Is Caps Lock Dead?

An anonymous reader asks "Recently I have noticed that I haven't used caps lock other for any purpose other than hitting it by accident. Once upon a time, COBOL was written in all caps, and other languages like BASIC and Fortran were not case sensitive. Capitals were the way to go for writing code. Does the caps lock key serve any purpose any more, and if not, should it be removed, moved, or replaced?"

No! I use CapsLock as my "ESC" key

[ClarkEvans (102211)]

especially useful in VIM.

Re:No! I use CapsLock as my "ESC" key

[Anonymous Coward]

I find a drop of superglue under the key ensures its continued usefulness.

Well my roomate has this...

[ForestGrump (644805)]

escape and caps lock key switch.
http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~beyert/articles/es cclock.ht m

-Grump
bet you tim!

Swap caps lock and control

[ultrabot (200914)]

More useful than switching with escape is switching caps lock with Control.

You should have:

Option "XkbOptions" "ctrl:swapcaps"

In the InputDevice section for your keyboard (in XF86Config, of course).

Voila'! Ctrl assumes its rightful place on the keyboard. Ergonomic implications are massive.

Equivalent hack is available for NT too. It's done via registry, but I can't be bothered to google for it right now.

I use it all the time

[ShieldW0lf (601553)]

There are all sorts of programming situations where having a caps lock key helps keep things readable. For example...

SELECT *
FROM tblWhatever a
INNER JOIN tblYaddaYadda b
ON a.ID = b.ID
WHERE b.foo = 1

Not to mention data entry work... lots of places that do data entry use all caps.

Oh, and did I mention that THIS IS A STUPID ARTICLE? SURELY THERE MUST BE SOMETHING EXCITING ENOUGH GOING ON IN THE WORLD THAT WE DON'T NEED TO PUT THIS CRAP ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE SITE?

Re:I use it all the time

[Frobnicator (565869)]

I've never understood the 'need' people have to capitalize SQL. It's not case sensitive. If one has a decent syntax highlighting editor, then the capital's don't help at all!

It's a style thing. It's also the common style used almost everywhere.

You say it doesn't help if you have a syntax highlighting editor; you can't count on having a syntax highlighted editor all the time.

While I think there are benefits to it, many interns that I've worked with seem paralyzed if they don't have syntax highlighting. A few are paralized if they don't have auto-complete. If the code REQUIRES syntax highlighting to be understandable, clearly you need to adopt a different style.

If you don't have SQL syntax highlighting, the more complex the SQL statement is the more it benefits from the all-cap keywords. That in itself is enough to justify (for me) it's use. Since I compose my SQL statements in my C++ interface code, I don't have SQL syntax highlighting; the C++ editor highlights them all as strings. Using caps really helps readability, especially when the SQL statements are complex and require several lines to compose.

Re:Swap caps lock and control

[doom (14564)]

jesup wrote:

Ah. A vi user. If you're an Emacs user, having the capslock key mapped to control is the ONLY way to fly. As others have said, that's the One True Position for the control key.

That's the traditional position, I agree -- and I've never understood what the moron's were thinking who moved the standard control key location under the shift. But I'm an emacs user who's also using one of the kinesis contoured-model, programmable keyboards, and the Control and Alt keys are already very accessible under the thumbs (my numb-pinky-syndrome went away when I switched to the kinesis, I highly recommend them for heavy emacs abusers).

There are a few really big flaws in the kinesis layout though, one is the damn Caps Lock next to the A, the other is a tiny chicklet Escape key way up in left field. But the Kinesis layout is easy to re-program, so I tried a few different re-arrangements and evenutally settled on making the key next to A another Escape, just like mister Vim-User recommends.

Re:Well my roomate has this...

[EvanED (569694)]

Sounds dangerous... with the number of times I've hit caps by accident, I don't think I'd want to hit esc by accident...

Yes

[linuxpoweredtrekkie (659492)]

Caps Lock is EVIL!

I remapped my capslock into an extra control key months ago. I never type more than a couple of words in capitals, and can easily hold down the shift key.

Capslock is just a problem when you accidentally hit it when reading something you are keying in.

Re:Yes

[falzer (224563)]

Here's how I made capslock an extra control in Windows 2000/XP.

Go to this path in the registry editor:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Control \ Keyboard Layout

In that registry path, add a new binary value, like so:
Name: Scancode Map
Type: REG_BINARY
Data:
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
02 00 00 00 1D 00 3A 00
00 00 00 00

This required a reboot to take effect (for me, anyway).

Re:Yes

[ptbarnett (159784)]

Here's how I made capslock an extra control in Windows 2000/XP.

If you still want a caps-lock for some reason, you can swap them with this binary value:

00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
03 00 00 00 1D 00 3A 00
3A 00 1D 00 00 00 00 00

It's the first thing I do when installing Windows on new systems. If a client gives me a computer for use during a project (even a short one), I make the same change and put it back before I leave on the last day.

However, I'm considering dropping the caps-lock key altogether and making both into control keys. When I swap them, most people have a lot of trouble using my keyboard -- which is either a problem or a feature, depending on your point of view.

Re:Yes

[ejdmoo (193585)]

It's much easier to download this:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details. aspx?Fa milyID=9d467a69-57ff-4ae7-96ee-b18c4790cffd&Displa yLang=en

Then that has a nice little thingy called remap.exe. Let's you remap any key to any other. :)

Re:Yes

[JPriest (547211)]

Fixed link [microsoft.com]
Download is for "Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit"

Re:Yes

[Audity (600754)]

For those too timid to enter binary codes into the windows registry, there's a program out there called KeyTweak [charter.net] for you. Thats for win2k/xp, nearly everyone else can head here [c2.com].

Re:Yes

[DanTilkin (129681)]

I find it humorous that in showing how to not have a caps lock key, you made a post that could have used the caps lock key.

Here's the official way of remapping keys:

[Futurepower(R) (558542)]

Here's the official way of remapping keys in Windows XP and Windows 2003 Server:

1) Download the Resource Kit Tools [microsoft.com].

2) Run Remapkey.exe to Remap the Windows Keyboard Layout anyway you want.

For some very strange reason, this sometimes does not work reliably in a DOS window when using a PS/2 to USB converter for the keyboard. Since the remapping is done at a fundamental level, the failure is difficult to understand.

Not everyone is a programer

[Dark Bard (627623)]

Writers and layout people use cap lock all the time. Most will use it from time to time in standard word processing. Computers aren't just for programers. Some of us use the software they write.

Re:Not everyone is a programer

[Slayk (691976)]

Legal docs have quite a few all-caps sections, I believe.

That's about all I notice when I skim over a license agreement, anyway.

Re:Not everyone is a programer

[FrostedWheat (172733)]

The Amiga had a Help key. I believe it was where the PC's Escape key is. Or it could be on the other side not sure, been a while. The thing that always amused me was the fact that for most programs, even Workbench, the help key did nothing. Not a thing.

They might as well have renamed it the 'RTFM' key.

Computer freeze check

[TheOtherAgentM (700696)]

I use Caps Lock to check if Windows has completely frozen up. If the light on my keyboard doesn't come on, it's time to do a hard reset.

Re:Computer freeze check

[Cerv (711134)]

But Num Lock and and Scroll Lock make Caps Lock redundant if that's all you ever use it for.

Re:Computer freeze check

[Lehk228 (705449)]

no, it's a low level windows fault, when the keyboard drivers are no longer functioning it is windows which has crashed

We should keep capslock

[inode_buddha (576844)]

else it would be *very* discriminating against all those AOL'ers.

OMG!

[Ikari Gendou (93109)]

oF COURSE cAPSlOCK IS STILL USEFUL! iMAGINE ALL THE USERS OF THE WORLD NOT ABLE TO SEND LONG SHOUTING EMAILS IF cAPSlOCK WAS REMOVED! wHAT WOULD THEY DO THEN?! sTaRt UsInG aLt-ShIfT? tHE HORROR!

What a silly question

[Overly Critical Guy (663429)]

Of course caps lock is necessary. It's necessary for whenever you want to type in all-caps without holding shift the whole time. I can think of dozens of examples of this. Hell, where I work, the blank fields on our contracts must be typed in all caps. I wrote a screenplay once, and you need caps all over the place. When I'm coding, I write some macro names in all-caps.

No, the caps lock shouldn't be removed or replaced. It's handy to have a key that allows you to toggle lower to upper caps so you don't have to hold shift.

Pointless Ask Slashdot question!

Re:What a silly question

[EvanED (569694)]

"Now, I'm not saying that it's NEVER used by ANYONE, because I'm sure someone will reply and tell me that it does some obscure function in some obscure program."

Only if you consider *nix an obscure program. Scroll lock in those (at least those that I've tried it in, which means a couple different flavors of Linux and FreeBSD) stops the screen from scrolling so you can read it. FreeBSD will even let you scroll up with the arrow keys so you can see text that has scrolled off the screen. It's actually quite useful. (For instance, you're maknig something with dependencies and a message comes up that you should actually read but it starts to compile the next thing, you can still read it. Also removes a lot of the benefit of piping stuff to more or less.) I would imagine there's a way to set this up under Linux too, but I haven't yet seen a distribution that has it working out of the box and I don't know how to configure it.

