OK, OK, I'll send a photo and a comparison laptop keyboard that does work, but I don't think it will be illuminating. Your question about what key I mean to hit is interesting. I don't mean to hit any key at all. Yet somehow, on this keyboard, in rapid typing, my pinkie does hit the Capslock key by accident. Not only that, but it stays down for several key presses, leading to several possible catastrophes with Eudora (which requires at least two accidental keypresses, say to ctrl-E queue, and ctrl-T or ctrl-M to send). Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. There is an occasional mishap with XyWrite as well - - a bold lower case e-circumflex appears, there is some complaining about subroutines, and after a few moments the program recovers. This may have something to do with VirtualBox? (I am hoping to try out HyperV at some point, which I hope works better, but at the moment am unwilling to pay the upgrade fee to Win8 Pro.)
Attached are three photos
New XPS 15 is the problem child. Left edge of A to right edge of return is 10-3/4 inches.
XPS 17 is 11 inches from A to return. No accidental keypresses with this one.
Alienware 11 is only 10-1/4 inches from A to return, but you may be able to notice that the right-most eighth of the capslock key is a recessed strip which undoubtedly helps to prevent accidents.
On the New XPS 15 you'll notice that on the rightmost portion, there is a light. This will probably make it even more difficult than it might otherwise be to contemplate some kind of physical alteration of the key.
Although I think the New XPS 15 is a stunning piece of equipment, I am also unhappy with the response of the trackpad to left and right clicks.
Apols to all who don't want to view them for the attachment size. Many thanks to anyone who can possibly make any sense out of this. I am baffled!
At 12/01/2014 13:52, you wrote:
I could do that but I don't see the point unless I could set the photo up in some kind of scientifically valid manner,
Not necessary: I just don't grasp the nature of the problem. Seeing your kbd would help.
As I understand it, you do want to use the capslock key as ctrl, but sometimes you find yourself hitting that key when you didn't mean to. In those cases, what key did you mean to hit?
and I don't know how to do that. I do mean to try to take some decent measurements and those, together with a photo, may be of some help.
You bring up another matter: are attachments allowed in this list? Is HTML? And I have a general question: to what extent do people read email in non-HTML-capable email readers today?
At 11/01/2014 23:25, you wrote:
Bill,
Why not take a photo of the keyboard and upload it here? If that's against the rules, put it somewhere on the web that we can take a look.
--Harry
David, my problem isn't that it is caps-lock - - I have, with some program or another - - KeyTweak - - reassigned it to ctrl. My problem is that on this keyboard I keep on hitting it accidentally. As I use Eudora a lot, it is very easy, if I happen to hit ctrl accidentally whilst quickly typing a word which contains e, t or m, to queue and send a message midway through composition. If I brought it back to caps lock, there would at least be less damage, and of course I may simply have to disable it. But I hate having to move to the hand-disabling position that ctrl now occupies on most keyboards.
At 11/01/2014 20:10, you wrote:
You can define it as control in AutoHotKey.
On Sat, Jan 11, 2014 at 2:49 PM, Bill Troop <mailto:billtroop@xxxxxxxx%3Ebilltroop@xxxxxxxx; eudora="autourl"> mailto:billtroop@xxxxxxxx>billtroop@xxxxxxxx wrote:
If I can't change my habits I may have to do that. But I will sorely miss not having it available as Ctrl.
At 10/01/2014 19:56, you wrote:
I use AutoHotKey (free), which Harry has sung the praises of, to disable capslock; works like a charm.
On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 1:31 PM, Bill Troop <mailto:billtroop@xxxxxxxx%3Ebilltroop@xxxxxxxx; eudora="autourl"> mailto:billtroop@xxxxxxxx>billtroop@xxxxxxxx wrote:
Has anyone got advice on an apparently insoluble problem?
On the New XPS 15 w/3200x1800 screen I'm testing, I find that I often press the caps lock kay (remapped to control) by accident. This leads to a lot of accidents in Eudora. (Eudora, by the way, works fine in 3200x1800 mode under Win 8.1 - - it seems that it is automatically superscaled so that everything, including all the icons, looks normal.)
I can't imagine why I have so many problems with this keyboard. Maybe I just need more time to get used to it. The geometry of the keyboard doesn't seem to be particularly unusual, but I have not yet made precise measurements.
I intend to start using an external keyboard more, but I must admit that one of the great things about this very light, very capable laptop is how easy it is to tote it around the house to, often, more comfortable sitting positions.Attachment: NewXPS15.jpg
Description: JPEG imageAttachment: xps17.jpg
Description: JPEG imageAttachment: Alienware11.jpg
Description: JPEG image