Some of you who are regular readers (an odd term, since I tend to consider anyone who reads this blog with any kind of consistency to actually be somewhat irregular!) may recall how I have talked about the latent hatred that some people have in relation to the CAPS LOCK key in the following posts:

Well, as you can imagine, the tempers of folks who can actually express strong emotions like hatred for a key on the keyboard are such that they will keep find ways to pop up, as Björn and ReallyEvilCanine did in the comment thread of the unrelated post Why Michael's cool keyboard doesn't work.

I figured should clarify things a bit. I will stick to the facts, and try to state them in a way that even the most diehard CAPS LOCK key hater can probably agree with:

  • The CAPS LOCK key exists on almost every regular keyboard and typewriter, and has done so for at least the last 50 years;
  • In most scripts/languages that have uppercase and lowercase distinctions, keyboard layouts tend to use the CAPS LOCK key as a way to shift between the two states that last longer than the SHIFT key does;
  • In some keyboard layouts, the CAPSLOCK key has slightly different functionality that is supported by MSKLC, such as SHIFT LOCK support and SGCAPS support;
  • MSKLC has complete and overridable support on a per-key, per-shift state basis to decide whether the CAPS LOCK is equivalent to the SHIFT key being pressed, and therefore can actually be used to render the CAPS LOCK key harmless on all keys;
  • MSKLC automatically adds the attribute that causes the CAPS LOCK to be equivalent to the SHIFT key being pressed any time the shifted and unshifted keys are in fact case pairs;
  • MSKLC has complete support on a per-key basis to allow definition of SGCAPS functionality;
  • MSKLC has complete support on a per keyboard layout basis as to whether the ShiftLock feature will be enabled;
  • Some people hate the CAPS LOCK key, so much that they might say things like "I just rip the damned thing off every keyboard I own" and more to the point, some of them mean it;
  • MSKLC does not support any cross-layout equivalent to this functionality of disabling the CAPS LOCK key always, nor would it really be within its mandate since
    1. It is really not an internationalization feature, an MSKLC was developed by a team focused on internationalization;
    2. Such a feature would negatively impact a few of the existing and some of the user-defined keyboard layouts in an irrevocable way and as such it would be inappropriate for MSKLC to do perform a global step on any machine, or to provide an install that would do so.
  • How to add such a functionality has been brought up by people who read this blog several times in the past. :-)

Hopefully this post will serve as something definitive enough that everyone (including those who think of this key as the CRAPS LOCK or CRAP LOCK key) will understand what MSKLC can and cannot do.

And also what they can and cannot do.... :-)

 

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