Now now young man

[kunudo (773239)]

Keep it as a tribute to the coders of old. It's like having a museum in your keyboard. You can even play with the exibit.

Caps Lock? Who cares about Caps Lock?

[sycomonkey (666153)]

They still haven't even bothered to get rid of the Scroll Lock button yet... What makes you think Caps Lock is going away any time soon?

Replace it with a key labelled [help]

[mikael (484)]

I am still amazed that after 20 years of the desktop PC, we still have to press the key labelled [F1] to get any type of GUI help, rather than having a key labelled [HELP], although Microsoft did find a way of squeezing in a key with the Windows logo.

Re:Replace it with a key labelled [help]

[moosesocks (264553)]

Apple has done this already.

It's right above the delete key in place of the infrequently used insert key.

Unlike the PC makers' latest trend of adding a bajillion buttons to the keyboards that will never be used, apple added four buttons above the numlock pad in place of the "lock" lights (which in place are located directly on their respective keys). The four (incredibly useful!) buttons are:
Volume Down
Volume Up
Mute
Eject Disc (less useful than other 3, especially if you have more than one optical drive. Still, since Mac OS requires a software dismount, it's necessary.

Oh yeah... did I mention that it has a USB hub in it? Why the hell are we still shipping PCs with 12-year-old PS/2 technology?

I just miss the power button. Even so, apple's relocated it to the monitor (another thing PC makers should have done years ago), which in my mind is the 'proper' place for the system's power button.

Re:Replace it with a key labelled [help]

[runderwo (609077)]

Oh yeah... did I mention that it has a USB hub in it? Why the hell are we still shipping PCs with 12-year-old PS/2 technology?

Easy. Because USB is not a perfect replacement for PS/2 input devices.

• There is a large amount of latency on the USB bus as well as software latency incurred due to processing the USB packets. There is practically no wire latency with PS/2 and the protocol is dead simple to parse. You can create a little microcontroller project to interface almost any simple device to a PS/2 port. With USB, you need a separate ASIC to even begin to get anything done.
• USB controllers typically share interrupt levels with other PCI devices. On systems without an IO-APIC, this translates into increased software overhead on every interrupt, because the interrupt handler for every device sitting on that interrupt is invoked. Whereas with PS/2 devices, you have an IRQ reserved for the keyboard and an IRQ reserved for the mouse. Since they are edge triggered ISA interrupt lines, there is no possible way for them to be shared even if you wanted to. Therefore the correct interrupt handler (and ONLY the correct one) is invoked in response to a PS/2 event.

In short, there is no possible way on any but the fastest of current machines for a USB mouse to approximate the responsivity of a PS/2 port mouse being sampled at 200Hz (the maximum rate the port will tolerate).

USN

[mysterious_mark (577643)]

Actually, in the US Navy and other branches of the service radio messages all always in all caps. These were a pretty routine part of life on ship (for Officers / admin personnel etc) We would compose the messages on a PC w/ word processor, print hard copy, then have approved by CoC. Radio men would send them out encrpyed, hard copies were always kept for paper trail. A ship my send dozens or even hundreds of these a week, so the're quite common. There are a few who may need cap locks who aren't programmers. M

Happy Hacking

[yet another coward (510)]

Use the Happy Hacking [yahoo.com] keyboard. It has no Caps Lock. Its Control key is in the right place.

scraping the bottom of the barrel!

[bratgrrl (197603)]

This is one sad excuse of a story. Aren't there any leftover SCO blurbs to fill in?

Engineering Drawings

[pipingguy (566974)]

95.84% of all engineering drawings (for bridges, airplanes, refineries, etc.) use all caps. Even though we textually shout at the fabricators/contruction guys, every now and then someone installs a checkvalve backwards or forgets to grout some 10,000# machinery.

I figure the original forced use of caps on these drawings is (was) to force the draftsmen to raise the writing instrument for each letter, so as to avoid the sloppy penmanship that usually accompanies cursive.

I use it.

[mooredav (101800)]

In fact, I'm developing an application right now that requires Caps Lock.

Press CAPS LOCK to proceed.

Press SCROLL LOCK to cancel.

Please don't take my CAPS away from me!

