War Declared on Caps Lock Key

pieterh writes "I've launched a campaign to rid the world of the caps lock key. Sure, there are more serious problems to solve but please, think of the children! How am I going to explain to my kids why some of the most valuable keyboard real estate is squatted by a large, useless key that above all you must not press! Our campaign mission is simple: to send a message to the computer industry to force it (by any means necessary) to retire the CAPS key. It's going to be a hard, long, and possibly very embarassing war on uppercase, but some things just need to be done. "

gOOD lUCK

bEST oF lUCK wITH yOUR fIGHT

Re:gOOD lUCK

LOL, while it is annoying when people type in all caps and things like that, I use the caps lock key for legitimate reasons all the time. I'm in a data-mining job working on a UniData database and all UniQuery must be written in all caps. This would be a supreme pain to do sans a Caps-Lock key. This is just one of MANY things that falls under that umbrella. I also use the caps lock key as my "walk" key while playing CS. :-D

Frankly...I find the idea of getting rid of the caps lock key...slightly appalling. :)

Next on Slashdot

Must be a slow news day, again!
Stories to be seen soon on Slashdot:
"Jihad declared on SysRq key" and "Crusade declared on 'Scroll Lock' Key"

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

Hopefully, with only one button left. It should be big and blue and convey a sense of well being and security, and provide the user with a sense of accomplisment and success when pushed.

Re:Yes, read my CAPSoff blog entry

W shld gt rd f thm psky vwls fr strtrs!

What About INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY?

IN HONOR OF THE SUBJECT MATERIAL, I HAVE CHOSEN TO USE THE CAPS LOCK FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE FOR THIS POST.

On second thought, that's far too annoying.

If the proposed abolishment of caps lock keys is successful, I grow concerned about what myself and my predecessors will celebrate on INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY [derekarnold.net] which happens to be October 22. And don't tell me it's not a real holiday because that is one convincing website. It has a news flash with a picture of a potato, uses the word "bitches" and has a countdown for the days remaining to INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY. And look at this other reputable site, Out House Rag [typepad.com] that also backs INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY. That's more than Adults Day in Japan [wikipedia.org] has to say! Please, if I have to put up with one more Nevada Day [wikipedia.org] (October 31) the least you can do is let me have my INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY. Please don't remove your caps lock key [goodexperience.com] because they're not evil [photobucket.com]!

You know, there's this horrible site [c2.com] that actually encourages you to remap your caps lock to a more suitable function ... but of course that would just be sacrilegious [wap.org] and a very dangerous process [wap.org] (don't try it at home!).

Couldn't agree more!

What a toally useless key to have in such a prominent keying position. The old school 'boards had it right: big-ass Control key next to the A, tiny Caps Lock in the bottom left corner. It made even more sense when Windows starting adopting the Mac's Command-letter keyboard shortcut as Control-letter, like Cut/Copy/Paste.

DOWN WITH CAPS LOCK!

Slashdot and CapsLock

Slashdot seems to have a solution. Tried to post a funny message in all Caps and Slashdot responded:
Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

Data entry issues

What about the Data entry people that have to type things in all caps? Holding down the shift button to type in a whole line will be more of a pain then someone learning how to turn their caps lock off.....

THINK OF THE DATA ENTRY PEOPLE!!!

WHAT ABOUT THOSE OF US THAT HAVE TO USE CAPSLOCK TO ENTER DATA INTO A BUSINESS SYSTEM? WHERE WILL YOU LEAVE US???????

Ooops. Sorry, caps. :-P

Seriously though, I know lots of people who's business requires them to enter data into their company's systems using caps. I don't know about you, but my little pinky would get extremely disfigured having to swap to and hold the shift button all the time. You'd slow typists down immeasurably.

And Num-Lock too!

While we're at it, can we get rid of NUM LOCK too? At least on normal 100+ key keyboards.

It should be on, not only by default, but all the time. We have arrow keys, Page up and down, Home and End, Insert and Delete between the letters and the right-side number pad. There's no need to duplicate those keys just beside it.

