Caps Lock. Whatsit for?

[Medessec]

I've developed a bit of a sensation that Caps Lock, at least to me for my uses, is one of the most useless keys on the keyboard. I guarantee you, I use every other key, including Prt Sc, Pause/Break, and Scroll Lock.

In fact, 99% of the time, Caps Lock really does just set out to annoy me, as I do a regular spot of gaming and use the WASD keys, Caps Lock often gets accidentally triggered usually resulting in undesired effects. As a result I've completely removed the Caps Lock on my Clevo D900F and X60 Tablet, and I occasionally remove it from my W700ds. It's a nice resting point for my left ring finger now, and I can still trigger it(by pressing the small rubber nub) in the very rare occasion that I do need it.

I just wanted to ask- am I alone here?(I probably am.) Do you use Caps Lock often? If so, how often? Like, "integral to your productivity" often?

[Qing Dao]

I'm not constantly hitting caps lock, but I use it a lot more than many of the other keys on the keyboard.

[ilakast]

I have mapped caps lock on my X41T as a windows key on Crunchbang (Win+E brings up a text editor, Win+T the terminal, you get the drift).

[pianowizard]

People use it when they need to type a bunch of capital letters in a row. Of course one could do that by holding the shift key, but for touch typists, that usually slows down the typing quite a bit.

[Medessec]

People use it when they need to type a bunch of capital letters in a row.

That's what I figured-but you'd have to be pretty adaptive to do it, and be pretty quick about it. It'd have to be integrated into your method of touch-typing... and regardless of the task(programming, data recording) it's quite rare to come across a moment where you have to type a lot of capital letters consecutively, at least from my experience(some of you on here admittedly, I can't speak for), so I just don't see how it's that worthwhile to really use it compared to just using Shift. I suppose if you think about it, Caps Lock is a Shift in toggle mode, but dedicating a whole key to it...

[rumbero]

Being mostly a Unix/Linux user since long before Win95 existed, i usually have the Caps Lock key remapped as a so called Compose key. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key for details and further links.

In fact, even for Windows there is a nice utility called AllChars which enables that wonderful function: sourceforge.net/projects/allchars. It is one of those great utilities which make using Windows much more bearable for me.

Thanks to the Compose key functionality i can type the weirdest characters even on my favorite limited US keyboard layout. Therefore I would be very unhappy if the Caps Lock key wouldn't be there anymore, as this would essentially remove the standard Compose key location.

[rkawakami]

If you spend some time reading the comments that people post after most online news articles (Yahoo, HuffPost, etc.), it's the most favorite key of wingnuts, conspiracy theorists, extreme left, extreme right and trollers .

[ajkula66]

it's the most favorite key of wingnuts, conspiracy theorists, extreme left, extreme right and trollers .

Indeed...with that said, there are judicial districts where typing large (as in several paragraphs) parts of official documents in caps is still a requirement...take Caps Lock away from these clerks and Boston Tea Party will look like a Minor League game...

[jdk]

Official government correspondence is traditionally in ALLCAPS. This is from the old VHF/UHF transmission days when you only had 2^5 possible characters, and predates IP communication/e-mail/twitter or whatever is out there now. Modern systems are designed to interface with the legacy systems that may still be out there. Thus, CAPSLOCK is a requirement (although I have seen some situations where the text field automatically converted .toUpper()).

For an example, check out this message, just signed today:
http://www.marines.mil/News/Messages/Me ... ibbon.aspx

[RealBlackStuff]

I have been IBM-Mainframe-programming for many years, even while only using two fingers...
There were many times when I HAD to use the Caps Lock, wouldn't want a keyboard without it!
Even after I moved into upper management, I still used Caps Locks when I had to bypass my secretary!

[Qing Dao]

Being mostly a Unix/Linux user since long before Win95 existed, i usually have the Caps Lock key remapped as a so called Compose key. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key for details and further links.

In fact, even for Windows there is a nice utility called AllChars which enables that wonderful function: sourceforge.net/projects/allchars. It is one of those great utilities which make using Windows much more bearable for me.

Thanks to the Compose key functionality i can type the weirdest characters even on my favorite limited US keyboard layout. Therefore I would be very unhappy if the Caps Lock key wouldn't be there anymore, as this would essentially remove the standard Compose key location.

That's perfect for me, thanks! I've always had trouble or simply ignored accents and other things when typing in Spanish or Italian.

[pianowizard]

That's what I figured-but you'd have to be pretty adaptive to do it, and be pretty quick about it. It'd have to be integrated into your method of touch-typing...

Well, that's exactly what the best touch typists do: hitting most keys on a keyboard quickly, without looking.

