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CapsOff: Away with CAPS LOCK!

Art-One [PersonRank 10]

Thursday, August 24, 2006
17 years ago2,657 views

How often do you use CAPS LOCK? That is, use it when you want to use it and not when you've put it accidentally on... Never as I do?

Than you can join theh CAPSoff campaign on http://capsoff.org/ .

(I'm not affiliated with it, but read about it and think it's a nice idea...)

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I always remove the caps lock key from my keyboard. It's easy, just take a screwdriver and make it snap out.

Another thing that annoys me is hitting the insert button accidentally (I always use Ctr + Insert, Shift + Insert, and Shift + Delete for Copy/ Paste/ Delete).

Roger Browne [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Ah, you use the IBM CUA interface ("common user architecture").

One advantage of the alternative (control-X, control-C, control-V) is that you can easily use them with the left hand whilst mousing with the right hand.

I share your pain regarding hitting the Insert button accidentally. The best interface choice of all in my opinion was that used by Microsoft Word for DOS: "Delete" to delete (cut) someting, and "Insert" to insert (paste) something. Combine that convention with the X interface (found on Linux/Unix GUI apps) of mouse-highlight to copy, middle-click to paste, and you have a very versatile and usable interface not subject to accidental mode-changing keystrokes.

In any case, keyboard keys shouldn't cause persistent mode changes. That rules out CAPS LOCK, INSERT, SCROLL LOCK and PAUSE.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

And keyboards shouldn't be localized :)
What a pain to program on a German keyboard as all programming languages are optimized for US keyboards...

/pd [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Roger : "best interface choice of all in my opinion was that used by Microsoft Word for DOS"

Actually it was Wordstar which introduced keyboard shortcuts
control-X, Control-C, Control-V , Control-P etc., was used to navigate the wordstar document.

In fact when Windows1.6 luanched MSFT then introduced the k/b shortcuts within the Pull down menu items :)-

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I like the shortcuts from Vim.

Roger Browne [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

/pd: I'm talking about a time LONG before Windows existed. Word for DOS had consistent keyboard shortcuts that mirrored the menu options. Dammit, some of those shortcuts are STILL in my muscle memory, and it's 20 years since I used Word for DOS.

Actually, I still have my diskette, and I fired it up a few years ago under Windows 95. It worked like a charm, and showed me how little improvement there has been in word processing over the past 20 years (well, apart from font rendering, and the use of squiggly underlines for spellchecking).

I run only Linux nowadays (with OpenOffice), but maybe I'll see if Word for DOS runs under one of the Linux DOS emulators.

Art-One [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

> And keyboards shouldn't be localized :)

I was in Austria last week & I can confirm it was a pain to type on a German localised keyboard. Anyway we use Azerty overhere like the French and switching to Querty needs always a little bit of time too...

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