ports.
Even modems that work well at 1200 baud are getting harder to find. Most Winmodems seem to have issues with older hardware. I know people that hunt Ebay for old external modems.
If the big vendors decide that the Caps lock is useless you may end up paying a premium for keyboards with it or even hunting old keyboards on Ebay for your application.
I just really hate easy to fix user interface issues with a passion. You are correct, you are stuck dealing with it.

Re:Legitimate question...

[tacokill]

I just really hate easy to fix user interface issues with a passion.

Amen to that, brother. They are the bain of my existence.

I LOL about your serial port comment because we deal with that ALL the time. We have to use HART modems (protocol for communicating with PLC's and instruments) and I have bought more than a few laptops that I later found out didn't have serial ports. Yea, I should have checked but jeez.....isn't serial still widely used? Apparently not. haha

Re:Legitimate question...

[LWATCDR]

We have found that the Socket/IO serial cars work well with those type of issues.
You could also try a serial to TCP/IP adapter. You could hook the HART MODEMS to your network then.

How has the discussion gone this long...

[21st Century Peon]

...without mention of the godsdamned AltGr key?

Re:How has the discussion gone this long...

[demon]

You mean the one that rarely, if ever, exists on US keyboards? The last time I actually saw one was on a French-Canadian keyboard. When I was in Quebec. Where they actually use that key.

: 4 8 15 16 23 42

[dsandler]

...some of the most valuable keyboard real estate is squatted by a large, useless key that above all you must not press!

Hey, it could be worse: Your keyboard could have an EXECUTE key. That button must be pushed.

Bigotry!

[955301]

This is clearly a subversive campaign to disenfranchise the naming conventions of several major programming languages for the CONSTANT.

-1 on this one. This guy just didn't come up with any uses, that's all... Not a programmer, a military message sender, or a secretary for a lawyer I guess.

Shift turns off Caps Lock

[robbarrett]

One of the best things I ever did (ok, nowhere very close to the top really) was shift my keyboard to "press the Shift key to turn off Caps Lock" mode. In Windows XP this is done in the Control Panel | Regional and Language Options | Text Services and Input Languages | Key Settings (or see http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArti cle.asp?ID=389). That way you get rid of the infinitely irritating Caps Lock toggle that you never can get into the right state and Shift always brings you home again. Also, it means Caps Lock is never accidently on beyond your next use of the Shift key. Try it...you'll never go back.

For OS X users

[Knights who say 'INT]

http://doublecommand.sourceforge.net/ will remap Caps Lock to Control, among other things. I'm trying it for a while, but I'm too used to using Caps Lock for small acronyms like OS X and URL and prolly will turn it off soon.

Re:For OS X users

[Anonymous Coward]

That's totally unneccessary. In OS X you can remap the Command, Control, Caps Lock and Option keys from the System Preferences menu. Why would I go through all this hassle when someone obviously thought about it for me already and made it simple!

This key should be...

[sheepoo]

CAPSized

MOD PARENT UP

[wed128]

That is the best post i've seen all week!

caps lock..

[Heem]

If we got rid of caps lock, I'd actually have to read someone's text to decide if they are a moron or not.

As it stands, if I see all caps, I can just instantly move on.

A simple fix

[AmbianceForce]

Either snap the key off the keyboard or wedge a small piece of paper under the key so that it can not be depressed. You can not remove it because there are still a large number of systems that people work in that use terminal emulators. Many terminals require the use of not only all caps entry but the scroll lock key as well. As a telecom programmer, I work in WYSE, ANSI, VT, IBM and a few other different terminals and the key-mappings make use of these keys.

Back in the day...

[Anonymous Coward]

when I learned to type (on an honest-to-goodness typewriter, not just some software installed on a PC) the guideline
espoused by all my typing teachers was that Caps Lock was to be used when you were typing 3 or more capital letters in
succession. I've found that's pretty reasonable -- moreso now that I have been diagnosed with RSI.

So unless/until we can convince everyone in the world that all capitals should be banned, can we keep this asshat from
turning /. into his personal rant forum?

Don't start taking away keys!

[Nukenbar2]

The Poster must be a pirate.

But we need it for slashdot polls!

[s1lentslayer]

What is Your Least Favorite Acronym? MPAA RIAA IRS FBI ESRB BSA

Special keyboards for special needs.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure a large aerospace manufacturer can afford to buy a special keyboard that includes capslock.

I see no reason why anyone without this kind of designed problem would need it.

F11?!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's "toggle fullscreen" in just about every program that has a fullscreen mode.

Just leave it alone!

[markalanj]

This must be the same guy who got rid of my RS-232 ports! And the most of USB to serial converters just suck! I don't see what the point is in getting rid of the CAPS LOCK key. Its been there a long time an no matter what this guy thinks I am sure there are a few people out there using the CAPS LOCK key for something other than pissing off people in IM.

Who cares ?

[Anonymous Coward]

This entire topic is just plain stupid.
Get a life, there are better things to worry about.

NeXT Did this right...

[rthille]

NeXT had the Control key where the PC has Caps-Lock, but you could activate the caps-lock _function_ by 'Cmd-Shift (release)'. It worked well, was easily accessible and didn't waste a key right on the home row.
My Powerbook I'm typing this on doesn't have a caps-lock key. Well, the key is still labeled that, but I pulled the keyboard apart cut the traces going to the caps-lock key and re-routed them with liquid solder to the control traces. That was a pain, but it was long before they had caps-lock mapping software that would work with this ADB keyboard Powerbook.

Eradicate Comic Sans

[Anonymous Coward]

How about ridding the world of the plague that is MS Comic Sans? Talk about fighting the good fight!

All Caps Data Entry Applications Still Exist

[SwedishChef]

This may come as a shock to Slashdotters who think computers are all used for programming,gaming or porn surfing but there are still a ton of applications that use all-caps data entry. IBM i5 applications are commonly entered in all-caps; police and fire databases use them; even some accounting systems. Many of these are not accessed via terminals any more but by brand new spiffy PCs with CapsLock keys and without that key they wouldn't be buying new computers.

Rather than eliminating the CapsLock key why not substitute some alternative location like over the keypad (does anyone still use the Pause/Break key?). Or alt/shift for CapsLock.

Or forget the entire thing... just get us out of Iraq.

Move the CAPS LOCK

[ripcrd]

Move the key up to the top of the keyboard, by the Esc key or the big empty area on the right, above the Number pad.

SlowKeys, StickyKeys, and other Keyboard gestures

[GodWasAnAlien]

In KDE, and I assume with others, you can use SlowKeys, StickyKeys to make the Shift Lock for you automatically or with some shift sequence (double click shift?).

CAPS is fine, I dislike others

[Anonymous Coward]

I use caps lock all the time. It's not my fault really. Ask Oracle why they like CASE_INSENSITIVE_TABLE_NAMES :)

Other keys in your keyboard are far more useless: scroll lock, print screen, insert, sleep, power, pause.

I never use those and kept bumping into them when trying to press backspace to correct my frequent mistakes.

If you hate capslock so much, just remap it like another poster said, or do as I did with those keys I mentioned: take them off your keyboard with a screwdriver :) works wonders, never switched to "overwrite" mode by accident when trying to erase some text again.

btw, if someone knows who even invented that "overwrite" mode in text editors, please tell me so I can throw some refined sugar in his car's gasoline tank.

Too Much Time on my Hands

[TheLogster]

Surely there are better things to campain about.. For eample:

Use Wind Power
Save the Wales
Save the Children
Pluto is a planet, damnit
Bring back 8-track tapes

CAD Users?

[Anonymous Coward]

This poster is the typical self-centered oblivion who never considers another's needs. Mechanical and Electrical CAD users almost always type notes and explanatory text in capitals. The caps lock key is not an anachronism in their world.
The good news is that no one will pay serious attention to a whining moron like pieterh.

a screwdriver will do...

[themib]

It's quite simple. Remove the key from your keyboard.... Thank you please drive through.

(most people who use the computers at my house for the first time comment on the fact that none of the keyboards have Caps Lock keys.)

Caps Lock

[ProjectzDragN]

I was going to say something funny... but Slashdot has a CAPSLOCK filter. Bastards. GG /.

Arrow Lock

[Anonymous Coward]

It should be an arrow lock key and simply be off by default. What moron decided that the default should be lit up? It'd be like having a lower-case lock that was just on by default all the time. I always hated that because I am OCD.

Re:The One-Point-Five Inches that Destroyed the Wo

[Anonymous Coward]

STOP using vi and you won't have to hit escape 2983742 times per day.

you don't want it screwing up your job.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice try, but the real reason is you are a hand model and the extra effort on the one hand overdevelops your muscles, thus making your hand less worthy of modeling.

Caps lock is useful for designers.

[Stick_Fig]

I design newspaper pages, and many of our headers, bylines and headlines are in all caps. Losing this key would complicate my job. Just because you can't see a reason for something to exist doesn't mean it has none. Remember that.

No Caps Lock?

[Sam Nitzberg]

Not for me.
I need my COBOL ;-)

I think a lot of people of missing the guy's point

[ShieldWolf]

The problem isn't the CAPS LOCK key it is the POSITION of the Caps Lock Key.

Solution: move the key from where it is now (where it is RARELY used by most people and due to its location is often mis-hit), to a more suitable location, e.g. beside the insert/delete keys or the funtion keys that almost no one accidently hits.

This way those people who NEED the caps key still have it, those who don't won't mis hit it.

The problem is that CAPS LOCK was put where it is now to coincide with SHIFT-LOCK on most typewriters and word processors. The SHIFT-LOCK key on these devices however could NOT be accidently pressed because the key would PHYSICALLY depress when you hit it providing instant feedback (and you had to press down with some pressure).

Having an easily accessible CAPS LOCK and SHIFT LOCK made sense then because back in the day because many docs used ALL CAPS to highlight text since there was no bold, italics, or different fonts avaiable. Nowadays the key is useless for 90+% of people so it should be moved to less important real estate (but still be accessible).

Stupid Ideas come from stupid ppl

[GoldenEye4ever]

I can think of so many reasons why removing the caps key would be a bad idea 1: As a programmer, I like my comments to be done in CAPS, I do not want to hold down the shift key as I write comments. 2: What about creating flyers, say in MS Word? If you want it to stand-out, you may want it to be all in caps... Pressing the CAPS key is very usefull 3: Use your imagination...there are countless reasons In closing, STOP COMING UP WITH STUPID IDEAS P.S. It would've been irritating to hold the shift key while writing the last line

Caps Lock and Photoshop

[Piata]

Some of us use the caps lock key to toggle our brush appearance in Photoshop. While it may be a pain for some, it's useful to others.

The real issue: TAB key reform.

[TheForgotton]

Capslock certainly has it's place in the business sector and I've seen it used as a run-lock in games, but what really bugs me is the position of the Tab key. When entering numbers into spreadsheets or the like on the numpad, one has to keep a hand permanently in Tab-ville or suffer the full-keyboard reach after each entry. Keyboards generally have two sets of Ctrl, Alt, Enter, and Shift keys, but why only one Tab? Having a Tab button by the numpad would save time and effort, perhaps even cause less repetive strain. Either subdivide the + or add one underneath the Pageup/Pagedown bloc. Aside from a few models of external numpads, I've never really seen this addressed. Is one supposed to buy an expensive programmable gaming rig just to get a little Tab action?

slashdot == poo

[Anonymous Coward]

this is not news for anyone and doesn't matter, so why is this even on the front page?

The guy doesn't even have his own website FFS.

Why bother?

[rickb928]

According to my calculations, you died about 7.4 years ago, from inadequate nutrition. You just couldn't get enough calories in between using vi and backing up to see the gallery so you could pick the *next* Cindy Margolis pic.

RIP, my friend, RIP.

rick

I have a strange feeling...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a strange feeling that you must be a vi user.

What about games?

[Saint Fnordius]

There are some games where I use the caps lock. IN Escape Velocity Nova, it's useful for toggling accelerated screen speed, and in Marathon I use it for running. There are a couple of other games where a persistant toggle is useful.

I'm surprised actually that more programs don't use the caps lock to toggle between modes. Dreamweaver, for example, could use it to toggle between code typing and WYSISYG typing. The fact that it lights up (or has an indicator light elsewhere on the keyboard) does make it useful.

Otherwise, yes, it is a minimal-usefulness holdover from the mechanical typewriter days, when holding the shift key meant REALLY mashing down that round button. I have one of those buggers at home, where the whole carriage would be lifted by the shift key. And yes, I have jammed the keys by wedging the hammers...

Look at the stupider picture...

[azav]

What is really wrong with caps lock is that IF you hold down shift while caps is on, it lowercases everything - on windows.

While the first solution here is not to use Windows, the real problem is "why would a button named 'Caps Lock' perform a task against its very nature?"

The button should be called "Maybe Caps Lock. Maybe Not." But that would require an even larger button.

But then the poor NIGERIAN SCAMMERS will have to hold down the shift key while typing their sob stories in all caps. Hmmmm.

I vote to remove it.

Re:Look at the stupider picture...

[drinkypoo]

What is really wrong with caps lock is that IF you hold down shift while caps is on, it lowercases everything - on windows.

And on many other systems.

In this case, the SHIFT key is doing precisely what it says. If caps lock is off, it shifts to capitals. If it's on, it shifts to lowercase.

Don't complain when systems are logical.

Re:Look at the stupider picture...

[azav]

Ok, by your statement, you are correct.

But is this useful behaviour?

I'd always thought it "shifted" to uppercase. Never considered "shifting the case from what is selected". So by my thought, it's not logical.

Really, I was trying to point out that Caps Lock should override Shift since it is called "Caps Lock". If Shift overrides Caps Lock, then I guess it's not really Caps Lock now is it?