Every day I switch among many keyboards with slightly different peripheral keys (e.g. DEL, INSERT, HOME, etc.) and so I don't bother to memorize the positions of these keys. But for the keys that are the same on all keyboards, including the CAPS LOCK, I can hit them just as fast as I can hit the SHIFT key for example. I am not bragging at all. I'm just pointing out an ability that virtually all touch typists have, and as we discussed before, these days most young adults and college students can touch type. It would be silly to brag about an ability shared by 90% of one's peers.

regardless of the task(programming, data recording) it's quite rare to come across a moment where you have to type a lot of capital letters consecutively, at least from my experience(some of you on here admittedly, I can't speak for)

Not just "some" but thousands of people, on this forum alone. Using myself as an example (I'm a scientist), when I type up a manuscript for submission to a journal, the paper is divided into many sections. The heading for each section is in all caps. Even if a heading has only one word (e.g. "ABSTRACT"), it's often faster to use the CAPS LOCK than to hold the SHIFT key, because the latter sacrifices a pinky and shifts the entire hand sideways so that the hand is no longer in the optimal position. When hand position isn't optimal, typing is slowed, and repetitive strain injury also becomes more likely.

[Cigarguy]

I'm not constantly hitting caps lock, but I use it a lot more than many of the other keys on the keyboard.

^^^What he said. I've had some business forums where the caps key came in real handy. For gaming I can see where this is useless. Having said that, Thinkpads were never targeted to gamers.

[Medessec]

Yeah... I understand Thinkpads were made to serve those who might find Caps Lock useful, the idea I had with this topic was to see if anyone still did find it useful, and it seems a lot of you do. A couple of you in its original function, but mostly as a macro key remapped to serve another far more useful function. My Clevo D900F has a "G1" and "G2" macro button as seen here, and I have those set up(one opens my Games folder and Steam, and the other is pretty much "Alt Gr" since it's lower down.) But I figure that's a pretty clever idea... I often use Caps Lock as PTT(Push-To-Talk) in chat clients and video games, because nothing else uses it.

When hand position isn't optimal, typing is slowed, and repetitive strain injury also becomes more likely.

One interesting thing I've found in playing games with other people is how they move their hands when they game- some games have function keys far away from the usual WASD and arrow keys, such as J, Y, U, or even M and L. If you're the sort of typer that has to track their fingers (can't type while not looking at the keyboard) then it can be easy to stretch your fingers and eventually get strained and achey after long periods of gaming, particularly strategy games. I took piano lessons, so I never really curl my fingers, and I don't really need to track my fingers very much(especially if I'm familiar with the keyboard) so my fingers don't get strained even after long gaming sessions with the craziest keyboard setups. But people who curl their fingers a lot, like using your pinky to hold shift with your left hand on WASD... ouch.

If you spend some time reading the comments that people post after most online news articles (Yahoo, HuffPost, etc.), it's the most favorite key of wingnuts, conspiracy theorists, extreme left, extreme right and trollers .

Now THIS, I'm sure is the current pre-dominant use of Caps Lock in today's time.

[pianowizard]

If you're the sort of typer that has to track their fingers (can't type while not looking at the keyboard) then it can be easy to stretch your fingers and eventually get strained and achey after long periods of gaming, particularly strategy games. I took piano lessons, so I never really curl my fingers, and I don't really need to track my fingers very much(especially if I'm familiar with the keyboard) so my fingers don't get strained even after long gaming sessions with the craziest keyboard setups. But people who curl their fingers a lot, like using your pinky to hold shift with your left hand on WASD... ouch.

First of all, pianists are supposed to curl their fingers. I know because...well, just look at my username. A few legendary pianists did play with flat fingers, the best example being Vladimir Horowitz, but regular pianists curl their fingers. Perhaps you meant some other kind of curling?

The rest of your analysis didn't make much sense either. I would say that holding the SHIFT key or the CTRL key (e.g. when copying through CTRL C) is a bigger problem for us touch typists. Let me use the left hand as an example. You see, even when we are sticking out the left pinky to hold the SHIFT or CTRL key, we insist on keeping the other four fingers close to the home position, with the index finger on the F key. Thus, the pinky is stretched and strained. Prior to learning touch typing, I probably used the left pinky to hold the SHIFT key, and my right hand to type the letter key even if it was on the left side of the keyboard. So, strain problem avoided.

[rkawakami]

I never use the CAPS LOCK (<-- even when typing that) key. Instead, the left pinky holds the left SHIFT key down and the other seven fingers find what I need (thumbs are only for space bar). I also never use the right pinky on the right SHIFT key. Capital letters that fall under the left hand are usually generated with the left hand while keeping the left SHIFT key down. Sometimes I'll use the right index finger to type capital letters on the left side of the keyboard (i.e, "hunt and peck") or if I need one of the special characters like "bang", "at" or "hash". Yes, this is a non-standard way of typing but after moving from manual typewriters to electric typewriters and then to electronic keyboards, this is the style that I adopted. I'm sure my high school typing teacher would thoroughly disapprove.

This makes for some interesting finger manipulations when writing my C programs. Most of the time I use what's called "Camel Case" when naming my local variables. An example would be: EvenRowXVariable (caps typed with left middle [E], left index [R], left ring [X] and left index [V]). For global variables I generally use all upper case.

For pure typing (i.e., non-programming) on manual typewriters in high school (we're talking 40 years ago), I believe that I was rated around 35WPM. I just took an online test and hit 61WPM with all 8 errors corrected and 69WPM, fixing 6 mistakes.

The other normal use of the CAPS LOCK key for most people is to screw up their password entry .

ref: http://www.speedtypingonline.com/typing-test

edit: And no, I don't suffer from carpal tunnel after all these years.

[Medessec]

Perhaps you meant some other kind of curling?

Ergh... I'll just have to get pictures or video or something to demonstrate what I've seen. I suppose it's also dependent on the size of the keyboard too- as smaller keyboards people tend to angle their hands in, leaving their fingers susceptible to awkward curling, rather than putting their hands straight in like you should with home-row touch-typing. The situation I meant with depressing Shift awkwardly, I simply press it down with the tip of my pinky... whereas some of my friends lean their hands to the left while hovering over WASD, meaning their pinky hovers over Shift completely sideways and completely curled in, and when you press Shift like that for long periods of time over and over(for ex., sprinting in FPS games) it makes your pinky achey and nastily pained from the awkwardness and sideways pressure.

Prior to learning touch typing, I probably used the left pinky to hold the SHIFT key, and my right hand to type the letter key even if it was on the left side of the keyboard. So, strain problem avoided.

That's pretty much what I do... the only moments when I feel like I'm really straining my hand is when I do some two or three key combinations, or Fn+F3 or similar combinations with one hand.

Yes, this is a non-standard way of typing but after moving from manual typewriters to electric typewriters and then to electronic keyboards, this is the style that I adopted.

This is almost EXACTLY what I do.

I'm sure my high school typing teacher would thoroughly disapprove.

Mine just had no idea what to think. I passed all the requirements for the tests, which was 20WPM by Thanksgiving, and 35WPM by the end of the class. I typed noticeably more noisy than everyone else, and he watched me type for a bit... and he was a little bit flabbergasted. But he let it go, because I was adamant about not learning touch-typing, if I didn't desperately need it.

For pure typing (i.e., non-programming) on manual typewriters in high school (we're talking 40 years ago), I believe that I was rated around 35WPM. I just took an online test and hit 61WPM with all 8 errors corrected and 69WPM, fixing 6 mistakes.

That's around what I get. I believe 40-42WPM was my all around average, where 67 was my peak with a repeated phrase that the software used.

And no, I don't suffer from carpal tunnel after all these years.

This is good to hear...!

[Theokretes]

People use it when they need to type a bunch of capital letters in a row.

That's what I figured-but you'd have to be pretty adaptive to do it, and be pretty quick about it. It'd have to be integrated into your method of touch-typing... and regardless of the task(programming, data recording) it's quite rare to come across a moment where you have to type a lot of capital letters consecutively, at least from my experience(some of you on here admittedly, I can't speak for), so I just don't see how it's that worthwhile to really use it compared to just using Shift. I suppose if you think about it, Caps Lock is a Shift in toggle mode, but dedicating a whole key to it...

So I'm actually a... capslock typist? Every single capital letter I type in any given sentence; I quickly 'toggle' the caps lock with my pinkie at rapid speeds.
And you're correct, it's extremely engraved in my typing-- which is why it would screw me up completely if it wasn't there.

(The only time I use shift is in special circumstances when I'm not in 'regular typing' mode-- such as having to use shift for special characters in passwords).

Despite my odd use of toggling capslock, I can hit 140 WPM (or 150 WPM on my old IBM 1984 AS/400 keyboard that I modded with USB which uses capacitive spring switches; the switches are so light that movement is practically unrestricted, and the fact that the keys are 'full height' makes it very easy to hit).

[pianowizard]

edit: And no, I don't suffer from carpal tunnel after all these years.

