Is Google Trying to Kill the CAPS LOCK KEY?

[schmich]

[citation][nom]molo9000[/nom]Having more than 1 physical mouse button is pointless on a laptop.[/citation]
What?? No, that's not the idea. People still need to be able to right-click...The idea for those kind of trackpads is that you use the two button's space for the trackpad. You can still have 2 buttons underneath them.

 

[malphas]

[citation][nom]SAL-e[/nom]Yes, Default in Windows is "Alt+Shift", but if you are experienced keyboard user, who is using keyboard shortcuts, you will find out very often you switch the layout when you don't need it. Remapping the keyboard layout switch shortcut to "Shift-CapsLk" (or just "CapsLk") works much better (speed mostly). Especially if you are using other OS like Linux where "Alt+Shift" is heavily used in terminal shortcuts.[/citation]
So it's not the default button anyway, and it's not a Linux distro so you wont need Alt+Shift for any other purpose... Sounds like a niche and/or personal issue, rather than one Google needs to worry about.

 

[COLGeek]

Doing away with Caps Lock is a good thing, it serves no meaningful purpose beyond allowing potatoheads to rant/scream their comments. I would like to see this across all systems/platforms.

 

[Guest]

This is great news. Now I won't have to worry about typing two paragraphs before I realize that I forgot to undo the caps lock key. This is worthy of a Nobel Prize for something.

 

[molo9000]

[citation][nom]maxh2[/nom]That's a pretty retarded thing to say. Not everyone uses their computer solely for accessing tech blogs and facebook; some people do actual work. I miss the 3rd mouse button my last thinkpad laptop had, but luckily I can simply press both of the 2 separate, physical buttons my dell has to function as the center button. Makes use of my CAD software a lot more pleasant than if I were trying to use the dumbed-down consumer trash you're advocating, where I'd constantly be moving up to the tool bar to click some button to change the function of the cursor just to modify views, over and over again.[/citation]

I'm no engineer (yet), but using CAD software with a trackpad must be a pain in the ass no matter how many mouse buttons you have. Why wouldn't you use an proper mouse for that?
I doubt there are many applications that require the use of a 3rd mouse button.


[citation][nom]schmich[/nom]What?? No, that's not the idea. People still need to be able to right-click...The idea for those kind of trackpads is that you use the two button's space for the trackpad. You can still have 2 buttons underneath them.[/citation]

U can right click on apple trackpads by tapping with 2 fingers. Much better than a physical button.
The only thing you can't do is drag&drop with the right mouse button or press both mouse buttons simultaneously, but those aren't exactly widely used features.

 

[digitalrazoe]

Everything can be solved with the right amount of duct tape or superglue. ~just sayin' .

 

[gogogadgetliver]

A lot of interesting discussion going on here in addition to the all caps jokes. I'm gonna go ahead and tell the emperor about his clothes though:

This is stupid.

 

[wawa sxm]

[citation][nom]planchero[/nom]I have to admit I am not a fan of Caps Lock. I like having the uppercase letters where they belong. I hate it when I accidently press Caps Lock when typing fast in a game chat.[/citation]
imagine what will happen if u accidentally type search in a game chat...like luckyducky7 said it will be just like the windows key if not worse

 

[milktea]

I hardly ever use CAP lock key. But now they're taking it away, I want it back... well just for the heck of it.

 

[iamtheking123]

I never uses caps lock. Whenever I want to type a string of text in all caps I hold down shift.

PS - You mac idiots aren't going to win the argument that having 2 mouse buttons is worse than having to do a song and dance combination with two fingers and key combination to right click.

 

[liemfukliang]

Logitech Wireless Keyboard Mouse Combo MK250 has been a great example of a strange keyboard . I didn't think Logitech would go this far on the cheapest Wireless combo, but they did it. MK250 hasn't any of three light indicator, Nums Lock, Caps Lock, and Scrool Lock. It also has only 2 colums on Home, End -- Insert, Page Up -- Delete, Page Down. I think this Logitech combo is the most strange keyboard at all.

 

[Lutfij]

what next, google inventing a mouse that has a rempapped left button that opens secret portals in WOW/Diablo II on battle.net?

 

[Guest]

Just give it an OS solution like iOS: Quick double tap on the shift key enables caps lock, another quick tap disables it. "Shift Lock" is a leftover from the mechanical typewriter and should be done away with forever on every keyboard, replaced by rational programming in all operating systems.

The transition could be quite seamless--program the shift key now, and once the programming is solid the hardware manufacturers will find other ways to use that space.

 

[ram1009]

It never ceases to amaze me how seltf centered people can be. Just because someone at Google doesn't have a use for caps lock nobody else needs it either. I use it all the time for work.