From your viewpoint, the behaviour is logical. It's still pretty useless though. I can't think of a case where Shift overriding a button with "Lock" in the label is desirable.

You stated "On many other systems too". Thankfully, my mac is not one of them.

Re:Look at the stupider picture...

[drinkypoo]

Ok, by your statement, you are correct. But is this useful behaviour?

I think it's useful. Caps Lock provides for you if you need to type a bunch of uppercase letters with some limited capitals in it, just like normally you're typing a bunch of lowercase letters with a little uppercase mixed in. Such a thing does happen; the usefulness is limited, I'm not trying to blow smoke up your ass or anything. However, I can't think of any reason not to include that functionality, whereas people who want it will really appreciate it.

Re:Look at the stupider picture...

[Blakey Rat]

Yeah, but then it's not Caps LOCK, it's Caps REVERSE. The key should do what its label claims it does, and lock-on capitals regardless of shift. Either that, or the label should be changed to read Caps Reverse on Windows, and stay Caps Lock on Mac OS.

Re:Look at the stupider picture...

[Anonymous Coward]

I would Agree, However, I do a lot of work for medical offices, and I've yet to be in one where they did not type all the patient information in all caps!! Not really sure why, but I've went on inter office campaigns to undermine the activity to no avail! I have given completely up! medical industry = ALL CAPS
so just make a "Doctors Keyboard" with a Freaking DIP switch in the back that would be semi-permanently set to CAPS

Re:Look at the stupider picture...

[yndrd1984]

I'd always thought it "shifted" to uppercase. Never considered "shifting the case from what is selected". So by my thought, it's not logical.

It's like using a Mac. Drag a folder to the trash and it gets deleted, but drag a drive to the trash and it gets unmounted. To a normal person drives are just the top level of directories and "throw away" and "give to me" are opposites - thus the interface makes no sense. But spend enough time using one, and you'll find it weird that normal people freak out when you "delete" their photos.

On the other hand, a "case reverse" key would make more sense, now that it doesn't lock the keyboard to only typing caps.

I can't think of a case where Shift overriding a button with "Lock" in the label is desirable.

Passwords. Nothing makes it harder to learn your password than by watching than by adding a few caps lock and arrow key presses. :)

Re:Look at the stupider picture...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't know how many of you bods would be old enough to remember typewriters :-).

The CAPS LOCK key should force capitals and, when the SHIFT key is pressed, the CAPS LOCK functionality stops.

On typewriters, there was a mechanical connection between SHIFT and CAPS LOCK which forced the CAPS LOCK key to rise when SHIFT was used. Yes, the CAPS LOCK key stayed depressed while active - I daresay you could emulate this 'proper' interaction between CAPS LOCK and SHIFT in software but good luck trying to keep the CAPS LOCK depressed without a hardware fix.

Oh yeah, get rid of all those function keys and numeric keypads and insert/delete, etc. They have no place on a typewriter keyboard.

Cheers,
Pax.

Re:The One-Point-Five Inches that Destroyed the Wo

[shudde]

While I admire your perspicacity and crazed ranting, I'm forced to take exception to one of your claims.

Now, INSFBCL (I'm Not Some Fancy Big City Lawyer), but you don't have to be teh inventor of the intarweb to know that that much heat escaping into the atmosphere is at least quintupling the effects of Global Warning every year.

There have been numerous studies (and at least one graph) that prove that global warming is solely due to the decline of pirates since the 1800's. You've obviously fallen victim to the scurillous propaganda spread by those devil-worshipping heathens from the SubGenius cult.

I look forward to your retraction.

Num-Lock Too

[gallant2006]

What's up with the num lock key? Let's get rid of that as well.

Your kids surely appreciate the caps-lock key!

[poliopteragriseoapte]

You worry about your kids having to cope with caps-lock, but if you have kids about 4-6 years old, they definitely appreciate the caps-lock key: they learn first the all-caps alphabet, and they have great fun typing:

MOM DAD CAT DOG ...

For your egoistic web surfing and coding needs, you are going to deprive young children of such a learning experience? Shame on you!

Also note that if you leave caps-lock on, it's harder for them to accidentally type

\rm -r ~/*

Newbie?

[kbahey]

You obviously never coded COBOL on an 80 column sheet, in pencil ...

Eradicate the CAPS-LOCK key

[SheldonW]

There are a few reasons for writing in all caps. There are none for a caps-lock key. A modifier such as Ctrl-B (Bold), Ctrl-U (Underline) should be used instead of a special key.

Mac OS X provides a method for reassigning the caps-lock key or disabling it via system preferences. Image: http://www.mindsplice.com/Photos/Caps_Lock_Key.png

Software Developers should make the changes necessary to eradicate the caps-lock key. Software should automatically switch all entries to caps if required for example by a database. CS should provide the option to make any key a toggled-key (I don't know if it does as I haven't played in years).

Re:Eradicate the CAPS-LOCK key

[genessy]

And while they're at it, why don't they stop writing insecure code with bugs in it as well? :)

CAPS LOCK KICKS ASS

[digitaldc]

mOD mE REDUNDANT!

some people need Caps Lock

[Bigos]

I KNOW A PARTIALLY SIGHTED WOMAN WHO HAS TO FIGHT WITH EVERYBODY FOR RIGHT TO USE CAPS LOCK. She's got a laptop from some charity so she can use it to enlarge texts and have some contact with outside world. To help her with comfortable access to information on certain website I had to download everything and set text size in CSS to 80px. Usually it can't be done so writing using Caps Lock is the only way others can do to help her communicate. So if Caps Lock is a problem why instead of eliminating it completely why do we use in future some key combination so those who need it might still use it.

Fight the Real Enemy!

[Anomalous Cowbird]

Sure, CAPS LOCK can be annoying; but it doesn't present nearly the problems that NUM LOCK can create (by accidentally being OFF), or SCROLL LOCK (by being ON). On any full-size keyboard, NUM LOCK has no reason ever to be off; and as far as I can tell, the only reason SCROLL LOCK exists is to really screw things up if it ever gets locked ON.

Exactly what we need

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, all of us s/390 (IBM mainframe) assembler programs would love to hold down shift as we code. It would make assembler so much easier to have one less finger free as we go.

Re:The One-Point-Five Inches that Destroyed the Wo

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not move the escape key to where the tab key is now and move the tab key down. you use the tab key more than the escape key. In fact at the end of the post I will use the tab key to go down to the next field in this comment form

Why Stop There?

[ElboRuum]

There are a pile of other keys that should be retired for various reasons:

With the advent of the GUI and mouse:

All keys F1-F12: Essentially a DOS holdover, these are antiquated "action" keys.
Esc: The escape key rarely escapes anything. Get rid of it.
Windows key/Menu Key: You have a mouse... use it!

Disused keys:

Tilde/Backquote, Caps Lock, the numeric keypad, Scroll Lock, Pause/Break

Others:

We can also get rid of the Shift and Backspace keys, because it seems that people are no longer interested in capitalizing or correcting typos, judging by most of the posts and emails I receive. I guess we can get rid of insert/home/pgup/pgdn/delete/end as well.

For that matter, let's get rid of all of the letter and number keys. With all the 1337, usage of 'teh', etc. it's clear that most people operating a keyboard are intent on vandalizing the language, so let's just take it out of their hands and be done with it.

And no one I know uses the right CTRL key, so that can go too.
Since we don't have text, who needs a space bar. Bye-bye.

So that leaves Print Screen and the left CTRL key on our streamlined keyboard...

That's a little sparse, but the addition of a single button will offer most computer users the functionality they need, and that button is...

Find pR0N ([CTRL+Find pR0N] gets you to the pay sites). We'll leave the Print Screen just in case they need some 'hard'copy.

ThinkPad Button

[ScottCooperDotNet]

Surely, you mean the ThinkPad Button?

But what will I use for my...

[Oriumpor]

ventrilo and teamspeak PTT key? When I'm not on some voice chat I use it for any number of macros cause of it's position opposite enter (left pinky) makes it easy to remember (for me) whenever I use scroll-lock etc and I want to copy my macros to a laptop it's a pain finding the scroll lock (and sometimes you've gotta hold function to hit the thing.)

I sense a great disturbance in the Force...

[Anonymous Coward]

...as millions of AOL users are suddenly silenced.

Oh, sorry, I sensed a great relief in the Force...

Re:The One-Point-Five Inches that Destroyed the Wo

[drinkypoo]

STOP using vi and you won't have to hit escape 2983742 times per day.

One of my ex-bosses got carpal from using escape-meta-alt-control-shift, no lie. He ended up buying one of those kinesis keyboards where the keys are arranged in two divots, one for each hand, so you don't have to move your hands at all to type. He can still only type for like half an hour at a time now.

I *like* the Caps Lock key

[ajs318]

Sometimes I can't be bothered to use both hands for typing; or I'm really multi-tasking as opposed to inter-tasking {i.e. drinking tea while typing as opposed to merely taking a sip betwen keystrokes. And sometimes, I need to type a capital letter which is far from the shift keys. At such times, I find a quick press of the Caps Lock key allows me to accomplish what I'm trying to do with one hand. Of course, it needs a second press afterward to turn it off, but for one-handed typing it's actually quite useful.

I also like to capitalise HTML tags and SQL reserved words {Hey, I take advantage of case-insensitivity wherever I can get it!}; and Caps Lock saves me from having to hold down the shift key to do that.

What I wouldn't object to would be removing the rightmost 5mm. from the key, so leaving a half-centimetre gap between the Caps Lock and A {Q in France} keys so that this doesn't haPPEN so often. I might buy me a cheap keyboard and carry out such a modification, using some highly sophisticated equipment {a hacksaw!} to see if it's an improvement.

Re:I *like* the Caps Lock key

[xeno-cat]

"I also like to capitalise HTML tags and SQL reserved words"

Were you an xBASE programmer? So we all have to suffer so you can be lazy and write ugly code blocks? You should at least have to flip a protective plastic plate and turn a key to the "armed" position before the caps lock key will depress.

I kid. I kid.

While were getting rid of keys...

[drtsystems]

While where getting rid of keys, lets also get rid of: Scroll Lock -- what the hell does it even do? Print screen -- noone uses it, it doesnt even print the screen (ya i know copys it thats what software screen capture software is for) Insert -- just make it an option in the edit menu or something Num Lock -- most people never use it, although i can see its use while were at it, we should make a standard for laptop keyboards. Some laptops have rediculous keyboard layouts, with things like the windows key where the shift key goes (wow thats annoying, always losing focus of the window while typing)

Num Lock is useful

[Zalminen]

Actually I find both modes of the number keypad useful:

The number mode is very useful when inputting longer numbers.

The other mode makes the arrow keys that much nicer to use. Yes, there are also arrow keys next to the number keypad, but on the number keypad the location of the down arrow is much more comfortable for my hand.
(Similarly, I never use WASD as movement keys in games, it's always WAXD)

The other keys (Home, End etc) on the other hand I could live without ...

Re:The One-Point-Five Inches that Destroyed the Wo

[Chrisje]

These calories that you burn, you will consume anyway. Right now, at least you burn them after you finished stuffing your face with various processed parts of miscellaneous animals and sugar. This means that if you stop burning that energy, you will run a greater risk of overweight, heart / coronary diseases and possibly (I've seen it implied somewhere) cancer if you move that particular key closer.

If you create an escape key that is cordless and which is placed strategically 10 km outside of your office, chances are you'll eat the same amount of food, but burn sufficient amounts of energy getting back and forth to the Key to still be a lean, sexy tech worker with great stamina.

And who wouldn't want to be a sexy Tech Worker? Then there's the effects it will have on taxes. IF noone has any of the beforementioned diseases anymore, we don't need hospitals to the same degree we do now. Or research. We'll all quit paying taxes altogether and live to be 130.... hang on a minute... 130... maybe move that button closer anyway. We can't sustain that population.

Letter "C": TRUE Menace of the English Language

[Velireon]

In the rush to eliminate superfluousness, let us not forget the Letter "C". Nowhere is it necessary in the English language. It is useful in the consonant combination "ch", but nowhere else. It always causes confusion when in unknown words -- is it pronounced hard or soft? Why must we bear this two-faced letter?! It can always be replaced with a k or an s (save in the ch, which should be its own letter anyway). Rally behind me today, ye great thinkers! Let us cast out the evil "c"!

Re:Letter "C": TRUE Menace of the English Language

[DragonWriter]

Well, if you stop using "X" as another way of writing either "Z", or "KZ", you could just use it for the "CH" sound, which has nothing to do with the sound that "C", in any of its uses, and "H" make separately.

How to "declare war"

[etresoft]

First of all, your goal is way too specific. Once you get rid of Caps Lock, what then? You should re-word your goal to be "war on useless keys"

That's much better. Now you have a vague definition of victory. Once you get rid of caps lock, don't hang a banner that says "Mission Accomplished", but it isn't.

Next, you can start building support for removing the dreaded "vertical bar" key. The Windows people will fight you becase that is also backslash. You could get Microsoft on board by proposing a flat filesystem for Vista. At that point, the only need for backslash is the escape character. Only Unix people use that and they should stick to low-order ASCII where they belong.

You could try some easy victories with the "SysRq" and "Scroll Lock" keys - kind of like Grenada - the good 'ole days.

There aren't too many of those keys though. You need something big, something to stir up keyboard-patriotic fervor. How about the backspace key? Who wants to admit to mistakes anyway? We should be moving forwards, not backwards. Keep the delete key. You still want to delete unwanted text in front of you, but going backwards is the same as retreat. Definitely the backspace!

Best Position for CAPS LOCK key

[hbr]

I remember reading a newsgroup about 10 years ago (on my vt100!), where people were discussing the best position on the keyboard for the Caps Lock key.

