I LOVE CAPS LOCK. IT MAKES WHAT I WRITE SEEM URGENT — IMPORTANT, EVEN. AND SINCE EVERYTHING I WRITE IS URGENT AND IMPORTANT, I TRY TO MAKE USE OF IT AS MUCH AS I CAN.
Unfortunately, the Man brings me down: Caps Lock is obnoxious, the text-tyrants claim. It’s annoying and unnecessary. So I can’t use caps nearly as much as I’d like, and as a result, my Caps Lock key is woefully under-used — and under-appreciated.
And apparently the Anti-Caps Conspiracy has spread beyond the typographical mavens: Apple itself has added Caps Lock-discriminatory features to their new slim keyboards. Jon “Wolf” Rentzsch makes the shocking discovery:
Unique among the rest of the keys, Caps Lock doesn't activate immediately upon strike. There's a very small time window - perhaps a quarter of a second - where if you release the key inside the window, the keystroke is ignored.
But that's only part of the conspiracy. The Caps Lock key isn't just universally slow to react. If Caps Lock was already engaged, the keystroke is registered immediately, even before the upstroke.
So Apple's modern keyboards have a bias against activating Caps Lock at all, and another bias to turn it off as soon as possible.
Those bastards. There must be some “hate feature” law against this sort of thing. All keys are created equal, and should be treated as such! I NEED MY CAPS LOCK! HOW ELSE WILL I GET OTHER PEOPLE’S ATTENTION? AND HOW WILL I SEND IMPORTANT EMAILS OR TALK OVER OTHER PEOPLE IN INSANT MESSAGE CONVERSATIONS?
Jon posted a video of the discrimination in action — where’s Jesse Jackson when you need him? — so you can see the hatred firsthand.
Sure, Caps Lock may have depreciated in usefulness since it was first conceived; in fact, it often does more harm than good (case-sensitive passwords, anyone?). And sure, no one actually uses the beleaguered button anymore — where would you ever need to type so many capital letters consecutively?
But c’mon, IT CAN’T BE THAT ANNOYING.
Are you kidding? I'd love a 500ms delay on the caps lock key!
What I can't stand is when I HIT THE CAPS LOCK IN THE MIDDLE OF A SENTENCE BY MISTAKE TO LOOK UP AND SEE THAT i have to retype that whole sentence over again. Er!
I had a professor in college who jammed a couple pennies under his caps lock key to deactivate it.
I just want to know why it's on the home row. Hey let's put a mode changing key right next to the pinky! Great idea. Of course, how pissed would people be if Apple (re)moved it?
Wow, I might have to rush out and buy one. I can't say I've ever used the caps lock key.
This was QUITE AMUSING. I wish you had a DIGG button so I could DIGG this article.
What I think we REALLY NEED is another use for the APPLE BUTTON so when you PUSH IT the DANG thing will help us write about Mac products like the iMac, iTunes, MacBook, and iPod by sensing the strange lower case "i" affliction Apple has and the odd middle of the word capital letter in MacBook!
take it from someone who has no feeling in their left pinky finger. capslock sucks.
I'm a designer so I use caps lock a whole lot, especially when I'm doing flyers, banners and large display graphics.
But at the end of the day, I wouldn't mind the slight delay, sometimes I accidently hit the caps lock key when I don't mean to use it.
oh no!
I know that guys from antiCAPSLOCK CAMPAIGN. Most of them are *nix fiend (well Mac alos descendance of *nix :p), and love using command line interface.
I NEED CAPSLOCK WHEN DESIGNING IMPORTANT HEADLINE.
I, too, am a designer, so the functionality of caps lock is occasionally useful. But more often it gets in the way. If Apple got rid of the key on the new keyboards, sign me up for one right now.
Sometimes I think that it would be more convenient to disable caps lock and keep a brick on my desk to lay it on the shift key when I need to type that much stuff in all caps.
For all of you who get irritated by accidental Caps Lock input, and indeed, for any Mac user who types, let me recommend a supremely elegant software solution called KeyClick.
This tiny preference pane provides adjustable audio feedback for all your keystrokes. I believe it will enhance your typing experience, improve your relationship with your keyboard, and probably improve your typing accuracy as well!
But more to the point, THE AUDIO FEEDBACK LETS YOU KNOW IMMEDIATELY WHEN YOU'VE ENTERED CAPS LOCK MODE! (Be sure to check Modified Key Tones in the More Options tab.)
KeyClick allows a generous 21-day trial period; the whopping $5 price covers FIVE of your computers.
Read more about it at http://db.tidbits.com/article/9102 and http://www.macuser.com/software/make_your_keys_pop_with_keycli.php and http://sustworks.com/site/prod_keyclick_overview.html
Download it from http://sustworks.com/site/downloads.html
A cure for all our mushy keyboards!
This function is indeed useful to me, but there is no way to turn it off. That's rather sad for people wanting a normal CapsLock for their spamming needs...
I also love the irony that the key is in all lower case...
i think it's good, the fact that it doesn't turn on at a random finger straying across the board, and that it turns off instantly... useful