11. Thou Shalt Not Use Caps Lock
If this doesn't work, the only thing left to do is nuke the caps lock key from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Note: Eleventh commandment applies only to the subset of mankind that is not John Hodgman.
Coda: Isn't it annoying when a netbook or cell phone has a difficult little keyboard, but they sacrifice a shift key or a full-size enter key in order to retain something useless like the tilde or caps lock? The swines.
CAPS LOCK TRAINER KEY [Sean Michael Ragan via Oh Gizmo!]
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Put it to good use instead.
http://lifehacker.com/5067438/celebrate-international-caps-lock-day-by-remapping-the-key
I disabled mine altogether. It felt gooood. I used this:
http://www.randyrants.com/sharpkeys/
I also used it to remap TAB to that funny Windows key to the right of the spacebar. that way I can ALT-TAB with either hand.
I like how the website that this links too has the blurb about it in ALL CAPS. Besides, I may never use the Caps lock, but SHIFT CAN BE JUST AS BAD.
which means, we are just going to have to get rid of capital letters all together. i'm all for it!
but what do we get for our friends using laptops?
this is such smart-arse nonsense, i use it all the time.
How else are you supposed to type in alphanumeric cd keys from warez?
What's wrong with the tilde key?
Doesn't anyone write Perl around here?
Or use unix/linux?
Or write in Spanish? (Well no, I don't do that either actually.)
Capslock -- kill it dead, dead I tell you! But the tilde? That's super useful for switching between windows on a Mac.
Tilde is not useless at all, it signifies your home directory in OS X, Linux and other flavours of Unix. And a lot of people are installing/using Linux on their netbooks.
The tilde key is usefull in unix, linux, OSX.
Don't just lose it - use it! For Enso!
~ switches case in vi too! musthave!
IGNORE ME!
I just pry the caps lock key off my keyboards and toss it. Granted I do that because I have a bad habit of hitting it accidentally while hitting the "a" key. Since I don't touch type, this would result in sentences thAT LOOKED LIKE THIS UNTIL I NOTICED MY MISTake.
As a long-time emacs user, I have for years re-mapped Caps Lock to be another Control key. It's so easy now in Ubuntu, you kids don't know how hard we had it editing config files. And without Google to tell us how, either!
And get off my lawn!
Oh, and tildes are totally useful (for all the linux / unix reasons already pointed out). But they are stashed inoffensively out of the way. The real problem with the Caps Lock key is that it has some prime real estate but no real value.
Or you could just convert the CapsLock to Ctrl so the Ctrl key is where God intended it to be. But some people could definitely use the spikes.
As a designer, you can have my caps lock (and tilde, for that matter) when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
I never use capslock as capslock, but I love to remap my capslock key to be an extra backspace key. A study showed that the backspace key is used very often, and normally you have to reach your pinky way across the keyboard for it, or move your whole handy. Once you learn to use the capslock as backspace without moving your hand, it improves typing speed by 15% or so. (Assuming you make frequent mistakes or changes in your typing, but most people do). Files to change capslock into backspace are available by searching for Colemak.
The Colemak layout turns this key into backspace.
Much better than spikes.
http://colemak.com/
mz
Hear hear on cmd-~ for window switching. 'Tis the bomb.
Also, as someone who spends several hours a week entering data into a database that prefers ALL CAPS I would go even more bonkers without the caps lock key. As it is I just go a little bonkers with all the hours of mind-numbing data entry. Bleargh.
There are a hell of a lot of us that use the Tilde and CAPS LOCK KEY. Ahem. I say that capslock spikes should be shipped as standard to entry-level users, but remain on for those of us that work with databases, tilde-delimited files and knit one, perl one.
Isn't it annoying when a netbook or cell phone has a difficult little keyboard, but they sacrifice a shift key or a full-size enter key in order to retain something useless like the tilde or caps lock?
Tilde is important for Spanish, regular expressions, command-lines, and expressing approximation (and a few other things), and backtick is very important for programming. I guess in comparison to the other keys it is pretty low priority (slightly higher or maybe the same as backslash/pipe and square bracket/curly brace keys?) Not sure why you would sacrifice it just to have a full-size enter key, tho.
Caps lock, on the other hand, is only useful for database people. It should simply not exist, and we should let database people have a special keyboard, or a USB caps-lock key.
YOU NERDS, ALL OF YOU
NERDS, ALL OF YOU! I'M A TERRIBLE PERSON, I KNOW.
"The tilde key is usefull in unix, linux, OSX."
...Best reason I can think of for getting rid of it, then!
Whenever there's a key on my keyboard that I press accidentally too frequently, I just snap the damned thing off. I have loads of keyboards, standalone and laptop keyboards, with missing left Function keys...
If only things written with Caps Lock could show up in smart small caps instead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Smallcaps.png
I think the answer is teaching everyone proper writing skills.
There are some circumstances where a capslocked word is appropriate, and capslock can be very useful for ironic usage (CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL, etc.), but most of the time it's just a crutch to put emphasis on a word. Same thing goes for italics.
My personal rule of thumb is that if I find myself reaching for the capslock button or Ctrl+I, the sentence needs to be rewritten. There's almost always another way to put emphasis on a word without making it visually distracting.
Oldtaku@15: Ctrl where God meant it to be indeed.
Teletype for the win!
Ctrl-D
Let's not get into a Linux/Unix fight here over the "swung dash." For those of us who need a POSIX shell, which has very little to do with Linux specifically (I use a POSIX shell on Windows every day of my working life), this character is indispensable. Pretty much the entire number row keys are used by folks who program for a living.
In fact, I'm not sure why folks who use computers have the same keyboards as programmers. It is a bit crazy.
Caps lock is stupid, and should just be replaced with the left-shift key -- hold it for 300-500 msec and let that be the gesture to let the
OS know you want all caps.
Ubuntu makes it easy to use capslock as a "compose" key. capslock+'+e=é. Or even capslock+-+d=đ for a very old-school experience.
There's a kludgy version for windoze: http://allchars.zwolnet.com/
I OFTEN BROWSE BOINGBOING WHILE RENDERING WITH ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS. LEAVING THE CAPSLOCK ON WHILE RENDERING MAKE IT FASTER AS IT DOESN'T DISPLAY THE RENDER WHILE IT'S WORKING IT OUT.
SUCKS FOR TYPING THO.
You know, if you accidentally hit the caps key and don't notice until the end of the paragraph (Microsoft Office Suite) try SHIFT+F3. It's a lifesaver and my #1 pick for nifty computer tricks this year.
Just try it.
Putting something 'all in caps' is 99% of the time like using a hammer to do a screwdriver's work. I like to _underline_, and it looks good when you're sending an sms as well.
I use autohotkey, personally, to make the caps-lock key do the Right Thing in various environments. For fullscreen gaming, I leave it untouched. For most other stuff, it cycles the current selection between various casing styles (ALL CAPS, Sentence case, Title Case, lower case, and unchanged), or if there is no current selection, does nothing unless it's double-tapped, when it works like a regular caps-lock key.
Probably way over-engineered, but that's the nice thing about stuff like autohotkey. It gives you back control over how *you* want your computer to work.
Just wish someone would write something as powerful for linux. I bet someone already has.