I think the final consensus was that the best location would be the underside of the keyboard.

PSSH

[Danzigism]

first of all, I use my CAPS key as my "Speak" button when I use something like TeamSpeak, Ventrillo, or the built in voice chat in Unreal.. someone below mentioned "They should take away the Scroll Lock key too!" then how the fuck am I gonna scroll up on my console in FreeBSD??

Save caps lock

[Vexorian]

Think of the children! Caps lock is used by many games as a toggleable control!

CAD and Drafting Issues

[DahBaker]

Ridding the keyboard of the caps lock key would hurt drafters and people that use CAD software. It is customary to label all parts of a drawing in uppercase letters and all notes and titles also appear in uppercase.

Scroll Lock rocks!!

[Comboman]

..or maybe the Scroll Lock key (do any of you even know what it's used for?

The only modern program I know of that makes good use of the Scroll Lock key is Microsoft Excel. Normally the arrow keys move the selected cell up/down/left/right. With the Scroll Lock on, the arrow keys scroll the spreadsheet up/down/left/right without changing the selected cell. Very useful for those five Excel users who do not own a mouse.

Re:Scroll Lock rocks!!

[PianoComp81]

Make that six users now.

I use my caps lock key as a compose key...

[Athenais]

...which solves both the problem of inputting accent marks and having a caps lock key that sometimes gets in the way. :)

If I could use it to input kanji too, I'd be in input device heaven!

Predjudice against those with RSI!

[nessus42]

Dude, are you trying to further make miserable the lives of those with RSI? We need those caps locks keys for typing in variables and the like that are in all caps.

Of course, without some sort of immediate feedback that one has entered caps lock mode, such a key indeed causes despair, but it is that lack of immediate feedback that is the problem, not the key itself. On old fashioned typewriters, you could easily feel when you were pressing caps lock. Computer manufacturers went about trying to drive everybody insane by removing this sensory feedback. (New technology always seems to be two steps forward, one step back -- if that.) Sun Microsystems made issues even worse by swapping the location of Control and CapsLock, so that when moving from one keyboard to another, you never know what you are going to get.

My Kinesis Contour Keyboard solves the problem elegantly by making a distinctive double buzz sound when you enter caps lock mode and a single buzz when you exit caps lock mode. Also, the keyboard is completely remappable, so you can put whatever key wherever you want it, or remove a key from the mapping altogether.

I suggest that this feedback and flexibility is what your movement should aim for, rather than trying to further cripple the rest of us.

Re:Predjudice against those with RSI!

[einnar2000]

I think work would be a lot more fun if we had a few pedals under the desk. Say CAPS LOCK, CTRL, and Backspace. Maybe a few more, but these are critical.
Then, I can convert the entire area in front of my monitor to an alphanumeric version of whack-a-mole, and be tapping pedals with my feet while I work and listen to music. I could save money on the gym, and we could invent a screwy scoring system to make it more like DDR.

Just think. Meetings would me much more interesting! No more fat coworkers! You could tell who was and wasn't working by the sweat level, and/or a calorie counter in the cubicle!

"I'm sorry Johnson, we're going to have to let you go. You've only burned 300 calories the entire last month." - (the drawback)

Re:Predjudice against those with RSI!

[Anonymous Coward]

I love my Kinesis!

Re:Predjudice against those with RSI!

[nessus42]

I love my Kinesis!

Yes, indeed Kinesis Contour Keyboards are mana from heaven!

|>oug

Can we put the Control Key back where it Belongs?

[Banner]

Really? Can we put the Control key back to where it first was, where the Caps Lock key is now? (The Caps lock key USED to be on the lower left side - Thank you Microsoft for changing the decades long convention of key placement).

Of course I suspect a lot of you reading this never used a keyboard from back prior to the 90's when MS changed them.

THE REALLY BIG BUTTON THAT DOESN'T DO ANYTHING

[Anonymous Coward]

How about big and red and convey a sense of discomfiture and insecurity, providing the user with a sense of failure and desolation when pushed? http://www.pixelscapes.com/spatulacity/button.htm

Caps Lock Key Started it

[Temujin_12]

Let's get somthing straight here. We are not declaring war on the Caps Lock key, we are merely DEFENDING ourselves from the war IT started. How many of you have ever been attacked by the Caps Lock key in VI? Nothing brings your coding to a screeching halt like trying to move the cursor down ('j') only to have a dozen or two lines smashed together ('J').

While were at it we need to declare war on the Insert key. Seriously, who ACTUALLY USES that key...EVER!?

Wow..

[xtermz]

..The author is an idiot.

I guess we just need to tell the whole legal system to f' off, considering tons and tons of documents utilize all caps.

As well as medical industries
and sever weather notices.
ETC

You have it backwards

[spitzak]

I also want programs to use the numeric keypad "arrows" for something else, and this means I want NumLock "on" at all times, the opposite of what you state. It is literally impossible to make the numeric keypad arrows have special functions without breaking every existing piece of software unless you act like NumLock is on. I will try to explain this counter-intunitive result:

The keyboard api (in both Windows and Linux) returns two pieces of information, the "key" and the "text". All function keys such as arrows have blank text. Currently if NumLock is off, the numeric keypad returns the exact same symbols and blank text as the normal arrows.

Let's write a "simple" text editor for a program that is unconcerned about NumLock and the keypad and just wants to work as the user expects:

    handle_key() {
          if (key_text() != 0) {
                insert(key_text());
          } else { // it's a function key!
                switch (key()) {
                case UP: move_cursor_up(); break;
                case DOWN: move_cursor_down(); break; ...
                }
            }
        }

Now what should the numeric keypad keys return if we want it to act like NumLock is off?

1. The arrow symbols and blank text (what Windows does now if NumLock is off). This fails as it is impossible to distinguish them from the normal arrows, so the desired function of making the numeric arrows do something different is impossible.

2. Special "different" arrow symbols and blank text (for some keys this is what Windows does if you assumme the "alt" bit is part of they key number). This fails as the above program will not see the arrow keys. Even if you modify the simple program, you will fail if a second keypad is added.

3. Arrow symbols plus text (ie "4" for the left-arrow+4). This fails the above in that the code will insert the text, acting like NumLock is on when it is supposed to act like it is off. Also fails to distinguish more than one keypad.

How about if we act like NumLock is on?

1. Special "different" number key symbols and the correct text. This works. The simple code above will insert the text, yet it is easy for a program to distinguish the keys if it wants to treat the keypad as differnt types of arrows. Adding another keypad can define more symbols, that will not break the simple program, and won't break the "complex" program (it will probably think the second keypad are normal numerics).

For this reason my software (fltk) always acts as though NumLock is on by changing the key events (Linux version changes the arguments to XLookupKeysym, the Windows verison uses the alt bit of the event to detect keypad and converts the arrows back into numbers, and some nasty other tests for those keys where the alt bit does not work)

I hope that was clear. The "intuitive" result is not always right. We definately should get rid of NumLock and act like it is ON at all times!

Re:You have it backwards

[KiloByte]

We definately should get rid of NumLock and act like it is ON at all times!

Then why do we have a separate set of numeric keys in a better accesible place then? (Better accessible for a programmer, not for someone who inputs only numbers.)

Re:You have it backwards

[spitzak]

This is really hard to explain. What I want (and the original poster wants) is for that to NOT be a numeric keypad, we want to use it as additional function keys (in my case I use the arrows as "nudge" arrows to move graphics by less than one pixel). This sounds like what you want as well.

Due to the need to be back compatable with existing programs, the unintuitive result is that the best way to do this is to force NumLock to be ON at all times. Any other solution either makes it difficult for a program to identify the numeric keys (requiring a new api that is not supported by existing toolkits), or would make old programs act like NumLock is on anyway.

Therefore, for the exact reason you, I, and the original poster wants, we need NumLock ON. It may seem that this is "further away" from it being function keys, but in fact it is better, for complex reasons.

Re:You have it backwards

[AK Marc]

Then why do we have a separate set of numeric keys in a better accesible place then? (Better accessible for a programmer, not for someone who inputs only numbers.)

Because the modern keyboard is a combination of a typewriter keyboard and a 10-key. Both functions are desired from a keyboard, so both are retained in full functionality. Those that want to type traditionally aren't required to use the keypad, and those that want number-only entry can use the keypad.

Re:The One-Point-Five Inches that Destroyed the Wo

[rasmusneckelmann]

INSFBCL (I'm Not Some Fancy Big City Lawyer)

*GASP!* :-o

i think...

[sking]

it should become the ANY key.

Placed wrong

[FreeBSD evangelist]

My only complaint about the Caps Lock key is it is in the place where the control key belongs. If you don't believe me, take a look at my TeleType ASR33.

The REAL keyboard real estate hog

[haggie]

ifyouaretalkingaboutkeyboardrealestatehogsletsgetr idofthatdamnspacebar!

I vote to ban an alternate set of keys...

[SeaCrazy]

Instead of Caps Lock we should urge keyboard manufacturers to remove the c, m, d, r, t, a, c, and o keys.

Re:Lost developer productivity? Health issues?

[Trifthen]

That's what I thought. Constants, macros, block delimiters in various languages (ADA, Pascal, etc), SQL, acronyms, etc. Does the person who posted this article actually write code?

You'll pry my caps-lock from my COLD DEAD FINGERS!

Re:Hardware solution (Microsoft keyboard)

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Microsoft keyboards come with software that lets you reconfigure or even disable certain keys including the caps lock key.

That's worth the price of their expensive keyboards right there. Love it.

Why not offer a choice?

[seventhc]

I can understand the uses for it in some professions, and also realise some people just have no use for it. Why not offer the people a choice. Those who want Cap Locks can have it, those who don't would simply buy a keyboard without it.

wHAT?

[Anonymous Coward]

wHAT DO YOU MEAN THE CAPSLOCK KEY IS USELESS? i DON'T SEE IT AS USELESS, AS DO A LOT OF MORON NEWBIES ON THE iNTERNET.

i AM GOING TO START A CAMPAIGN TO REPLACE THE sPACE BAR WITH THE capslock KEY AND MOVE THE sPACE BAR TO WHERE THE capslock KEY IS.

wHO'S WITH ME?

A real keyboard distribution

[xtracto]

Sort the rest of the keyboard

Yeah! I completley agree with that statement. We should get rid of this OLD keyboard layout intended for mechanical machines of 1868 and use something more in accord with current technology.

Seriously, I *know* it is possible to change the layout in the operating system (in the same way it is possible to remove the CAPSLOCK key from the keyboard) but I believe current typing courses should teach Dvorak, you really wold get impressed on the speed and commodity of typing with that layout.

Thats some fast typing.... 620wpm??

[Tmack]

I've found that I use the escape key an average of 2983742 times per day. Now, that inch-and-a-half may not seem like much, but do some conversion: that's around seventy extra miles I'm moving my arm per day.

Lets do some math together....

2983742 times in 24 hours, or 124322.6 times an hour, or 2072 per minute, or about 34.5 per second. Now, Given your estimate of 1.5" to the key, and another 1.5" back, or 3" of total travel, being traversed 34.5 times every second yields about 103.6"/s, or roughly 8.5 feet per second. This of course assumes you are solely focused on this activity 24hours a day nonstop. Take out 5hours for sleep (yes, even codermonkeys get sleep sometime, and we are going off averages here), another 2 for restroom breaks, coffee intake/refilling and food, and another hour for pr0n (though the velocity and reps might still be obtained over a similar distance, that is a different discussion outside the scope here...), we get only 16 hours for typing. This bumps the speed up to about 13 feet per second, at 52 presses per second. Taking into account that the esc key has to be at most half of the keypresses to allow for the full travel to it and from it such that a letter key is getting pressed at least as fast and often as the esc key, this also means your average typing wpm is (using the avg of 5char/word) is about 620.

tm

Re:Thats some fast typing.... 620wpm??

[skahshah]

And meanwhile he doesn't do anything witht his feet, when he could map the Escape key to some pedal, and improve his speed to type faster than his shadow...

Re:Thats some fast typing.... 620wpm??

[Delphiki]

Moving your foot would be too slow. Blinking is the new escape key.

Re:Thats some fast typing.... 620wpm??

[Anonymous Coward]

So What you're REALLY saying is that his estimate of 70 miles is maybe over by a factor of 50 if he only presses it 1 time per second, and that really he is averaging about 1.2 miles per day of finger travel to get that extra key up there. Wow.

Re:Thats some fast typing.... 620wpm??

[AmberBlackCat]

This bumps the speed up to about 13 feet per second, at 52 presses per second.

All you need now is a big enough spark and you can go back in time to when there was only a Shift Lock key on a typewriter. Then you can break it off before it evolves into a Caps Lock.

Re:Thats some fast typing.... 620wpm??

[Anonymous Coward]

Little correction: the escape key is with the left hand. An average person is more prone to being right handed, so during the 1 hour of pr0n, he will most likely be using his right hand more.

BUT PLEASE

[M1000]

BUT PLEASE, THINK OF THE NIGERIANS !
/* Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. */

The problem is product placement...

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is not that the caps lock key exists. The problem is its prominent placement on the keyboard. It is taking up valuable real estate that could be much more effectively used by many, many people. Perhaps one day this problem will be solved for good by the Optimus keyboard. In the meantime, the problem can be solved simply by moving this stupid key off to the outer rim of the keyboard galaxy. For example - maybe it could be moved way the hell over to where the pause/break key is on the upper right-hand corner of this Dell keyboard I am stuck with at the moment. Maybe it could find a new home next to the arrow keys. Maybe the key could disappear, and the user could hit "shift" twice in rapid succession (ala double-click) to enable caps lock, and again to turn it back off. In any even, it sure as hell does not merit placement on the all-important HOME ROW of the keyboard, let alone in the first position. I for one would pay at least a $25 premium for a Powerbook G4 keyboard that had the caps lock key in a place where I wouldn't accidentially hit it 10 times a day (which is a real bitch in vi). I know others would too.