Only negative point: it was up to now a cool hack to make flash the LEDs indicating CAPS and NUM LOCK, like the Knight Rider car, or make it send messages in Morse.

maybe just a new placement?

i propose that keyboards should place caps lock up in no-man's land with Print Screen, Scroll Lock, and Pause/Break, rather than doing away with it completely. For the few times you actually would WANT to activate caps lock, it shouldn't be a problem for people to reach up there. And those who need caps lock a lot for their old programming language or somthing can use a legacy keyboard.

I need it

What? Get rid of it? How will I make posts on EBay and Craigslist? ;-)

put control there instead

The old-timers in the crowd probably already know about this one:

Replacing CapsLock with Left-Control on X
Create the file ~/.Xmodmap with these contents:

            remove mod4 = Meta_L
            remove mod1 = Alt_L
            remove lock = Caps_Lock
            keysym Meta_L = Alt_L
            keysym Alt_L = Meta_L
            add mod4 = Meta_L
            add mod1 = Alt_L
            add control = Caps_Lock

If you are running something like XFree86, add

            xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap

to your ~/.xinitrc file or ~/.xsession file. If neither of those exist, you can always do it from the command line.

text stolen from http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/people/chaffee/swapx.html [berkeley.edu]

Re:put control there instead

And remember, whatever you do, do not use what you have just learned here to remap your collegue's keyboard when goes out for lunch. It would cause him a certain amount of consternation, especially if he isn't the sort that would know about these things.

Maximum effect is actually obtained by only changing a few keys, not just messing everything up.

But remember, if anyone should ask where you got the idea, I specifically said "do not."

KFG

Is this a fucking joke?

I mean, seriously, I know some people really hate the caps lock key (despite its usefulness to other people), but this is one guy who started a group on Google and acts like it's some massive grassroots campaign. I think Slashdot got punk'd on this one.

And really, if you don't like a key, remap it or remove it. I myself have removed the "Windows" key (it always interfered with my Doom playing) and the letter Q (because who the hell needs to use that one?).

Discriminatory

If we get rid of the Caps Lock key, how will the Hard-Of-Hearing be able to read messages?

CapsUnlock

Download and install CapsUnlock [brainsystems.com]. Problem solved. And you can still use it if you really want.

Get rid of Shift Instead?

I knew a guy once who for a period of many months did not realize that the shift key in conjunction with alphabetic key on the keyboard made capital letters. He knew how to use the shift key - but he only used it for symbols and the like when a key was labelled for it. To type capital letters, he pressed CapsLock, typed the letter, then pressed CapsLock again. He never complained, and he had become very proficient with the technique by the time I showed him the alternative. I'm not sure I ever looked to see if he had changed his ways.

The Solution

1. Remove Caps key.
2. Add drop of super glue.
3. QUICKLY REPLACE KEY.
4. OH CRAP!

Useful for Vi users

Put this in your .Xmodmap

remove Lock = Caps_Lock
keycode 66 = Escape

I find that the Capslock key makes a nice Escape key so I don't have to reach up high for it.

Re:Helpful image to pass along

bUT hOW wILL pEOPLE KNOW wHEN I aM BEING sUPER CEREAL? cEREALOUSLY! (fucking lameness filter)

Re:Helpful image to pass along

in my job the poeple doing medical billing use software that requires all letter keypresses must be in caps also. perhaps the person starting this crap knows nothing of these worlds and is only concerned about all the all-caps emails and IMs and forum posts he sees.

Re:Helpful image to pass along

Same here, I work for a very large aerospace manufacturer and all the notes on the engineering documents are required to be in all caps.

Aparently the "War on Caps Lock" is spearheaded by someones who's entire computer world revolves around chatting with immature pre-teens online.

Re:Helpful image to pass along

Okay... If the task requires a field to be in all caps why didn't the programmer just convert what every was entered in that field in all caps???
It isn't that hard to convert a string in to all up case. In most programing languages it is a built in function.
I would say who ever wrote your billing software needs to be replaced.
BTW why would you want to enter data in all caps anyway? It is harder to read than even all lower case and any good software would convert index strings into all one case so it isn't a problem with searching. If it is just because that is the way it has always been done I can understand. But then the software should deal setting the case and not the users hitting the caps lock key.
Sounds like bad software and or practices to me.