The Military, for starters

[Akardam (186995)]

I'm a navy reservist, and although the Navy and the other branches of the armed forces are moving towards computerization of almost every aspect of information management, oft times you'll find that because of some arcane requirement for filling out a form or other type of data entry, you're required to use all caps. However, in many cases, the program that was written to replace forms with this requirement won't enforce the capitalization, much less actually automatically capitalize everything. You say it's dumb, I say it's dumb, and all the staff we have say it's dumb. But, in the mean time, they have to live with it, and having the caps lock key makes it all the more bearable.

Capslock is used all the time in the corp world.

[Viewsonic (584922)]

Especially in financial businesses (Banks etc) .. Printing out checks and certain forms will always be done in CAPS so as to not confuse the other parties. I find it a bit silly because one person hasn't used it, it must mean that no one else does. Sure, home users might not find much use out of it, but in the business world it is used everyday. And the business world makes up the majority of PC sales in the world.

Dear Slashdot

[Pan T. Hose (707794)]

Dear Slashdot,

Very recently, to my unimaginable surprise, I have noticed that I haven't used the tilde key for any purpose other than hitting it by accident. I know that once upon a time people were using the tilde key. They were using it like there was no tomorrow. I don't use it now, though, which makes me very sad. Does the tilde key serve any purpose any more? Does it still serve any purpose whatsoever? If not, will it ever serve a purpose? Will it ever make any sense? If not, should it be removed, moved, or replaced? If so, will we be able to see it in museum? What if later I find some use for this key, but it will have been gone long ago? What then? What will be the future of this little key? What, I ask?

Thank you very much, Slashdot, for your answer!

Sincerely,
Concerned reader.

P.S. I love reading Slashdot and especially the Ask Slashdot section, when people always ask so interesting questions! THANK YOU VERY MUCH! (Oh, God damn it! I used caps lock!)

How to defeat 13-year-old AOLers

[Schattenfreude (761743)]

My little brother used to sneak on my computer all the time before he got a decent laptop, and I'd always be annoyed to find the caps lock key on from whatever flaming/shouting/n00bing he was doing there. So one day I remapped caps lock to switch to a Cyrillic keyboard--it helps a lot with my Russian homework, and I never did find it enabled again after my brother had been using my computer.

No, but Reagan is.

[Sean Clifford (322444)]

No, but Reagan is.

I use the hell out of caps lock; it's my "prone" key in FPS shooters. Others use it for radio, etc. Aside from games though, I don't use it overmuch.

Re:EASY IQ DETECTION

[Anonymous Coward]

If caps lock were gone, how would morons get their misdirected points across?

IT'S SPELLED MORANS, YOU DUMMY.

Re:Yes.

[geoffspear (692508)]

And do you give your constants names so long that you really need to use your caps lock key instead of just using shift?

Re:Yes.

[Pooua (265915)]

Some people actually know how to type, which means they use all the fingers on both hands to reach the necessary keys. More to the point, it means that holding down the shift key with one finger while trying to touch-type puts an odd strain on the hand and is poor typing posture. The shift key should only be used for at most 3 letters in sequence, and probably should be avoided for more than a single capital letter in a word.

Re:OF COURSE IT SERVES A PURPOSE

[abhisarda (638576)]

yeah, how else will those nigerian spammers get their message across that they have FORTY MILLION DOLLARS(40,000,000 $) AND ARE WILLING TO GIVE YOU A SHARE OF IT IF YOU ARE A NOOB.

Re:OF COURSE IT SERVES A PURPOSE

[isthisthingon (785412)]

Kidding (somewhat) aside, if you've ever read anthing in legalese there is ALWAYS at least one obligatory section that warrants being written in all caps.

I call this the:

"If you don't read anything else in this contract read this one,

or our hungry attack lawyers will eat you and your young
for lunch."

clause.

Re:for actually using a computer (writing document

[Ieshan (409693)]

Are you trying to say that you hit the caps key twice for every capital letter you need to type that's not in a big row of them? You really hit the caps key at the start of every sentence?

Yeesh, mate. Shift. SHIFT.

Re:for actually using a computer (writing document

[atarione (601740)]

MY BAD, I ADMIT I WAS OUT FOR A BIT LAST NIGHT, and I'm not in top form i indeed got mixed up with the SHIFT KEY.

I appologize to Slashdot and to the "Shift Key" for any Confusion on my part.... again my bad.

in a pinch caps lock might work as a "ANY" key???

Re:for actually using a computer (writing document

[tftp (111690)]

What if he types with only one finger?

Re:It should be replaced...

[whiteranger99x (235024)]

All I know is that everytime I play Diablo 2 or another game, the Windows Key become the absolute BANE OF MY EXISTENCE! X(