DOWN WITH SCROLL LOCK

[cshark]

Caps can be useful, especially if you're designing logos. Why not abolish Scroll lock? Hmmmm?

Re:DOWN WITH SCROLL LOCK

[MikeBabcock]

I use scroll lock all the time; on Windows using Excel to change how the cursor works (try it) and on Linux to pause screen output.

Uppercase accented letters (on a Mac)

[Anonymous Coward]

On a Mac with a french keyboard, some uppercase accented letters can be typed by using the capslock key (e.g. : capslock then 2 -> É )

It is VERY convenient.

The (french) world would be different without capslock. Same thing for {german, spanish, italian, etc.}-speaking people.

Fan of CAPS LOCK

[owenknight]

Personally, I prefer a toggle option for CaPs on my keyboard, being a competent touch-typer on multiply keymaps (well, dvorak and qwerty) I find myself looking at the screen while typing and any errors due to CaPa-LoCk are only a couple of key-presses in length, and extremely easy to remedy. Instead of campaigning for its removal, perhaps we should, as a group agree on a re-mapping to a less-used location, as its usefullness should not be discounted.

Re:Fan of CAPS LOCK

[owenknight]

Sorry Re: typographic error, kind of drunk right now plus my right hand is bandaged due to unrelated knuckle injury. ;)

Caps Lock actually serves a purpose !

[pgqt]

Caps Lock is useful for languages using accents : in OSX, it's used to capitalize accented letters. Hitting shift does not work as it is already mapped to other characters. Eg in French, shift-accented letters (é è à) yield (2 7 0).

I can type a lowercase sentence : Je mange au réverbère à midi.
Hitting caps lock and retyping the same : JE MANGE AU RÉVERBÈRE À MIDI. There you go, beautiful caps with accents !

AFAIK only OSX does this, this should be more widespread. This may not matter much to you anglophones, but here in France this creates ugly typography everytime someone uses WinWord.

There's a small bémol with c-cedilla though, doesn't work in caps lock. république française -> RÉPUBLIQUE FRANçAISE. :(

Re:Caps Lock actually serves a purpose !

[Arcady13]

Ç = option-shift-c (with caps lock off) Ç = option-c (with caps lock on)

thanks for wasting 2 minutes of my life

[DragonTHC]

Yeah, it's a slow news day, but this guy is flamebait.

you use the caps_lock key when you need to type in ALLCAPS.

sometimes you just need to deal with it. and stop complaining about it like it's the most important thing in your existance to be insulted by some kid typing in allcaps because that's like shouting on the internet and you shouldn't be shouted at and don't these kids know you should never use the allcaps key because i find it rude to do that sort of thing so i must inflict my unbearable will on the rest of society instead of leaving people the hell alone!

There are times when you need allcaps.

some medical software and proprietary systems require allcaps.

what then genius?

windows keys

[kemo_by_the_kilo]

Why not declair war on those useless windows keys.

Re:Windows keys

[tommy]

After much research I bought an IBM Model M (from the silver logo era) from http://www.clickykeyboards.com/. I liked it so much I bought a second one for the office. The only problem I had was when I upgraded to a modern USB KVM. I even performed a simple mod on the PCB to allow it to work with the KVM and I've been cruising ever since. The info for the mod is at http://www.geocities.com/jszybowski/keyboard/.

ANother one

[gx5000]

Another post that tells me we're getting all too soft... And it's gone to our heads now.. The Caps Lock key ? A threat to our sanity and productivity ? Are the typing courses empty ? that might explain why some peeps might hit it accidentaly but, I'll file this post as another "They should get a life" folder and then hold down shift accidentaly when hitting delete... Cheers

Damn Slashdot Software...

[RexRhino]

I try to post a humorous message in all caps, and the Slashdot "Lameness Filter" doesn't let me!

If you get rid of the Caps lock key how are you...

[niceone]

... going to turn on and off the Caps Lock light? Eh?

Caps Lock Lock!

[Capt_Troy]

What we need is a Caps Lock Lock key!

ANTI Caps Lock MACRO

[Wingfat]

I have a few macros that i have made. one of them makes my Caps Lock key a direct CTRL-ALT-DEL. and if i ever needed to use it i have it set up if i hit SHIFT and CapsLock it turns it on/off :) it's all about the Macros for me. about 80% of my job somedays is cut and paste so why not?

YOU ARE AN INDIOT

[Anonymous Coward]

ALL CAPS FOREVER!!!!

Re:The One-Point-Five Inches that Destroyed the Wo

[Austerity Empowers]

Wow. If I'm ever on trial for murder, I'm hiring you as my defense attorney.

I've used this key 100 times today

[CaptainPhoton]

As I sat here editing my C++ source code, I saw this article. I'm using caps all over the place, putting my initials and TBD's in code comments, entering #defined macro constants, etc. My pinky has been working the Caps Lock key on PC keyboards for 20+ years. I was very surprised to see this article.

Solution

[rlwhite]

We just need to paint the Caps Lock Key red and change the label to Do Not Press. Science fiction shows have already demonstrated that this is how all controls will be made in the future.

Re:The One-Point-Five Inches that Destroyed the Wo

[hotdiggitydawg]

Forget the children - what about poor Miriam Abacha and all those other unfortunate Nigerian statesmen/dignitaries/royalty? How will they find helpful souls to illegally transfer their wealth in exchange for a hefty cut now?

Re:The One-Point-Five Inches that Destroyed the Wo

[Austerity Empowers]

And who exactly do you think lives in those buring trees in the Amazon? Pirates.

Only the CapLock?

[marcomarrero]

Geeez.. I never tought of removing the Capslock key, there are many other issues, specific to Windows.

First: Sticky keys, toggle keys, and most of the other accessibility junk that the 95% of the world don't need. One day I fell asleep holding the Shift key! That nasty screeching sound scared the hell out of me, even when my laptop had its speakers to mute - 'cause it uses the PC speaker. Everytime I reinstall Windows I forget to turn all that stuff off, maybe I'm too busy turning the other useless junk off like animations (unlike 2003 server). Worse, most PC at work have security settings, that sound sure is horrific in a quiet office.

Second: The mega-idiotic Microsoft keyboards with the Function keys disabled by default. And the wireless one does not have an indicator. By default they have Office-like features like copy, paste (I think, I forgot). Only if the driver is installed. I once liked Microsoft hardware. Now I don't.

Third: The Windows and Menu keys. Almost useless. Except Windows+M, but anyway it's already on the Desktop toolbar. Some games go from full screen to a window to display the menu. I also usually forget to turn those off.

Fotuth: Why sometimes the PC acts as if the Control key is stuck?? I tought it was due to the 70's technology of the original PC, and also due (on 286+) to wiring the CPU A20 line to the keyboard controller (I still wonder which badly programmed software needed that hack). But it does still happen on modern PC's.

Most of it is to make Windows easier for users, and a living hell for old users. I think the intelligent keyboard idea died after the Amiga, which it had a 6502 CPU to handle it. I think even the Amiga 1200 couldn't detect some multiple key combinations, unlike the older Amigas.

I do have two of those old IBM-AT keyboards, thave a nice click, all keys had removable caps, so, I could change it to a Dvorak layout (and remove Capslock so it is somewhat more difficult to hit it accidentaly). And you could use them for personal defense.

What we really need...

[Anonymous Coward]

... is a way to make Shift turn off Caps Lock just like on mechanical typewriters. It could even make a nice "ka-chunk" sound when you press it.

Best Caps Lock Rant Ever

[quikbeam]

Maddox has a great Caps lock rant in the middle of this page.

My favorite quote, "I used to type emails in caps like yours, but then I decided that I didn't want a job mixing concrete."

CAPSLOCKS IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR AWESOME

[tehtest]

THAT IS ALL

togglekeys

[Aranel Alasse]

I use togglekeys specifically because I don't like Caps Lock. When I first started working where I do now, someone told me *never* to use caps lock. I didn't understand why until I started using Vim (which the aforementioned person uses all the time) a lot, where the uppercase and lower case letters mean something different. The beep that togglekeys gives me tells me if I've just accidentally bumped caps lock so that I can quickly remedy the situation before it causes annoyances for me in Vim.

Consequently, I've gotten quite good at typing entire sentences while holding down the shift key.

Some day I might try the remap of the escape key to the caps lock...

Idiotic

[juicy]

The caps lock has a use for plenty of people. In fact, I use it also, and a helluvalot more often than NUMLOCK or SCROLL LOCK or PAUSE/BREAK. Why not spend your time trying to improve the keyboard hunting down keys that are actually useless.

I Concur...Here's My Rant from a Few Months Ago

[roblambert]

http://www.jroller.com/page/roblambert?entry=why_d o_we_have_caps

windows key must go - get "I hate this key"

[poopie]

If you want to disable the stupid fricking windows key, get "I hate this key" and watch your FPS performance improve

http://www.majorgeeks.com/I_Hate_This_Key_d3805.ht ml

Or... go on ebay and look for a vintage IBM keyboard with no stupid Windows key on it

I killed mine for real

[Anonymous Coward]

I popped it off with my knife. It went flying into the air and now I have no idea where it went.
I got tired of hitting it accidentally. The caps lock key + VI is not a good combination.

Use AutoHotKey To Remap!

[MrSteveSD]

I just use a free (and open source) product called AutoHotKey (http://www.autohotkey.com/) It lets you remap keys to whatever you want. I just remapped CapsLock to be another shift key. It does a lot more than just remapping keys though. I've set it up so that if I hold down "Alt Gr" and press f, it will turn the currently active window into a floating window which is always on top, which can be useful.

the caps key must go!

[Cannelloni]

it is absolutely insane that it has remained there so long. your computer is n-o-t a typewriter!

Avant Stellar

[Anonymous Coward]

I use an Avant Stellar keyboard which has interchangable caps/control/alt keys. Do the old rotate of those 3 keys, and you're back to the excellent Unix designed keyboards.

uppercase letters

[Aranel Alasse]

all uppercase text slows reading by as much as half.

Very interesting... I think that's why I subconsciously skip over the ALL CAPS part of those EULA's... You'd think that someday the EULA writers would figure out that writing in all caps is counter productive. ALL CAPS sort of signifies that the text is important, but if it's too long, I'll just give up on reading it... Hence, I probably miss the most important parts of the agreements.

Re:uppercase letters

[git68]

I thought most people skipped all of the EULA regardless of case. Agree, yea whatever!

war on capslock? i say abolish the 7th bit!

[donlaverty]

your suggustion hardly touches the real problem! by abolishing the 7th bit (that one that says that a letter should be lowercase) of every byte we reach a uniform representation of ascii text a n d easily save 12.5% of todays bandwith. capslock a n d the shift key won't be needed anymore.
you say that bit is needed for special characters or numbers or whatever -- pah, mankind has solved bigger problems than this.

Windows keys

[MobyDisk]

Anybody know where I can buy keyboards that don't have Windows keys?

Caps Lock key just needs to be moved

[FudRucker]

keyboard designers need to get the caps lock key moved away from the "A", Tab & shift keys, move it up by the escape key would be better, i sometimes hit the caps lock key with my little finger on my left hand when going for the tab or shift key...

And loose a whole culture?

[andyclements]

Think of all the people that will be missing out on quality messaging conversations if this were to happen. I mean, who wouldn't miss things written in all caps, ie. bash.org.

Compromise solution?

[vga_init]

Some people like to use caps lock on purpose; I do it myself sometimes when it is convenient. For example, I may create a password in caps lock to make it harder to guess by a human being (most people assume lower case). Also, in computer science using caps for certain things is a good habit.

What I would like to see is capslock with a timeout; if you push it, it goes on and stays on while you are typing, but after a second or two has passed without any keystrokes, it will go off by itself. That should save us a lot of headaches.

Re:Compromise solution?

[geekoid]

You would need to make it a bios option to support people who always use upper case.

Re:Compromise solution?

[TeknoHog]

What I would like to see is capslock with a timeout; if you push it, it goes on and stays on while you are typing, but after a second or two has passed without any keystrokes, it will go off by itself. That should save us a lot of headaches.

Yeah, because every time a computer is second-guessing your intentions, you save yourself a lot of headaches.

Re:And while we're at it: Kill the INS key as well

[gevil]

Oh, but the first time I saw an iBook I thought the Caps Lock was soo cute: It lights up when pressed! The key! Not a led on the upper side of the keyboard! It really was a switcher motivator. I imagine the Mac base would decrease if the Caps was gone. And other good reason to keep it is to remind us that the guy who writes in all caps is an idiot, even before we have to read it. It really saves our valuable time.

Is that you, e.e. cummings?

[Maximilio]

Seriously. Other people might use the caps lock key.

You've got to be kidding me

[Sol Rosinberg]

Now I can understand why some people don't particularly enjoy the caps lock key since there are some individuals online who seem to believe it a necessity for chat, but all in all it is a helpful key to some people. For example, there are times when I need to use it when entering descriptions into Cisco switches for port labeling. Using caps lock, I can type things such as BAK123 A7-3 in the description field without having to hold the shift key down continuously. MAC addresses are another place where caps lock can come in handy, since usually you want to capitalize digits A-F in the hexadecimal numbering system. There are many, many places where caps lock can be your friend. What we really need to declare war on is the user who has no discretion as to when and where its usage is appropriate.

Those modifier keys are useful

[Oxyrubber]

I don't have anything against the caps-lock key. It's useful for gaming (think: voice chat trigger always down with very little effort).

