Re: caps lock keys

[Leslie Bialler lb136@xxxxxxxx]

Hmm and hmm . . . ! If you hit what you think is the tab key and it
turns out instead to be the ctrl key instead of the caps lock key, well,
no harm is done. (I'm always hitting ctrl when I think I'm hitting
shift, too. Less of a problem in XyWrite than in windows, where doing
that always invokes some strange hot key the function of which I know
not.) And banishing caps lock to alt gets it out of harms way. Well done!


What about the right-side ctrl and alt keys? Do they stay where they are?

Finally: speaking of Windows "hot keys." Anybody know a freeware or
shareway program that simply disables Windows hot keys?



Fredric Gross wrote:


Yes, the location of the CAPS LOCK key on standard keyboards is dysergonomic
in the extreme. But we need not suffer in silence.

Many years ago, I tweeked my Xy3+ .KBD file so that the CAPS LOCK key is
Ctrl; the Ctrl key is Alt, and the Alt key is Caps Lock. It takes a little
getting used to, and mistakes happen when I forget what my 10th grade typing
teacher said and look at the keyboard. (I tend to respond primarily to
visual cues, and so the labels on the keys get me confused.) I continue to
use 3+ with my .KBD arrangement. And when I accidently hit Alt, I have
tweeked my .KBD file so that Ctrl-C changes the case of what I typed.

Fred



----- Original Message -----
From: "Leslie Bialler" 
To: 
Sent: Friday, June 11, 2004 11:02 AM
Subject: Re: Re File-specific display mode





Patrica wails:

 


Harry is so right about keyboard layout. Caps Lock next to A and right
under Tab has to be the DUMBEST design decision ever made.

  


If you look at the design of a traditional typewriter keyboard, you will
not fail to notice the same array of keys. If you want to talk about
dumb design decisions, I would dial back 120 years or so to the design
of the first typewriters. Far more vexatious than the position of the
caps lock key is the position of the "a" key itself, which is, of
course, struck with, typically, the weakest of the fingers.

Anyhow, if you log into brainsystems.com, you will find freeware that
disables the caps lock key, which of course, so many touch typists hit
when they think they're hitting the tab key.

Notes and asides: The Royal Standard typewriter of ca. 1955 had a tab
key that was to the right of the spacebar. It was elongated vertically
and could be struck with the right palm. (They had brown spackle
finishes and the keys were green plastic, slightly indented to fit the
fingers--an innovation then.) That has always struck me as the exemplar
of "Good Design."



--
Leslie Bialler, Columbia University Press
lb136@xxxxxxxx
61 W. 62 St, NYC 10023
212-459-0600 X7109 (phone) 212-459-3677 (fax)
 


http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup
  

 







--
Leslie Bialler, Columbia University Press
lb136@xxxxxxxx
61 W. 62 St, NYC 10023
212-459-0600 X7109 (phone) 212-459-3677 (fax)

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup