Slashdot Mirror
Google Wants To Take Away Your Capslock Key
heptapod writes "Slashdot reported earlier about Google's Chrome notebook and keen-eyed readers would have noticed the lack of a caps lock key. 'According to Google, this will improve the quality of the comments, because people will not be able to write all in capital letters. I'm not a fan of the caps lock key myself. I never use it, so it can go to hell, for all I'm concerned. But taking away choice from people is not good, especially when this is not going to improve the quality of comments.'"
As much as I hate the caps lock key (reassigned mine to be an extra Esc), I just submitted a bug on Chrome that it doesn't have a command line --geometry option, which I consider a pseudo standard thing for X apps. I can't help but see that Google is going from the mostly standards compliant company they once were to becoming a Microsoft as far as following standards goes. I'm sure there are other examples people will bring up and maybe a comment along the lines of "They were never standards compliant".
I'm a database programmer, and I use caps lock on a regular basis. It's off by default, of course, but if I had to type stuff like this all day without caps lock I'd go mad:
CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW part_glass_part2 AS
SELECT part_key, sum(line_sqft) AS sum_sqft, sum(line_lbs) AS sum_lbs
FROM part_glass_part1
GROUP BY 1;
Why the continuing bother with Caps Lock, SysRq, Scroll Lock, and Break? Does anyone use them? at least, any number of people above statistical noise?
How about the Windows and Menu keys? anybody use that on a regular basis? would a statistically meaningful number miss them?
And while we're at it, usage of the Function keys (12 of them!) seems vanishingly small.
Nineteen nigh-unto-unused keys, times how many keyboards out there with them?
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
CAD guy here. We have lots of drawings where the convention is to put all text in caps. I use capslock all the time.
I assume this bit is from a Slashdot posting and not Google:
Attention people -- keyboards are use for more than posting comments.
What the hell kind of drivel is this?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I use the caps lock key a lot. On French keyboards, when a word begins with an accentuated letter, the only way to display it correctly is to hit caps-lock and press "é" or "à". Give me way to write easily É or À otherwise this is a (arguably minor) feature you remove from me.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
"The problem with America is stupidity. I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?"
Experience teaches only the teachable. -AH
On top of that, in Japan, you can use the caps lock key to switch to a different kind of characterset. Quite useful, really...
B.
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
CAPSLOCK or Shift
________are those keys that
________flitter ravenblack words
________________________________acrossmyscreen
windowsmenumeta
________________are
___________________keys
_______________________that
___________________________fly
______________________________me
________________________________around
______________________________________invisiblespace
gOOGLE
take not my expressive locks controls and alternates.
Some User lackingnbsponslashdot
I'm right-handed but I use my mouse my the left hand. That way it's closer to the keyboard, I mean, the part of the keyboard I use all the time, the letter keys of course. And I can reach it with only a minor movement of my left arm instead of having to go aaaall the way to the right, past the arrows and the numpad.
Combined with a bit of knowledge about keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl-Ins : Copy, Shift-Del : Cut, Shift-Ins : Paste) and drag and drop (select some text, drag it with Ctrl key pressed : easy copy-paste), I find it a very ergonomic disposition. And it didn't take very long to learn to use the mouse left-handed (my right hand is still more precise though).
I haven't inverted the mouse buttons though, because I like to use it with the right hand from time to time.