But seriously, my work box is that much more productive because I have an extra modifier key that no Linux programs (I have installed) use by default: the Winblows key. [windows]+[left arrow] => go back one virtual desktop. [windows]+[right arrow] => go forward one virtual desktop. Don't be throwing away keys that I can rebind for useful functionality.

Hell, I'd even propose a new [caps lock] type key: the [1337 lock] key.

Re:The One-Point-Five Inches that Destroyed the Wo

[ZorroXXX]

I've found that I use the escape key an average of 2983742 times per day.

I've already told you a million times to stop exaggerating...

Now for some actual numbers, I normally have between 10000 and 15000 keystrokes on a day at work, sometimes up till 20000. I know this because I use a program to forc^H^H^H^Hremind me to take breaks. This program monitors keyboard and mouse activity to determine appropriate rest times and as a bonus keeps historic statistics. At the end of May I finished my master thesis and when panic mode was in full effect the last Sunday (to be delivered on Monday) I had over 60000 (the maximum before that was "just" above 30000).

The rise and fall of uppercase

[Whafro]

I'm a touch late to this story, but the state of use of both upper- and lower-case figures in English is the result of a relatively interesting story. Much simplified:

Original writing samples in Europe consisted of carvings in rocks, and folks who are carving into rocks only bothered themselves to use a single case. This developed into the Roman lowercase alphabet, which has stood the test of time as the benchmark for almost all the fonts we westerners currently use regularly.

This also included numerals. Numerals were initially lowercase, just like the numerals in the popular Georgia font, and had descenders that fell below the line, just like the letters 'j','y','g', etc.

Over time, scribes began to ornament initial characters, and these ornamentations became the uppercase. It eventually became standard practice to use uppercase characters in certain situations (depending on your language, it could be the beginning of a sentence, beginning of a noun, etc). Numbers followed, and uppercase numerals were created to be used in situations where uppercase letters would be used.

This was the popular model for hundreds of years, straight up into the 19th century, which was perhaps the bane of typography's existence. During this time, modernism was the rule, and if there is no other guiding principle, modernism drives for radical simplicity. This fed over to typography, where many new forms of communication were prepared without any lowercase characters whatsoever (the telegraph, morse code, etc.), all in the name of simplicity.

While the crusade for a single case was not completely successful when it came to letters, it was quite successful when it came to numbers. The typewriter keyboard became popular with only a single case for numbers and the ever-popular caps-lock key. Since the typewriter keyboard was the model for computer keyboards, we are still stuck with an interface that has only one case for numerals.

Coming to today, the case for a single case of characters is largely a relic. The instances where one needs caps lock are growing fewer and futher between, and clearly there is a movement to do away with the key entirely. Perhaps we might want to take this a step further and provide people with a way of using numbers as they did successfully for hundreds of years, and take back a practice from which the 19th century has deprived us.

This is how you do it!

[Devv]

Take a screwdriver. Insert it between the caps-lock key and the plastic frame around the keyboard. The screwdriver should be at least half a centimeter down into the keyboard for good result. Bend.

confidental prposol for you

[Anonymous Coward]

ATTN MR PIETERH

I AM THE HON. BARRISTER MUGUBE KOKUNANI KUKURERI FROM ZIMBABWE. I AM RETURN RESPONSED TO WRITING YOU THAT I AM IN RECEIPT OF YOUR LETTER IN WHICH YOU CLAIM TO ADVOCATE THE REMOVAL OF THE "CAPS LOCK" KEY.

THUSLY, I WILL LIKE TO SEIZE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO ENLIGHTEN YOU THAT I AM A "SENIOR ADVOCATE" HERE IN THIS COUNTRY AND I HAVE MANY CLIENTS PERISHED WITH THERE WHOLE FAMILIES LEAVING A TOTAL SUM OF US$978,655,432 UNCLAIMED. I WILL LIKE TO INFORM AND ASSURE YOU THAT I AM WORKING VERY HARD TO LOCATE THEIR NEXT OF KIN AND FIND THE "CAPS LOCK" KEY VERY IMPORTANT TO MY SEARCH AND I WILL STRENUOUSLY RESIST ANY ATTEMPT TO REMOVE IT.

PLEASE TOUCH ME BY MY EMIL TO ENABLE US TO DISUCSS ON THIS FURHTER.

REGARDS
BARR. MUGUBE KOKUNANI KUKURERI

(lameness filter bypass attempt #1 )
(lameness filter bypass attempt #2 )
(lameness filter bypass attempt #3 )
(lameness filter bypass attempt #4 )
... aah

Re:The One-Point-Five Inches that Destroyed the Wo

[SQLGuru]

sexy Tech Worker

See, now I know you're making stuff up.....those three words don't go together.

Layne

Yeah, and what about that other stupid key pair...

[timothy]

INSERT / DELETE

&%&^%$%!

I hate typing absentmindedly (while glancing / copying from a book, for instance, or watching TV in the background) and then looking up to realize that I've been steadily *replacing* text instead of adding to it. On my current most-used keyboard, which I otherwise am very fond of, the DELETE key is far too easy to activate with a stray pinky motion.

&^*&^$%$!!

WHY WHY WHY

Maybe they could slowly transition to the development of an area on the keyboard for stupid keys, and then phase that area out ...

timothy

Better Solution?

[dasunst3r]

I think there is a better way to solve the problem of excessive Caps Lock usage: Making it harder to trigger. There are two ways to go about this:

1. Make it so that you have to hold the Caps Lock button for 1/2 (half) sec. in order to activate it. On the other hand, it can be canceled without the delay.
2. Shift key cancels Caps Lock.
3. Swap the positions of the Caps Lock and Ctrl keys. This could be useful for people who work with CLI a lot.

I disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad idea. Next article, please.

and while we're at it....

[MartyPlotkin]

How about getting rid of that stupid numeric keypad on desktop keyboards, not to mention the Windoze navigation key cluster? There's no need for my mouse to be a foot from my keyboard's home position. And I need the space for my coffee cup. --Marty

uhm

[Anonymous Coward]

i never learned homerow, so in my many typing quirks, i use the caps lock toggling to capitalize words. so, this whole kill caps thing is kind of offensive ... duel tomorrow, high noon, revolvers only. we'll settle this like racist, poor protestant men.

I tRIED tHAT bUT fORGOT oNE cRITICAL tHING

[StreetStealth]

I dIDN'T pRESS cAPSLOCK oNE lAST tIME. (+anti-lameness mixed-case insertion)

Location Location Location

[Anonymous Coward]

I use the caps lock over shift... I'm left handed so the caps lock is right by my pinky. I also use the caps lock when I play counter strike for crouching instead of control. I need the keys to be close together, for reaction time. I like to run a tight ship. My left hand can push outwards towards the escape key more easily they it can move inwards toward my right hand.

However, I would use the shift key if it were in the location of the caps lock key. The shift functionality is fine by me.

No.

[whitroth]

a) you're an idiot. Learn to type.
b) I want a keyboard that I can balance in my lap, *easily*: on without a numeric keypad, which I've almost never used (except when I was doing data entry, a LOOOOONG time ago).

    mark

Re:No.

[geekoid]

Have you just not looked? I see keyboard with no keypad every time I go to a computer store.

Re:No.

[John Nowak]

http://pfuca-store.stores.yahoo.net/haphackeylit1. html

IT IS USEFUL!!!

[mecanicaz]

When used for keyboard layout and language switching, the only annoying thing is when you're in middle of issuing too many commands and you suddenly find yourself typing - (text removed by /.) instead of what you really meant.

move not change

[injeanyesss]

You cannot get rid of the Caps lock button, period. However you can move it to a postion where it is less likely to be accidently hit while typing, or you could just pay attention to what you are doing and not hit the button. But I guess that would just be too difficult to do.

Constants

[Anonymous Coward]

I need the caps lock key to USE_CONSTANTS_IN_MY_CODE. A much more valuable goal would be to bring the underscore "_" and the plus sign "+" from the top of the bunk-bed.

How to explain to your kids?

[manifoldronin]

How am I going to explain to my kids why some of the most valuable keyboard real estate is squatted by a large, useless key that above all you must not press!

Children, God meant it this way, m'kay?

OT but please help

[psymastr]

Why when an article in /. has so many comments that they create pages of them, if I go to the second page I get the same (or almost the same, with 1-2 added) comments as the first?

It's getting ridiculous!

I volunteer to DEFEND the caps lock key!

[Anonymous Coward]

I use it all the time! I just used it to type the headline you just saw. How can I type in constants without the beloved caps lock?

hold on a sec

[ifnkovhgroghprm]

I'm still trying to understand why the F Lock button was reintroduced on some USB keyboards. I have to work with a few Microsoft and Logitech USB keyboards from time to time, and it is _very_ important to press the F Lock button so you can actually use the F keys normally... Why oh why!?!?

You can have it...

[aniceyoungman]

...as long as we get a tab key on the num pad. That would be schweeet...

Re:The One-Point-Five Inches that Destroyed the Wo

[IngramJames]

And who exactly do you think lives in those buring trees in the Amazon? Pirates.

Which is exactly WHY they must be protected!

No, no, please don't hurt NumLock!

[tetromino]

I need to be able to turn NumLock on to enter a bunch of numbers. When I am doing serious numerical data entry -- 4x4 matrices to far too many decimal places, for example -- using the numeric keypad is several times faster than the dedicated number keys.

On the other hand, I need to be able to turn NumLock off for games. If NumLock is on, a key on the keypad and a dedicated number key will bind to the same action, which is frankly too constrictive.

Re:No, no, please don't hurt NumLock!

[Anonymous Coward]

The arguement is having numlock always turned ON. Because you don't need the extra set of arrow, home pg up, pg dn and end keys.

5 Second Solution

[Baby Duck]

Use your car/house key and pop off any offending keys. I used to do this to the Insert key.

At some libraries I used to pop off letters and rearrange them.

Re:The One-Point-Five Inches that Destroyed the Wo

[Anonymous Coward]

[ESC]:%s/STOP/stop

We're talking about giving the CL key the sack and you come here with your fancy all caps punch lines?

The horror!

DO NOT ELIMINATE THE caps lock KEY!

[gone.fishing]

tHERE ARE A NUMBER OF REASONS WHY THE caps lock KEY SHOULD NOT BE ELIMINATED. iN THIS POST i WILL ONLY TOUCH ON THE MOST IMPORTANT ONES. i'M SURE THAT MANY OF YOU CAN THINK OF OTHER REASONS. iF YOU CAN, PLEASE REPLY TO THIS POST WITH YOUR REASONS TOO.

1. tHE CAPS LOCK KEY IS IMPORTANT BECAUSE IT KEEPS ENTRY-LEVEL i.t. JOBS AVAILABLE.
iF IT WASN'T FOR MIS-TYPED PASSWORDS CAUSED BY THE CAPS KEY BEING STUCK ON MANY "hELP dESK" POSITIONS COULD BE ELIMINATED. tHESE POSITIONS ARE FERTILE TRAINING GROUNDS FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE JUST ENTERED THE JOB MARKET OUT OF TECHNICAL SCHOOL OR COLLEGE.

2. tHE SAME THING IS TRUE FOR OUT-SOURCED tECHNICAL sUPPORT POSITIONS IN COUNTRIED LIKE INDIA. iF THE CAPS LOCK KEY WERE ELIMINATED THEY WOULD LOSE ABOUT 25% OF THEIR CALLS TOO.

3. tHE caps lock KEY MAKES IT EASIER FOR PEOPLE TO yell AND EXPRESS EMOTIONS IN FORUMS AND CHAT ROOMS.

4. tHE caps lock KEY IS IMPORTANT FOR HANDICAPPED ACCESSIBILITY. iT IS EVERY BIT AS IMPORTANT AS THOSE BRAILE KEYS ON THE DRIVE-UP atm MACHINE.

5. wITHOUT THE caps lock KEY, THE pRINT sCREEN / sYS rEQ KEY WOULD BE LONELY.

TO KEYBOARD MANUFACTURERS

[thegnu]

so here's the response of Slashdot to my orignal post:

Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

Here's my original post:

PLEASE GET RID OF CAPS LOCK KEY! I HAVE NO USE FOR IT WHATSOEVER! I AM NOT SO LAME THAT I CAN'T HOLD BOTH THE SHIFT KEY AND WHATEVER OTHER KEY I WISH WERE CAPITALIZED!1!11!!!

Hmmm....

Wrong department!

[smellsofbikes]

Wouldn't this be in the MAKES-PERFECT-SENSE-TO-ME dept?

I've always loved the name for the rhetorical device of trying to convince someone you're right by use of all-upper-case letters: reducto ad capslock.

War on caps lock, or users?

[noidentity]

Sure, it's claimed to be a war on the caps lock key, but you know it'll end up a war on caps lock users! An ever-expanding program of monitoring users and locking them up for the mere possession of a caps lock key. Even though caps lock keys are part of the natural keyboard environment and cause no serious harm to anyone, they will be demonized with a propaganda campaign. "Caser madness" or some catchy-sounding phrase will be used to describe those who occasionally use the caps lock key. Let's not go down this slippery slope.

You can't remove it because. . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

It works as the "first line of defence" in the war against spam. For example, any email all in upper case is either:

A: From a Nigerian multi-millionare who needs help shifting all his cash out of the country (how many of those guys are there?).

B: Trying to sell something to "M4KE Y0UR PEN1$ B1GGER"

C: From a twat

Basically - if the mail is in upper case - it can be safely ignored.

If they typed normally then how the hell would we recognise them without having to read their damn drivel?

Not so fast

[BerkeleyDude]

Hey hey hey...

I use SysRq and Scroll Lock more often than Caps Lock!

