Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/09/23/an-argument-for-getting-rid-of.html
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3 Likes
Replace it with an emoji key? Really? Why don’t they focus on making the tab key work, I ordered that drink a while ago.
33 Likes
Why not have CAPS LOCK engaged the way it is on smartphone keyboards – i.e. with a double-tap on the SHIFT key – and free up the CAPS LOCK key to toggle on something more useful, like emoji?
Emoji? More useful? WTF? No. JUST NO! Emoji have no use at all as far as I am concerned.
(Except for the ones that are easily made using standard keys, obviously 
and even then I mostly dislike the way the keystrokes get turned into symbols here ; - ) )
22 Likes
I am confused…is there some keyboard real estate struggle happening that I don’t know about?
Edit: Emojis?!?!
33 Likes
So you’re talking about making non-Twitter things more like Twitter? Thank you, no.
12 Likes
It exists because people use it. The answer is no.
29 Likes
THESE PEOPLE HAVE OBVIOUSLY NEVER RECEIVED AN EMAIL FROM MY COWORKERS.
I get at least one email a day formatted like this.
17 Likes
Just rename it “OMG LOCK”.
Or, alternatively, “BOOMERS”.
15 Likes
CAPS lock is still useful for data entry. I think I still want to have addresses come out as 1234 and not !@#$
12 Likes
Since I usually hit CAPS LOCK by mistake when tabbing I just reprogram the key to Tab.
7 Likes
I’ve swapped ESC↔Shift lock on my keyboard. And for programmer Dvorak it works more like a shift lock than a caps lock, shifts in the numbers on the top row instead of the different parentheses.
eta: Useful in Emacs and the shell.
2 Likes
I remap Caps Lock to F13 and use it for other stuff.
4 Likes
I do like those. But when I type them they still get emojified, except for <3
Not a clue what the link was for, sorry.
1 Like
Bad typists, such as myself, routinely hit Caps Lock when trying for the A. I welcome this change, although I don’t agree emojis are the most useful addition. Maybe just leave that area blank.
5 Likes
MacOS lets you remap the Caps lock to other keys. I switched mine to control. Tried switching it to escape after the Touch Bar came out, but it didn’t take for me.
5 Likes
Edge case here. Engineering drawings only use caps (ANSI standard). When I’m working on them, I have been known to leave the caps lock on for hours. I only remember when I switch over to another application.
20 Likes
They’re for copying-and-pasting. There is an invisible character between the… visible ones, which prevents the usual emojification. This character is called Zero Width No Join, and behind the link is a generator script so I don’t have to remember Unicode code points and how to type them. :-)
5 Likes
It may have outlived its original purpose, but It does still have some utility. There’s no sense in removing it until we have a better use case in mind. And right now, none are apparent to me.
Since we haven’t added any new characters to the Latin alphabet, we don’t need it to be a symbol. It’s already a meta-meta key, so it would make sense to replace it with a different meta key. But what do we need?
Do we want it to participate in chords? We already have ctrl-alt-delete baked into human behavior, but that’s about as complex as average users are likely to handle. So a Mac-style Command key is probably not worth it.
Emoji is pointless because the rest of the keys won’t magically change their labels to remap to smileys. And I really don’t want my keyboards looks turned unprofessional with 36 printed labels featuring variants on tiny smiling faces.
So let’s leave caps lock alone until we actually need the key.
12 Likes
People care about the key or the functionality? Don’t get the two conflated.
4 Likes