 

[SAL-e]

[citation][nom]malphas[/nom]So it's not the default button anyway, and it's not a Linux distro so you wont need Alt+Shift for any other purpose... Sounds like a niche and/or personal issue, rather than one Google needs to worry about.[/citation]
Actually ChromeOS is Linux distro that runs only Chrome browser as GUI. Other support services are hidden. But I can bet you that there is CLI underneath. Also as I sad before I understand that many people don't use CapsLk, but if Google is planning to distribute ChromeOS in other parts of the world they should re-think this choice. "Win" key is much more useless in Linux so I think it is better candidate to become "Search" key. Plus since Windows Vista, when you press "Win" key opens the main menu and focus on "Search" field by default.

 

[howiejcee]

In all honesty, I don't use CAPS LOCK (I just typed that while holding the SHIFT key down...) on my desktop keyboard for much other than rebinding it as another custom hotkey for gaming, so this wouldn't really matter to me. There has to be quite a few cases where the CAPS LOCK key is actually quite useful so the option to remap/rebind your keys is a must.

The idea of implementing a global search function is a great idea thought that I believe should be implemented in all OSes which would subsequently allow you to choose where to search. Palm OS does something similar quite nicely on the Palm Pre but clearly, they can skip the need for a global search key because you can simply type and go.

 

[someguynamedmatt]

[citation][nom]defufna[/nom]BY REMOVING CAPS KEY THEY STRIP US OF ABILITY TO EMPHASIZE OUR OPINION OVER INTERNET. BY DOING THAT THEY CHANGE THE WAY WE THINK. THIS TREND WILL CONTINUE. THEY WILL KEEP SUBTLY ALTERING THE WAY WE THINK UNTIL WE ARE NOTHING MORE THAN AD CONSUMING PRODUCT.[/citation]
[citation][nom]lamorpa[/nom]DO NOT TAKE MY CAPS LOCK KEY AWAY[/citation]
^Above posters need to consider the following:
[citation][nom]LoneEagle[/nom]READ THE ARTICLE BEFORE LEAVING A COMMENT!The "CAP LOCK KEY" is still there but they changed the default to do a "Search" instead. YES, YOU CAN CHANGE IT BACK IF YOU WANT! SO NOT REALLY GONE![/citation]
Oh, the internet... host of many, many people who absolutely refuse to read the entire article before commenting... Thanks for that, Eagle.

[citation][nom]hardcore_gamer[/nom]what ?[/citation]
I second that... you're not alone; that made no sense whatsoever. We regret to inform you that your caps lock key has little to no graphics processing power, and hence cannot play Crysis.

 

[wfrantz]

The key is still there. It's just the software that changes.

 

[dalauder]

So what if I'm typing headers for a text file I'm formatting or a resume or something and want all caps? The Caps Lock key actually has functionality. If they're hunting for keys to get rid of, lose one of the Alts and Pause/Break

 

[The_Prophecy]

So what if I'm typing headers for a text file I'm formatting or a resume or something and want all caps? The Caps Lock key actually has functionality. If they're hunting for keys to get rid of, lose one of the Alts and Pause/Break

I don't know of anyone who uses (let alone knows about) the Scroll Lock key. Lets get rid of that one too!

 

[dEAne]

Some people like to type in capital letters not because they like to emphasize but they can see it clearly - Google won't have the chance to see that because he still have a good set of eyes. If I invent things I won't make it useful just for me but for the less unfortunately as well.

 

[Khimera2000]

I like my caps lock key. I dont use it much but its there when i need it just like the jack in me car as for the windows key... i dont know about every one else but I use my win key constantly. the one shortcut i love is win+E then theres the new navigation features they taged on in win 7, i use almost all of them through the course of the day.

what i would like though is for them to move the win key to the right of me notebook instead of the left. makes more sense to me since most use the WSAD (look caps lock) for gaming.

As for the caps lock key, ive struck it about 4 or 5 times accidentaly in the last couple of days, and i can say that if a search window poped up while i was doing my frag fest, or while i was typing out a document my temper would build up really really fast.

 

[Caffeinecarl]

Y DOES GOOGLE HAVE 2 DO THIS I JUST LOVE IT WHEN PEOPLE START USING THE CAPSLOCK KEY TO AVOID NEEDING TO CAPITALI8ZE THEIR STUFF AFTER ALL ISNT IT EASIER TO JUST HAVE EVERYTHING CA[PITALIZED THEN 2 KEEP PRESSING THAT DARN SHIFT KEY ITS COUNTERPRODUCTIVE

THAT AND BY ELIMINATING TEH CAPSLOCK KEY IT TAKES AWAY YET ONE MORE TOOL PEOPLE USE TO SEEK OUT REALLY LAME COMMENTS THAT PROBABLY SHOULDNT BE ON MESSAGE BOARDS IN THE FIRST PLACE

(YES I MEANT TO TYPE THIS IN ALL CAPS)

 

[LMF5000]

[citation][nom]molo9000[/nom]Let's hope that all laptop manufacturers start making trackpads like that.Having more than 1 physical mouse button is pointless on a laptop.[/citation]

Except when you want to play an online game that involves a lot of clicking but you don't have a mouse handy. I don't know about you, but I can click faster than I can tap.

 

[keyanf]

Always run in really old computer games with fixed control set ups that aren't going to work on Chrome OS anways and uh... yeah, nothing of value is lost.