Is It Time To Get Rid Of The Caps Lock Key?

medium.com/forwardtick/its-time-for-caps-lock-to-die-81c9eaa4dfa7

"At its worst, it's a waste of precious space, an annoyance, a solution to a problem that doesn't exist any more," complains Daniel Colin James, a writer, developer, and product manager.

In a recent Medium essay, he called the Caps Lock key "an unnecessary holdover from a time when typewriters were the bleeding edge of consumer technology" -- and even contacted the man who invented the Caps Lock key (Doug Kerr, who had been a Bell Labs telephone engineer in the 1960s):
I reached out to Doug about his invention, and he responded that while he still uses Caps Lock regularly, "we don't often today have a reason to type addresses in all caps, which was the context in which the need for the key first manifested itself to me."

I would go a step further, and say that most of us don't often have a reason to type anything in all caps today...

[A] toggle with the same functionality could easily be activated in a number of different ways for those who really want to write things in all capital letters. (Say, for example,

>double tapping the Shift key, like how it already works on your phone.)

Caps Lock is one of the largest keys on a modern keyboard, and it's in one of the best spots -- right next to the home row. It's taking up prime real estate, and it's not paying its rent any more.

Caps Lock is so frequently engaged unintentionally that password fields in software have to include a "Caps Lock is on" warning.

I've heard of people re-mapping their keyboards so the Caps Lock key becomes "Esc" or "Ctrl." But maybe it comes down to consumers. If you were shopping for a computer and were told that it shipped without a Caps Lock key -- would you be more or less likely to buy it?

Attached: caps-lock-num-lock-keys-stuck-windows-10.jpg (636x347, 20K)

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youtube.com/watch?v=uUaV97UQGp0
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>he called the Caps Lock key "an unnecessary holdover from a time when typewriters were the bleeding edge of consumer technology"
Does he want to get rid of UNIX too?

No

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

definitely not buy it

normies wil love this 'new idea' so they can complain on social media
while othes will post how a great idea it is

Where do they find these people, that's some Jow Forums level autism

Its a ctrl-key for me

MINE DOESN'T EVEN WORK.

I disagree with this video but I like listening to Lloyd rantings

youtube.com/watch?v=uUaV97UQGp0

DON'T TOUCH MY FUCKING CAPS LOCK KEY I NEED IT

I use it as escape. But if they split up caps lock to two keys i wouldn't mind.

Qwerty is all of the above as well. Get rid of it

Based key remapper fren.
Makes me look absolutely retarded when using other people's computers but entirely worth it.

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>In a recent Medium essay

stopped caring

Is this the famous #firstworldproblems that I have heard so much?

>not mapping your caps lock to esc for vim
shiggydiggydoo

This is onions overload but I kind of agree.

>most people don't use it, so let's fuck over the ones that do
I hate this mentality with a burning passion.

Also, that fag suggests replacing it with a fucking EMOJI key, him and his opinion can gO SUCK A DICK FOR ALL I CARE.

KEK

Don't get rid of it, just make it a standard, user remappable key.

Emacs users need it for ctrl and Vim users need it for escape.

you forgot the open mouth wojak image

I still use capslock even for individual letters. Out of habit. This numale can fuck off

considering keyboard real estate is limited, that mentality makes sense

>I still use capslock even for individual letters. Out of habit
you are retarded

If I wanted a cuck keyboard I'd get a macbook.

for wha-- oohhh

I'LL TYPE ALL IN CAPS IF I WANT TO

having a useless key taking up space sounds pretty cucked to me

I have mine disabled.

Attached: Screen Shot 2019-07-15 at 11.24.41 PM.png (1560x1386, 541K)

dude, nobody has ever used the caps lock like that, even back in the typewriter days, the shift key existed
this isn't an oldfag/newfag thing, you're just fucking weird

I'm OK with removing it.

It's something some children taught themselves to do, he just never grew up

i never use it, what's some good ideas for repurposing?

Maybe so still its more useful than a fucking emoji key, also useful when typing abbreviations or passwords.

no

>all the autism ITT
I HATE CHANGE GOD ITS SO HARD TO DEAL WITH THINGS THAT ARE NOT CONSTANT REEEEEE

It's a technique people pick up when they learn to type very quickly using only a few fingers, because it's a quick tap instead of a long hold.

t. does that and is trying to train out of it

as previously mentioned esc for vim, ctrl for emacs otherwise whatever meta key you se most often (cmd, ctrl, alt, etc)

I do type quickly so thats probably why I do it. It doesnt slow me down really so I dont see the problem.

Also ive always touch typed. Ever since I learned to type when I was less than 10

Easy fix

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unless you are missing most of your fingers using caps lock is slower than shift

Why go after caps lock when much more useless keys like scroll lock exist?

The escape key should take capslock's position.

FUCK TRANNIES

So tab and the windows key are more useful than capslock? what fucking universe does this guy live in?