(Seriously... "Magic SysRq" feature in Linux. And pausing/resuming scrolling in the terminal.)

Relocate it...

[Lodragandraoidh]

Put the scroll lock with the 'prtscrn' 'scrlk' and 'pause/break' keys, and free up that space for an additional meta shifting key...a la Space Cadet Keyboard.

Think of all the possible key combinations you can attain using CTRL-ALT-META-SHIFT - it boggles the mind. Not to mention, emacs users will have an actual 'Meta' key to use on PCs (instead of the 'ESC' key).

WHY WOULD YOU EVER WANT TO REMOVE THAT KEY??

[madshot]

I USE THE KEY ALL THE TIME. WHY WOULD ANYONE EVER WANT TO REMOVE IT???? THAT JUST DOESN'T MAKE SINCE.. (ok.. just kidding.. yup.. waist of space, why not stick it on the '~' key and drop the ` which I never use, out of the way. Make it so you have to press ALT to get to it).

License keys

[Quila]

Caps lock makes it a lot easier to type in those long alpha-numeric license keys where the letters are all in caps.

Re:The One-Point-Five Inches that Destroyed the Wo

[booch]

Yes, but then you'd have to hit the CTRL key in Emacs just as often. Which is probably why Sun keyboards put the CTRL key there, and many UNIX gurus remap their keyboard that way.

Scroll Lock?

[Cedric Tsui]

Num lock seems to have some arguements both ways. And lots of people who can't read and think you want to have it removed and left OFF.

Now, ever since I was a wee lad. I wondered what the scroll lock button did. Well, I still haven't figured it out. Someone enlighten me.

Oh wait! There's a wikipedia article on scroll lock. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scroll_lock

Hmmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

#define tRY_cREATING_tHIS_dEFINE_wITH_yOUR_pINKY_oN_tHE_sH IFT_mOTHER_fUCKER

Damn lameness filter.

How about scroll lock

[Keyframe2]

wtf is with that?

BF2 commander

[mr_burns]

You just want your team to have a commander and ours to be leaderless. Just for that I'll be spec ops more often. Heh.

Sun keyboards

[Anonymous Coward]

okay, but not having the Backspace key in the upper right is SO irritating on the Sun keyboards, particularly when switching between an UltraSparc and a PC...

Re:The One-Point-Five Inches that Destroyed the Wo

[Deflatamouse!]

Thanks for pointing out this cool program. Now this is a fine example of open source software. If this was closed sourced, would you use it? How do you know it's not a key logger right? But it's open source, so anyone can look at it and know that there's no backdoors or keyloggers that sends a report to someone in Russia so they can get your credit card number!

Now I am going to use it to see how many mouse clicks a day when I play Diablo 2. :)

Re:I think a lot of people of missing the guy's po

[geekoid]

Becasue people who do need are usually in need for as much speed as possible.

Date entry people, for example.

Re:Valid points... but it still remains an issue

[proxima]

I can't fathom why someone would chose to use the number keys as arrow keys when there are actual arrow keys sitting right there

For me, that reason is Civilization (2, 3, and FreeCiv, haven't played 4). Diagonal directions are very important. Clicking the mouse can be error prone (though goto is useful). I could probably remap the directions nethack-style onto the keyboard, but I've never gotten used to those keybindings.

In fact, this makes playing Civ for me much less convenient on a laptop. I often end up enabling num lock, and switching it off when I need to type a city name.

With num lock on, can the OS distinguish between num pad numbers and normal numbers? If that were the case, that'd work fine.

who supports this?

[Xtifr]

Bottom line: stupid people don't care; smart people have already remapped the key to something useful, and probably don't want to be bothered to rearrange everything again. (I have it mapped to the compose key.) So it's only the semi-dumb--the people who are smart enough to notice that something's wrong, but not smart enough to do anything about it--who could possibly care.

Crap. That probably means it's going to happen, doesn't it? If the semi-dumb can fuck up something useful, just to avoid a little confusion themselves, they will, won't they? This idiot will probably succeed in removing all "un-useful" (i.e. remappable) keys from any convenient locations, screwing those of use who want to map in something extra. 'Cause nothing matches the power of the semi-dumb. [sigh]

I love the caps lock key

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? Why would you want to take something away from me that I love? Do I show up in the middle of the night to steal the things you love? Do I push propaganda on you as to which things I allow you to have and enjoy? If you hate your key, I suggest you get a screwdriver and pry it out. Or build a custom keyboard at your own expense. If you're really cool, you can re-map it to something else. But please, leave my caps lock alone. It never did anything to you.

Dvorak

[stuie]

It does seem pretty trivial, especially when you consider that the QWERTY layout is utterly stupid. OTOH, the question of "how can we switch to something sane like Dvorak" might be worth asking! Seriously - we have to do something about this or we'll still be using QWERTY in 50 years time! This means getting kids to learn Dvorak instead of QWERTY. (You might say it'll never happen, and you may even be right, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.)

I use it to cycle XkbLayouts

[Bradmont]

X allows you to do some fancy things with keymaps. I use capslock, rather than to switch to upppercase, to cycle between several keymaps. Like this:

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier "Keyboard1"
    Driver "kbd"
...
    Option "XkbLayout" "us,ru,el"
    Option "XkbOptions" "grp:caps_toggle"
    Option "XkbVariant" ",,polytonic"
EndSection

So pressing capslock cycles between English, Russian and Greek keyboard maps! It's super-handy. :)

Nay

[skotte]

Wait, you're telling me you want me to hold down the shift key anytime I do any drawings? Engineering, Architectural, etcetera and so on, use all caps for drawings. Caps lock? Love it. Hands off. While I understand the spirit of your message, you seem to have missed a rather important point. If people who use all caps annoy you, dont associate with them. (sounds vaguely libertarian, doesn't it)

Non-word based applications

[brianb0032]

Have you ever put together a set of "plans" using AutoCad? All notes and text is in UPPER CASE (that button did come in handy for this post). There are also a dos based programs which only read CAPITOL LETTERS as their parameters. I guess there users do not matter to your real-estate quest on the keyboard.

Re:Valid points... but it still remains an issue

[rotor]

I hate the num lock key as I usually use it immediately after keying in what I thought were numbers only to move the cursor around. I can't fathom why someone would chose to use the number keys as arrow keys when there are actual arrow keys sitting right there.

What about laptops? My number pad keys switch to m . j k l u i o 7 8 9 0 p ; and / when I shut the num lock off. Are those unimportant? And yet it's nice to be able to switch to numbers when I have to do some numerical data entry.

Point is, there is a use for each key on the keyboard. Just because you don't use it doesn't mean that other people don't.

Put CTRL back where it belongs!

[ArghBlarg]

EOM

What about the poor lawyers?

[mr.hawk]

Wouldn't losing the caps lock key be terribly painful for anyone typing out those endless EULAs and such?

What are we waiting for?

Happy Hacking Keyboard

[NatteringNabob]

Just buy a Happy Hacking Lite keyboard which uses the Sun Type 3 keyobard layout.

Re:Whileyouareatit.

[eingram]

Andlookatallthatspacethatdamnspacebaristakingup.
Whatapointlessyetproperlynamedkey.Er,bar.

Caps Lock != Shift Lock

[metamatic]

I've used systems that had both Shift Lock and Caps Lock.

Shift Lock would lock Shift on, giving you capitals by default (and punctuation instead of numbers); but if you Shifted manually, it would effective cancel the Shift Lock, as shift worked as a toggle bit.

Caps Lock would lock in capitals, regardless of what you did with Shift, and wouldn't cause numbers to be shifted to symbols.

I view that as the logical and consistent behavior. Not necessarily the most useful, but logical and consistent.

2 thoughts

[krunchyfrog]

Two things:

1- This whole idea would kill the "small caps" font where every lower case letter is in fact a miniature capital of it, for example "e" would look like a mini-"E".

2- I think the Caps Lock key (and maybe others?) should function a little like some VCRs "record" button worked: you had to press REC and Play to make it record - a little safety that told you "hey, are you sure about that?".

BASIC

[Paperkirin]

10 PRINT "WHAT ABOUT ALL THE OLD-SCHOOL BASIC PROGRAMMERS?"
20 GOTO 10

Now avoiding the lameness filter. Or attempting to. Really, they should disable the filter for this particular story, it's getting in the way of many insightful, measured, well-thought-out and worthwhile posts, not at all like this one.

Computer ignorance at work

[haaz]

Person: "Uhh.. go to.. uh.... h-t-t-p-colon-backslash-backslash..."

Me: :::stabbing pencil into my head:::

Where did do children learn to type these days?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm amazed at the number of posters here who obviously have never taken a keyboarding class, much less learned to touch-type on a typwriter.

NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!

[tempest69]

so instead of cAPS LOCK IN A SENTENCE. you wind up with...

pslock in a sentence.

Unless your typing at a nice rickety speed where you notice the change before you press the next letter. Really a 3 ounce push for caps lock is all I want there, so I dont screw up accidently. Really the control, alt, windows and escape keys are really far too powerful to be placed in the typing zone. And the capslock is still a bit obnoxious for the spot.

And while I'm at it, games that use alt and tab for major game functions are really horrible. yes I'm talking to you Oblivion designers, eaters of precious hours of my life. Devouring my sanity nearly as effectivly as nethack

Storm

Three words....

[adamofgreyskull]

Duct tape.[1] Tape the shift key down. Jeez...it's not rocket sci...ah...I see.


[1] A.K.A. Duck tape

CAPSLOCK

[Khashishi]

"I've launched a campaign to rid the world of the caps lock key."
STFU NOOG TEH CAPSLOK IS TEH UBAR

Replace it with the:

[belthize]

[Any Key]. I've lost track of how many computers I've had to throw away once
they reached that inevitable 'Press any key now' point. Much more useful key
and it'd be good for the environment.

Belthize

Re:The One-Point-Five Inches that Destroyed the Wo

[Eideewt]

How do you know any program isn't a key logger? This program's key counting nature just puts the idea in your head, but in reality, there's no need for key loggers to tell you that they listen to your keyboard. You could just as easily hide one in a clock or make a screen saver that starts a key logger.

So I guess the moral is "only run open-source software."

Really?

[adamofgreyskull]

Restricting the use of capitals to important information like drug names, patient names or DISEASED RIGHT KIDNEY, might make more sense? :)
A single capital starting a Proper Noun is simple to pick out if everything else is in lower case...

Hold it cowboy

[johansalk]

Some forth interpreters require code to be in capitals. I imagine there must be many other uses for capitals too.

I have CapsLock and NumLock keys removed

[Vadim Makarov]

I've removed these two from my keyboard long ago. It's not that I never used them, but that they kept getting under my fingers all the time was the reason (especially the CapsLock which I often pressed instead of Tab).

If these two keys were positioned in an area of keyboard where they don't get accidentally pressed (e.g. to the right of the Pause key in the upper row), I'd have no problems with them.

After you remove the keys, cut two low dummy plugs for the holes from an elastic eraser, and you're done.

Don't fight for removal, fight for repositioning.

How do I Mod this article -1 Troll?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please tell me!

I CODE IN CAPS

[pretentiousPPC]

I usually will code all my SQL/FoxPro queries in all caps, it usually looks cleaner and clearer to me. But I can understand others that may see it as useless space, and I could adapt to it being in another place.

I think we should kill the 'INSERT' key first, which is the bain of my existence. I personally do not know why anyone would want to be typing over what is already typed. It kills me every time I go for the 'DELETE' key or 'BACKSPACE' and accidentally hit that key, and go back to regular typing and see what I have already typed be overwritten.
I also think that maybe it is time to get rid of the home number keys on extended keyboards, they are unnecessary and redundant and you have to add an extra key to get to the extended chars. While I am talking about this, who decided that the '('')' should be a sub-key vs. the '{[''}]' that gets keys of their own?? I don't think that I ever used those, yet I'm forced to work harder for the more common key.

Change the caps lock into a shift button.

[tratten]

In Windows one could add to registry:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contr ol\Keyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,2a,00 ,3a,00,00,00,00,00
...and caps lock becomes an extra shift button.
You could probably make it in to some other key.

Re: Customize everything

[TaoPhoenix]

I'll chime in with this thread, though it was tough ... (why are there over one THOUSAND (obligatory caps usage) posts on this?

Let's rephrase the original parent topic into something more meaningful.
Problem: User hates "aLL" the times Caps Lock gets in the way. Fine. Gather data about all keyboard annoyances. See above 1000 /. posts.

All manner of utilities exist to either disable or remap keyboard keys. I disable both caps lock, and the non-control command keys under shift. I can't stand when trying to type Cap-F or Cap-E lands me in the file and edit menus, because further keystrokes do hysterical things.

Just disable, rekey, or even use those widgets that turn those keys into entire macros. Begone, CapsLock! Hello Print Automator!

Now I just need to find the utility that "locks" ... *NumberLock* ( !! ) ... so everytime I reach for a 7 I don't get arrow keys dropping me into something from Dante's Inferno.

---TaoPhoenix

Caps lock rules for touch typists

[pestilence669]

I find that only hunt-and-peckers hate the key. Sorry if you can't type fast enough to appreciate the value.

If you want to talk about wasted keys, how about:
- Scroll Lock
- The Windows Key
- Break / Pause
- Everything above F12

Re:Can we put the Control Key back where it Belong

[TeknoHog]

Really? Can we put the Control key back to where it first was, where the Caps Lock key is now? (The Caps lock key USED to be on the lower left side - Thank you Microsoft for changing the decades long convention of key placement).

Hmm, I've used computers since late 1980s and I recall the CapsLock/Ctrl placement was the same as it's now. Anyway, I like having two Ctrls placed somewhat symmetrically on the bottom row. I imagine you can't get the symmetry if you have one of them on the middle/home row.

