It would seem that I touched a nerve when I talked about various MSKLC Suggestions that had been forwarded to me. Something about the caps lock key, which apparently some people hate like poison, at least since 1989:

I don't know why it hasn't made it to alt.peeves yet, but one of my most cherished and encouraged pet-peeves is the existence of such a useless, stupid, nasty, treacherous and evil menace to the progress of humankind is the CAPS LOCK KEY.

Anyone who has used vi will know that there is no easier way to fuck up a document than to JJJJJ when you meant to jjjjj. And then there's those times whEN YOU ACCIDENTALLY HIT THE SONOFABITCH IN THE MIDDLE OF A SENTENCE. Or if you program in a language other than FORTRAN. Or if you want to type command names in UNIX. Or.....

In my estimation, the only sensible place for a Caps Lock key would be in a fairly deeply recessed hole in the back of the monitor, or, preferably, in another room altogether.

I mean, what the hell is the point of equipping every goddamn keyboard on the planet with a key that is only used deliberately about 1% of the times it gets hit? Why not just a "Fuck Things Up Randomly" key? What kind of stupid moron jackass would sell a piece of equipment with anything so
thoroughly evil right there on the important part? And while I'm in a mood to name names, I think Sun should be shot for not only having this abomination in the sight of the Lord on every keyboard, but it doesn't have tactile-feedback (i.e. click-down/click-up like sensible keyboards), has
no LED to notify the unsuspecting typist of the shit s/he's just gotten him/herself into. Just because they have nice workstations, people are willing to put up with this nonsense. Christ! What the hell kind of twisted mind would perpetrate a crime of such immense proportions on an unsuspecting
public? I suspect Foul Play, and corruption and treachery at very high levels.

Then again, I just tell my Xdesktop to change the keyboard-mapping to return to God's cherished mode in which hitting that stupid little fucker DOES NOTHING AT ALL. SEE HOW NICE IT IS?

-Johnny When-I-want-caps-I'll-hit-the-fucking-Shift-key

Well, I won't say much about Johnny Zweig's rant above (or the subsequent responses) other than to point out that I am very glad to be in here while all of these other people are out there. :-)

But I will say a few things about the CAPS LOCK key:

1) Every typewriter I have ever seen from manual Olympia to most modern has had one. It is great that some people want to ignore history, intuitive usage, backcompat expectations, and reality. But they should likely get over themselves and just disable their own somehow. The rest of us don't need to be deprived....

2) Some languages use the SGCAPS functionality that puts a whole new pair of shift states that one may want to use, presumbly in sequences where having to hold down multiple shift keys would be difficult. This may not be your language; if so, consider yourself lucky and stop trying to deprive others of features that are useful to them. If you look (for example) at the Hebrew keyboard, the SGCAPS feasture allows two things -- (a) the bility to put either punctuation or numbers over the English text, depending on which makes it easiest to type what you want to type, an (b) the points that are sometimes but not often added to Hebrew text. So, can you rech all of those keys without SGCAPS? No. But evn the ones you can reach have better/easier ways to be reached depending on what you are trying to do....

3) Suggesting that a tool like MSKLC lead the irrational charge to get rid of the CAPS LOCK is like asking two ants to start pushing the earth off its axis so it will roll into the sun. Even if I were insane enough to think this was a good idea and the people who I report to were crazy enough to agree, it would have as much actual impact on the CAPS LOCK key as that pair of ants did. The CAPS LOCK key's presence in the world is significantly more tangible than a rubber tree plant....

4) Put another way, have you ever heard of the tail wagging the dog as an expression of trying to get the thing that is acted upon to do the acting? Well, MSKLC controlling the way keyboards work on the platform is like the tail wagging the whole dog kennel! :-)

Anyway, hopefully we can get back to productive now. Anyone who wants to go and use MSKLC to create a keyboard where the CAPS LOCK has no effect is welcome to do so; it is a per-key setting that only influences the keys you want it to. And anyone who wants to convince the myriad of governments and OEMs and hasrdware producers and users who have had a CAPS LOCK where it is also welcome to do that. MSKLC will follow whatever the bulk of the user base is doing, so if you convince everyone, MSKLC will eventually follow. :-)

 

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