Phone keyboards don't have numbers or punctuation keys, so i guess that means that's all you need, you can do the rest in software, right? double tap spacebar for period and space is more than enough for you

how about the ` tilde key that is literally only used to open the console in quake derived video game engines

People use the tab key all the time, what?
Windows key is obviously the most useless key on the keyboard though

~ is often used in programming languages
` I haven't seen used for anything

Stupid, selfish idea. In the industry I work in we need to print labels for our product and we frequently use caps lock to fill in numerous data fields.

I think it’s a good idea. Replace it with a relocated escape key
t. vi user

how do you know you're not being selfish instead

>he doesn't win+d
>he doesn't win+prtscr
>he doesn't win+shift+tab
fucking scrub

if you are computer literate sure but don't underestimate normies especially in the age where people may have gotten this far and never used a traditional computer

Attached: buh.jpg (337x352, 7K)

what do those commands do?

yes really clever, the chad pinky-three-tap for capital A vs. the virgin using two fingers at once.

Because various industries globally have a need more important than an emoji key.

Then retarded gamers would complain about accidentally hitting escape all the time.

minimize all windows
take a screenshot and automatically save it to .png
move windows between screens

>he doesn't use tab
>>/v/

moving windows between screens sounds great, but it's not doing anything on my computer

Yes please. UNIX is the worst OS to ever have widespread use.

americans are fucking weird

Actually I fucked up, it's win+shift+left or right arrow keys

>an extra meta-key is useless
Gay. Menu is less useful. Scroll Lock I'd guess maybe 5% of people know anything it does, and 5% of those actually use it.

I use mine as "show desktop".

>tab
Moving between text boxes, windows and tabs. It's also used by programmers all the time.
>super key
Open app menu.
>Phone keyboards don't have numbers
But they have long press actions, which is equivalent to fn/super keys.

an extra meta-key is useful, just not the fucking windows key
nobody uses scroll lock, but its not in a position on the keyboard where it matters

>equivalent to fn/super keys.
Meant to say shift/alt.

But the "Windows" key is an extra meta key.

it's a useless key on the home row
which makes it a prime contender for custom remapping
if they replaced it with something useful, now you're going to lose a key if you remapped that spot

if it does just become some emoji key or whatever, it's still a useless key that's a prime remapping spot

tab is constantly used by pretty much everyone, whether they're navigating through form fields on a form or programming or something
windows key is less useful, but I do press win+d (show desktop) and win+e (open Explorer) fairly regularly
shit, I even set up my linux machines with those keybinds to hide everything/open a file manager

it lacks compatibility
does anything use the windows key apart from windows?

Hipsters have their soi keyboards missing half of the keys already, use those instead.

Anyone with a brain uses the windows key as the main mod key for their window manager.

yeah thats what it does on windows, but applications dont use it

They don't by default, because everyone with a brain uses that key to manage their windows.

GUYS I GOT A BEAUTIFUL IDEA
MAKE CAPS LOCK LIKE THIS
1 TAP: ONLY NEXT LETTER IS CAPS
2 TAPS: ALL ARE CAPS UNTIL NEXT CAPS KEY TAP

Wouldn't be a bad idea desu

This is why leftists should be shot on sight

if they do get rid of caps lock, shift is going to work like this
hold/tap shift = shift
2 tap shift = capslock

Not bad

everyone witth a brain uses the mouse to manage their windows

NO FUN ALLOWED.

Did anybody forget about this useless key?

Attached: kF3jU[1].png (370x281, 172K)

If you had a brain ,and you really didn't use the key at all, you could easily remap it to something useful for yourself.

CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL

the discussion here isn't my personal use of the key, it's the use of the key in general
nobody uses the windows key

what a hell are you talking abo...
oh.. that button :/

I use it regularly

>medium.com
Nice blog

I'm using colemak with caps rebinded to backspace for the last 3 or 4 years,and while colemak is really cool IMO but not for everyone, being able to backspace without moving your hand is the comfiest shit ever while coding or just typing , everyone should try it.

Attached: Happy Fox.jpg (236x177, 4K)

based

I use it

holy shit didnt even know it existed before checking it

I literally don't know what what's supposed to do.

unlike the caps lock key, i actually use the menu key

Fuck no, I need it for drafting.
But while we're suggesting keyboard improvements, why for 20 years have we been suck with only one, just one clipboard!? We really need about four. And keyboards should reflect that. Copy 1 -4, paste 1-4, shift+copy cuts.

Not for bro caps is above shift

Why the hell even touch the keyboard layout at all? FFS if it aint broke quit trying to fix it.

Why 4 exactly?

Windows 10 doesn't have that problem

Attached: scst.png (1048x508, 57K)

Chromebooks already don't have it.

I use it when I have to use MySQL on the command line, there is no need for caps, but just looks better.