How will crappy developers name their constants?

[LinuxIsRetarded]

The caps lock key seems crucial for lousy developers- now they'll need to hold down the shift key when the type their ridiculous constant names such as THIS_IS_A_CONSTANT_FOR_THE_NUMBER_8. Having the caps lock key makes their lives a bit easier when writing code that yells at people.

WORST IDEA EVER

[eliot1785]

WHAT ON EARTH WERE YOU THINKING? MAYBE YOU SHOULD REREAD YOUR SUBMISSION AND REALIZE HOW STUPID IT SOUNDS. I LIKE MY CAPS LOCK KEY JUST FINE, THANKS, AND REALLY DON'T NEED YOUR MEDDLING WITH THE KEYBOARD ON MY **PERSONAL** COMPUTER. ALSO, I CAN'T BELIEVE SLASHDOT WAS LAME ENOUGH TO POST THIS STORY. THAT UPSETS ME TOO. I REALLY NEED EVERYBODY TO UNDERSTAND JUST HOW UPSET I AM, AND I HOPE I AM COMMUNICATING THAT EFFECTIVELY THROUGH MY INTELLIGENT USE OF THE CAPS LOCK KEY. THANK YOU.

***

Lol, I tried to post the above as a joke and encountered Slashdot's "Lameness filter," which told me the following:

Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

That in itself is sort of a meta-commentary on what I was trying to get across by the above joke. The caps-lock key is almost always abused. When I want to write in all caps, I just hold down the Shift key with my pinky and type like usual. I just have to let up when I want to do quotes. In fact, the bit at the top was accomplished by holding down the Shift key, not with the Caps Lock.

Anyway, hopefully this extended discussion below will enable me to evade the Lameness Filter...

Caps Lock is Mild Compared to True Evil

[dufachi]

Caps lock is nothing compared to the true evil that plagues the internet: the "Reply to All" button in Email Programs.

*shudder*

What a stupid campaign

[dcam]

Next you'll be declaring war on terror. Oh wait, that one has already been done.

The caps lock has a use. For example in some languages it is common practice or required to write in upper case (SQL for one, COBOL also). It saves on holding down shift.

Hot tip-- use an all caps font

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're doing work that has to be in all caps, an all caps font (e.g. Technic) is the happy answer. Doesn't matter what the caps lock key does....

Re:The One-Point-Five Inches that Destroyed the Wo

[RichiH]

Yah, grind the Meta key to death, instead ;)

forget Capslock

[The_Revelation]

Forget Capslock, its that stupid shutdown key developers insist on putting on keyboards now that really erks me. Always located in a useless spot on the keyboard (sometimes replacing more practical buttons that have to be moved to accomodate) that always inevitably gets pressed at the least convenient time resulting in all of your work getting lost as the computer arms itself for an unstoppable shutdown. Fantastic. And let me ask you all, is it that much of a convenience for this button to be made available on the keyboard? Do you need to turn your computer off that often? And if so, would you use this stupid key or the big monster button on the front of the computer? Thats what I thought So until these stupid shutdown/standbye/wakeup keys are removed from designs, all of my keyboards will be missing three keys.

Good idea

[djeca]

Personally, I removed the semicolon; nobody uses them.

Remove more Keys

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate Insert!!
And the F-keys
And Caps Lock
And Scroll Lock
And Pause Break,
And WIndows Keys

Re:The One-Point-Five Inches that Destroyed the Wo

[AmberBlackCat]

First I was thinking maybe the location of the shift key and escape key should be switched. Then I thought of all the applications I've accidentally shut down by hitting escape. So I thought maybe the Caps Lock can be moved to where the Escape key is and the escape key can be eliminated altogether. For the applications that rely on the Escape key, the Windows key can be remapped to be an Escape key since 90% of the public has no idea what it's for anyway.

Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just pop the caps lock key top off and then worry about something more important? While you are at it, pop those stupid Windows keys off too.
I do this to every keyboard (except laptops), right out of the box. They are still a pain in the ass on laptops, but not as big a pain as the up arrow being too close to the shift key. [Shift]+[Up Arrow]+ any key = unintentional delete of an entire line (don't try this at home).

Windows key is very useful!

[Prien715]

Most people don't realize how useful the windows key is! My two favorites:

Windows key+D == Minimize all windows. You've got 100 things open and want to get to something on your desktop? Use this! Also, if you don't do anything, it's a toggle!

Windows key+E == Open windows explorer (!=Windows explorer). Much bettter for navigating filesystems than double clicking my computer!

On Linux:
I bind it to the meta key! How else am I supposed to use the goto line keyboard shortcut (Meta+G) without editing my emacs preferences?

Re:Windows key is very useful!

[Valdrax]

Windows key+D == Minimize all windows. You've got 100 things open and want to get to something on your desktop? Use this! Also, if you don't do anything, it's a toggle!

"Doctor, doctor! It hurts when I do this!"
"Well, then stop doing that."

Seriously, I never have been able to understand how people who have multiple windows stacked over each other get any work done. I've watched too many coworkers do the whole shuffle and hunt for windows thing. I grew up using a Macintosh, where the desktop model suggested keeping all your windows visible at once and later added "windowshading" to make this easier. Since then, I've used UNIX systems where multiple desktops are common. The whole "maximize everything and alt-tab or hunt the task bar" model of use just has never made any sense to me (and is a large part of why I hate many of the UI changes in Mac OS X)..

If you use a good Windows multiple desktop manager like Virtual Dimension, the need for such a key combo disappears.

Also, I just put explorer in the quick-launch section of the task bar, so Windows-E is not of much use to me either.

Useful for Windows

[pjotrb123]

Disable Caps Lock in Windows, or remap it to act like Shift or Ctrl:
the site, the mirror.

But where does it stop?

[dorianh49]

Sure, now you get rid of CAPS LOCK, and then Sys Rq, then Scr Lk, then Num Lock, then Insert, then the pesky F Lock keys, and pretty soon you have a 5-key keyboard with a smiley face, a sad face, and a few words like "doubleplusgood" and "crimethinker", with keystroke logger software that phones home to the Thought Police. Why not just get rid of keyboards or, while you're at it, computers altogether? This is a dangerous path you're taking.

Re:The One-Point-Five Inches that Destroyed the Wo

[Vanieter]

I am amazed as well as shocked to see this was modded "informative". Some mods have been Touched by his Noodly Appendage, perhaps ?

Obvious conclusion

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently your large aerospace company is run by somebody whose entire computer world revolves around chatting with immature pre-teens online.

So just remap it already.

[dfinster]

So remap the key and quit whining.

In Linux under X:
http://www.columbia.edu/~djv/docs/keyremap.html

In windows:
http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/tools/msklc.msp x
or http://webpages.charter.net/krumsick/

Or, you could start jousting at windmills and try to change the entire industry. Whatever is easier for you...

CAPS LOCK

[clancey]

Without the caps lock, there isn't a mechanical enfineer in the U.S. who could issue a report or answer e-mail.

capslock AND the windows key

[dweebzilla]

I switch between my mac and my pc constantly all day long. I'm a freak when it comes to alt-tab program switching, and those two useless keys just get in the way. Since the windows key was made standard on keyboards (what 9 years ago?) I have just popped them off the keyboard. Life is easier without those two keys.

THIS IS COMPLETELY CRAZY CAPS LOCK IS NEEDED

[TheLastUser]

I CAN'T SEE ANY REASON TO REMOVE THE CAPS LOCK BUTTON. IT IS POSSIBLY THE MOST IMPORTANT KEY EVER MADE. I LEAVE MINE ON SO THAT MY EMAILS HAVE EXTRA PUNCH. AND WHEN I WANT TO GET SOME ATTENTION IN A POST, WHAT I DO IS THIS:

i click the caps lock off so that i make little print and this gets the attention of my reader.

I HAVE NEVER HEARD OF SUCH A CRAZY IDEA AS GETTING RID OF THE CAPS KEY. YOU MIGHT AS WELL DO AWAY WITH THE "HOME" KEY OR THE WINDOWS KEY. I WOULD BE LOST WITHOUT THOSE KEYS TOO.

THE WRITER SHOULD CLUE IN, THE TREND IN THE INDUSTRY TO ADD MORE KEYBOARD BUTTONS, NOT FEWER. I HAVE BUTTONS TO OPEN MY EMAIL AND BUTTONS TO CLOSE IT DOWN AGAIN. I ALSO HAVE BUTTONS TO OPEN MY EXPLORER AND OTHER BUTTONS THAT SCROLL THE TEXT IN CASE I DON'T WANT TO USE MY MOUSE. STILL, I COULD USE EVEN MORE BUTTONS, I HAVE A QUAKE 4 BUTTON, BUT NO CIVILIZATION 3 BUTTON. HOW CAN I START CIV 3 WITHOUT A BUTTON?

STUPID, STUPID, MAN

(hack around /. filter)
ak;jsdhf lkdsafjlkdsajf sdflkjdskl sdflk dlkfjsd sdl dsdslkdslkfdslkfsdl sdlkdlkdslkfdslkfjdslk ddskljdlkj dkldk dlkjdlkirwupoiwiew rip poxcjvpoewpof kjvjp9-9w4 fpofi-v jvdfpogfpoigf-00-0 f0g f0-gf gfdpo[k ffd fd0fg9=0g =jvlvc 0909f sd-cljv;cx;lvcxv09g 09 fgfssk;lv;lxv0vghjjnvb.,mnmnhj0-0-0rtu9wwenrn tt0r9/.g ,mfg/ fgklgk
(end hack)

Re:Lost developer productivity? Health issues?

[kimvette]

I, for one, can go MONTHS between typing long strings of upper-case characters.

tRUE THAT. aLSO, i NEVER, EVER, EVER, (eVER!) ACCIDENTALLY HIT CAPSLOCK.

Oops, I DID IT JUST THAT ONCE.

Oops, I DID IT AGAIN.

Oh, and that one time too. Oops, I just broke my perfect record!

Re:Valid points... but it still remains an issue

[kaen]

Hey, Print Screen is useful if your are a developer or developing manuals, as you can copy to the clipboard what is currently on the screen, or use ctrl prtsc for the active window and paste it into a graphics program. And Pause is useful for pausing the screen on bootup, so that you can see important info before it disappears, as well as other uses when using the command line. Break is useful with the command line and with debuggers. Scroll lock is handy with Excel. But I agree with Num Lock, I don't think I've every turned it off on purpose.

Keypress resistance

[Mal-2]

I too dislike the CapsLock key, although I occasionally have a need for it. My solution was very simple:

1. Pop the key off the keyboard
2. Wrap a small rubber band around the key stem
3. Put the key back on

Now it takes a considerable amount of pressure to toggle CapsLock, much more than I am likely to produce accidentally. This worked so well I also ended up doing this with the Windows and "right-click" buttons. They all still work, they are all still where they are expected to be (no remapping), but it takes several pounds of force to press the key down. If you decide you (or someone else) don't like the mod, pop the key off and remove the rubber band -- rather nice when doing this on an employer-provided keyboard.

Mal-2

CNC programers beware!

[Anonymous Coward]

That caps lock key is all that saves me from losing my pinky finger! When you have to fine tune CNC "NC" code, most of the time it has to be all captial letters! So all you other people who for some reason cant avoid the thing, I say TOO BAD... or just redesign the keyboard, like what happened to the delete key.

Learn to ten-key. It's a good skill to have.

[Valdrax]

No, remove Numlock, and eliminate the concept. We have an entire full set of numbers right where they've always been, at the top of the keyboard, as well as the various mathematical signs in their normal locations. Theres no need to duplicate those keys elsewhere.

You obviously don't know any accountants or anyone else who has to input numbers frequently who has learned how to ten-key. I once had a support job that required frequent dialing of phone numbers where I learned to ten-key on a desk phone, and I've found the skill to be utterly invaluable when using Quicken to track my spending years later and for other tasks involving lots of numeric input. There's really no better way.

Why do you think there's a market for USB Numeric Keypads for laptops like you see in the keyboard and mouse section of every computer store?

Dumbest Thing Ever

[rm69990]

This has to be the absolute dumbest thing I have seen in my life. My cousin lost his arm in a farm accident, so he relies on the caps lock key. If, for instance, he wants to type an uppercase H, he hits capslock, types H, and hits capslock again. What a dumb waste of space on Google's hard drives. These people need to find something more productive to do.

Re:Dumbest Thing Ever

[rm69990]

He lost a couple of fingers on his other hand in the same accident too I should add, which is why he has trouble upper casing certain things without capslock.

Re:Dumbest Thing Ever

[stuie]

Has he seen the single-handed Dvorak layouts? I'm not sure how much of an effect the missing fingers would have, but it still seems possible that with this, he could type faster than most QWERTY typists do. It would take a fair amount of work to switch, but it could well pay off... See this site for a typing tutor and more information.

Re:Dumbest Thing Ever

[stuie]

Sorry, that should have been http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simplified_Key board#One_hand_versions

Re:Dumbest Thing Ever

[rm69990]

Thanks for the information! I have bookmarked these two sites and emailed them to my cousin. He'll probably get them next month (he doesn't use the computer all that often really).

Pish Tosh!

[triso]

Don't fret, Slashdotters. I have just passed this message to the one person in the world who can solve this serious problem--That's right--Mr Bill Gates. He has some free time now that he's cured the world of AIDS and fixed our spam problem.

I use it for coding

[openldev]

I actually use it very often when typing different preprocessor macros. I'm writing a book and have to continually type enumeration values as well. I could see replacing the "Windows" key (or just relabeling it). But then again, I just remap the keys I don't like. :)

Re:Valid points... but it still remains an issue

[Curate]

There are several useless keys that could be removed; print screen, and pause and the other two "lock" keys: scroll lock and num lock.