Normally I don't get carpal tunnel. But a couple times a year, I need to do a certain type of laborious data analysis (again, I am a scientist) that requires tons of copy-and-pasting, I do get carpal tunnel which requires up to a week for full recovery. It's a mild case of carpal tunnel, so it's not like I am totally incapacitated, but I do purposely type slower and more gently to facilitate the healing.

Despite my odd use of toggling capslock, I can hit 140 WPM (or 150 WPM on my old IBM 1984 AS/400 keyboard

That's impressive, especially considering your CAPS LOCK habit. My highest speed that I know of is 139 WPM, when I tried a typing contest on typeracer.com. But the highest speed that I can sustain for many minutes is probably only around 100 WPM. When I type casually, meaning when I don't make an effort to be fast, I am down to 80 WPM, though I can easily maintain that forever.

[Medessec]

That's impressive, especially considering your CAPS LOCK habit. My highest speed that I know of is 139 WPM

Yeah-it seems to me that's going to the ultimate extreme in comparison to what the rest of us are talking about with using Caps Lock... most of those I'm hearing that like to use it seem to use it in a way I'd expect: they use it when they need to type a large amount of capital characters out. But using it to type every single capital character- in complete replacement of Shift...! That's pretty insane. I'm not calling you insane or knocking your typing method, if it works for you, ESPECIALLY if you get 100+ WPM on a good day, I won't sit here and flame with you that what you're doing is silly.

It's a mild case of carpal tunnel, so it's not like I am totally incapacitated, but I do purposely type slower and more gently to facilitate the healing.

Oi. Hope it isn't that bad for you. 80 WPM typing casually is pretty substantial... many of my touch-typing friends barely peak that when they try. There's a couple who can type nearly as good as you guys who can type this fast, but I guess it comes from a career of typing.

[pianowizard]

There's a couple who can type nearly as good as you guys who can type this fast, but I guess it comes from a career of typing.

Thanks but I bet the professional typists that you know slow down on purpose because they need to avoid injuries. If I had to type from 8 AM to 5 PM five days a week, I would certainly slow down to 60 or even 50 WPM to make sure I have zero chance of damaging the tools I rely on, i.e. my hands. When I said I could stay at 80 WPM "forever", I was thinking of maintaining it all day, not five days a week, 52 weeks a year!

[Saucey]

If you spend some time reading the comments that people post after most online news articles (Yahoo, HuffPost, etc.), it's the most favorite key of wingnuts, conspiracy theorists, extreme left, extreme right and trollers .

I was going to write a response in all caps, "DON'T TAKE AWAY MY CAPS LOCK BUTTON."

All in all, I do use it for like say title font for some word or photoshop projects.
Caps Lock is essential for abbreviations, which is needed in the few spreadsheets I do for my uncle's football game bets.
Maybe I shouldn't said that last part.

It sucks holding shift and typing, I am a touch typist, with the exception of the number keys on the top row, so it's hard for me.

[Medessec]

Thanks but I bet the professional typists that you know slow down on purpose because they need to avoid injuries.

Heh... no kidding. I completely understand. I guess it's like anything else, something can be put in sprint mode, but it doesn't last very long like that. 60-70 WPM for a whole day of typing is still pretty incredible, the way I type, I'd get pretty worn out and want to stop. Not that I strain or break my hands, I just move my hands a lot when I type... so it'd be very wrist and muscle tiring.

Typing fast is a needed skill in today's world in my opinion... with schools pretty much integrating all their stuff online(last year's Journalism class didn't have a single paper turn-in, it was all just "upload your .docx to Blackboard Learn) and documents and data all now being done digitally.

I was going to write a response in all caps, "DON'T TAKE AWAY MY CAPS LOCK BUTTON."

It sucks holding shift and typing, I am a touch typist, with the exception of the number keys on the top row, so it's hard for me.

I think I can see how some of you guys don't appreciate holding a key down while the rest of your fingers are whizzing between the rest of the keys... It seems with people like me and rkawakami, it makes total sense because we have an "adapted" method of touch-typing, where we can still tap away with our other hand while Shift is being held. But with the traditional method where you hold to home row... it makes a bit of sense even though it seems kinda silly to strike Caps Lock, strike the letter, then strike Caps Lock again instead of reserving two fingers, one to hold Shift while you tackle the key.

[Saucey]

I had an Northgate OmniKey Ultra keyboard, it was funky for me, as it had shift and caps lock switched.
Some of those keyboards had interesting layouts.

Its hard for my brain to hold shift with the pinkie and switch to the next hand to hold shift with certain abbreviations.
I gotta get better at being ambidextrous, as I seem to hold shift with my left hand yet still strike the capitalized key with the left one also.