How are these keys useless? Sure, not every application makes use of them, but not every application makes use of the F11 key or the } key either. But there are uses. It's different for different systems, but let's just take Windows for example. PrintScrn is used all the time for taking screen shots. How do you do this? Well, Alt-PrintScrn copies an image of the active window to the clipboard; you can then paste this into MS Paint. Ctrl-PrintScrn functions similarly but for the entire screen. Pause is used to *gasp* pause scrolling output in your console window (try dir /s C:\ as an experiment). Window-Pause is a little known shortcut key for opening up the system properties dialog (the same as if you right-click My Computer and choose properties from the context menu). NumLock is self-explanatory, very useful when inputting lots of numbers into a spreadsheet for example. And Scroll Lock is used in Excel to *gasp* lock scrolling! That is to say, when scroll lock is turned on and you use the up and down arrow keys, it does not move the cursor but rather scrolls the window, much like using the mouse's scroll wheel.

The above are just examples. Apps can take advantage of these keys in any way that they want. Since the keys are accepted as standard and have been around for so long, you can't very well just remove them now without breaking lots of apps. I you don't use the keys, then well, don't use the keys! Pry them off of your keyboard if the offend you.

Re:The One-Point-Five Inches that Destroyed the Wo

[Mozk]

How about a firewall that prevents it from connecting to the Internet or accessing other programs? ZoneAlarm comes to mind.

Num Lock too

[Tekoneiric]

Being a help desk person, I definitly on the side of removing it but I would like to add removing the Num Lock key from standard keyboards too. I've never understood why it's there. When you turn it off, there are two sets of keys that do the same thing next to each other. I thought of making a hack to go inside a keyboard that would detect the numlock light off and turn the key back on then I would rewire the button it's self to link to either the = or \ key. Probably = since it makes more sense with the keys there. As for what to put in place of the Caps Lock, how about "Fire" for playing first person shooters. -Andrea-

Dvorak made this same play

[talledega500]

I dont use the number 8. Not sure what the big deal is.

GOOD TOOL

[sjipca]

There is no reason that specific key needs to be deleted because it is good for games that don't allow you to change the font size etc. Also it's good for those times you need to emphasize a point THE CAPS LOCK KEY NEEDS TO STAY, now if I would have to use the shift key to type that out would take me longer than having to just tap one key to keep a sentence all caps. -sjipca

Its not that capslock is bad...

[God of Lemmings]

Its just in the wrong place! Anywhere near the shift and control keys is a bad idea. Yes, you would think it would belong there, considering what it really is is a way to make shift stay on.

Now lets take a look over at the numlock key.... See how it is up and away from the enter key? How about the scroll lock key (if you have one)... it's certainly nowhere near anything useful. If it were my choice, I'd put scroll, caps and numlock all together in one group up next to the function keys, or even make them share space with some of the others and use alt to activate them.

For Windows, SysInternals ctrl2cap

[senahj]

Those of us with Northgate Omnikey or Avant Stellar
keyboards can do this in hardware.
I'm guessing Das Keyboard can do it too.

For those lacking L337 hardware,
the System Internals app ctrl2cap fits the bill.

Comes with source.

http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Ctrl2Cap.htm l

    [ Russinovich & Assoc. recently sold their souls to
        the Beast of Redmond. May Bog have mercy on them. ]

JUST TELL THEM

[kezze]

JUST WRITE MAJOR KEYBOARD COMPANIES LIKE lOGITECH, kEYTRONIC 7 mICROSOFT TO STOP PUTTING THE BUTTON ON THE 'KEYBOARD'111

The word "God" --Re:The rise and fall of uppercase

[Keybounce]

And ultimately, people said, "If we can only support one case of letters, do you want to see 'god' in all lower case?"

So, instead of risking all lowercase 'god', we have all uppercase "GOD".

(At least, this is what I was told back in 1980).

Im out

[sn3ak3r]

Well what bout azerty. We only have shift lock but in a laptop we need it for the numbers so i guess im neutral

Re:The One-Point-Five Inches that Destroyed the Wo

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

So I guess the moral is "only run open-source software."

That might help, but it's not a complete solution, as anyone who has read Ken Thompson's Reflections on Trusting Trust knows.

NO! You know you don't want this!

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Keyboard manufacturers: DON'T MESS WITH MY KEYBOARD. If you want to differentiate your keyboard, you can start by adding extra keys, which can be mapped to various functions. DON'T screw with existing keys.

Typing on a non-standard keyboard is extremely irritating. The worst keyboard I've used is one where the function keys were, BY DEFAULT, assigned to be those "Internet keys" (Help, Open, Save, Email, Web, etc.). You had to press some "Fn Lock" key in order to make them behave like proper function keys should, and every time you rebooted, the "Fn Lock" status got cleared. The same keyboard also had a double-height Delete key, and rearranged the Insert, Home, End, PageUp and PageDown keys, so I'd always end up pressing the wrong one. Oh, and I think it might have even screwed with the positions of the cursor keys, too, but I don't remember that one for sure.

The position of the CapsLock key is annoying, and I can see the justification for swapping it with the left Control key, but the manufacturers will inevitably screw it up, so it would be best if they just leave the keyboard alone, and let the software guys handle remapping and such.

Providing alternate keycaps would be nice, though, so that the labels printed on the keys could be changed to match the software keymap.

WTF are you talking about? I use it all the time

[godless dave]

I use Caps Lock all the time. Any time I type an acronym of three or more capital letters, I hit Caps Lock first as my tyrannical keyboarding instructor taught me to do. It saves strain on my Shift fingers.

Ctrl2Cap

[empaler]

It's Sysinternals and it's open source. Grab it while you can!

Subject

[Legion303]

It's a good thing we've cured the common cold and ended world hunger so we can put our energy into the really important things in life. Like getting keyboard manufacturers to remove the capslock key.

Windows Start Menu Key is more worthless

[Mark McGann]

I grant you that the Caps lock key isn't particularlly useful, but the Windows Start Menu button is even more annoying. I've only ever hit that key accidentally, usually causing whatever program I'm using to minimize, wether or not the program can handle that!

These days I simply pop the windows start menu key off every keyboard I get with a screwdriver, and I'm a much happier man for it.

-Mark

Re:Learn to ten-key. It's a good skill to have.

[The Cisco Kid]

I've worked on a sorting machine at the post office which had a keypad with a similar (but not identical layout) (Not worked on as in reparied, although Im looking at getting into the maintenance side, but working on as in keying the zipcodes of mailpieces) So I understand the concept, and I suppose accountants probably couldnt live without it. But I don't see a use for it outside of some specific specialized need.

He can't know who does need caps lock

[Anonymous Coward]

I get no indication from the web site that these people have done any research at all as to who may need caps lock. For example, how often do non-english speaking (typing) users need it when using an english keyboard? Are there apps that many people use (governement for example) that still need lots of caps?

What we don't need is two different "standard" placements of caps lock.

It shoulds to me like whining on the part of a few users who don't have any intention of seeing the whole picture.

Doctor Cap Locks & the Legion of Legacy Busine

[Wry Cooter]

This might be due to how the data for MEDICARE itself is set up where insurance is processed (government programming) or it may be due to the history of electronic claim filing. Before PCs or even fax machines were commonly available as a common consumer office product, the medical insurance industry tried other methods to allow submitting of claims electronically.

One of these methods was a keyboard that used an acoustically coupled modem for transmittal. The keyboard itself was a custom keyboard barely longer than a telephone receiver (they used to look sorta like barbells, kiddies),
and a lot of keys did double duty.

But I think it is a programming legacy. And it deals with data sets that may be decades old still being in use. I still on a daily basis, on the PCs at work, particularly at registers if not other info kiosks, run into data where the expected input is ALL CAPS, more often converted for the typist these days, but still, ALL CAPS. Why is that? Some one somewhere, set up their code where they only allowed that particular ASCII subset, perhaps to help the code flow later as it is being munched.

Why is that?

disabled caps long ago.

[Frozen Void]

Its MS util included with kernel toys.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows95/downloads/conte nts/WUToys/W95KernelToy/Default.asp See key remap

Re:The One-Point-Five Inches that Destroyed the Wo

[Anonymous Coward]

At the very real risk of having my* geek application not only disapproved but also shredded, burned and my face being photographed, printed and displayed prominantly and publicly enough that I will no longer be able to enter even a Wal-Mart electronics section...

What's a meta key?

*this poster is posting as Anonymous Coward to hide said posters shame

2983742 times per day

[rstanley]

Let's see...

60 secs x 60 minutes x 24 hours = 86400 seconds per day

2983742 clicks / 86400 secs per day = 34.534050926 clicks per second!!!

Your'e telling me that you have to use the Escape Key THAT MUCH in a 24 hour period???

I'm Impressed!!! ;^)

Guess I'll stick to emacs! ;^)

Rick

CapsLock useful sometimes

[Douglas Goodall]

I use it when entering those Microsoft product keys or hexadecimal WEP keys. Trying to use fig-Forth without it is a nightmare. Otherwise it does get in the way when using vi. Suddenly every key you hit causes a beep. It is helpful when there is a led embedded in the key to remind you it's active, otherwise Internet people say UPPER CASE IS SHOUTING.

Keyboard massacre?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are there really such a large number of idiots who prefer to have massacred keyboards to having a caps lock key?

Oh, come on! Whoever does this is a moron. Learn to properly use your computer!

This campaign is a stipidity. History will tell you what disastrous results combining stupidity with democracy can cause.

Re:The One-Point-Five Inches that Destroyed the Wo

[HeroreV]

What's with all that BS about getting punished if you're posting anonymously?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta_key

And what are you doing at /. if you don't even use Wikipedia?

Remove Windows Key first

[Anonymous Coward]

Remove Windows Key first!

Hitting it when running fullscreen apps does usually crash many programs which assumes exclusive access to the graphics and input subsystems and cannot handle windowed mode.

Re:The word "God" --Re:The rise and fall of upperc

[Whafro]

Hah, that's an interesting perspective. Thanks for that :)

This PieterH guy is a jerktard

[Anonymous Coward]

PieterH, stop wasting my bandwidth with your juvenile teenie-chat room inspired crap. Caps are fine. And useful just like a space between words (Japanese doesn't use them you know), a font, a hyperlink being blue, or a period and punctuation at the end of a sentence.

I've seen chat-room caps bigots like you swoop down on a new user ridiculing them, telling them what they can and can't type, telling them it hurts your poor little eyes while you assume some unreadable nickname like xXx_][DöRk-LóRd69$PiM14xXx or some crap, and then you end up kick-banning some user out of some chat using the excuse that they were 'shouting' or something. Newsflash for you: It's a TEXT chat. There is no shouting in a text-chat, because there is no sound! It's your little pretend fantasy like playing in your doll house and making up rules.

In addition to that I've seen this happen where a user entered and simply typed "HELLO EVERYONE!" and immediately a wolf-pack of 12 yr old wannabe's pounced on this guy scoffing and laughing at him for typing in all caps and telling him stop shouting and turn that @#%)( off, you )@#%!~ you suck you @)%( bastard idiot !!~)#*@ ! ha ha ha...

I happened to message the guy privately to say sorry for those other people being so rude. It turns out, this person was disabled. They were in a wheel chair, having been crippled in an accident. And they were visually impaired because the accident also had crushed part of their eye-socket. And they explained that if they typed in CAPS, due to their eye damage, that just helped them see the words a little bit better. They asked why everyone was being so mean to them. They said that since the accident, their life had been changed, and they could no longer go outside much anymore and one of the only ways they could meet people and learn things and feel a little bit happy was to be able to reach people using their computer. For a few moments during the day they could forget that their legs were inoperative and their face was destroyed and type to people and have fun on their computer. ...and little caps-bigots like you went and made fun of him, threatened him, and eventually kick-banned him for saying "HUH? I DON'T UNDERSTAND. PLS HELP." *** user has been kicked.

So pieterh, take your CAPS-bigot attitude, stuff it, and take a big sniff of your own finger.

(Other readers: by the way, no need to post a bunch of replies here that begin with the sentence "You know there are several software programs and hardware devices for visu....." Yes, I know. And I told them. And also, this event was a couple years ago, so no need for a list of sw & hw for the disabled at this point. He's taken care of, and long gone. However the point remains.)

I'm surprised...

[JesperJ]

... That the CEO of a software company can't even type, and furthermore gets the pathetic idea of wanting to use his influence to drag us all down with him. I use the caps lock key all the time, for proper reasons that is. If this crazy proposal is to be accepted I really don't know what to do. :(

Let's keep things real

[Sigg3.net]

Honoring the principle of relativity; have you compared your results of typing with that of jacking off?

Re:Valid points... but it still remains an issue

[danielsfca2]

> With num lock on, can the OS distinguish between num pad numbers and normal numbers? If that were the case, that'd work fine.

Yeah, it totally can. I'm sure of it because I've mapped keys using video game emulators and stuff and it'll say "Num Pad 4" instead of "4".

Your point is correct--it's useful to have 9 keys nicely arranged in a grid there, and to have games and similar applications be able treat them as directional arrows...but that wouldn't change if we eliminated Num Lock--you could still use them for the purpose you use them for now. They just wouldn't have "Ins", "Del", "->", etc. printed on them, and they'd work as numbers without you having to make sure "Num Lock" was turned on.

NT/XP/200x registry solution

[tanek]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contr ol\Keyboard Layout] "Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,1d,00 ,3a,00,00,00,00,00 The '1d,00,3a,00' part tells windows to remap capslock (1d) to left ctrl (3a). Might not work in games which read directly from hardware, but such games typically offer remapping of their own.