Talk:Caps Lock

message: Douglas Kerr of Bell Labs holds US Patent 3,569,991 on a alpha-only shift lock key. 
Filed March 20, 1968 & assigned to his employer, Bell Labs.
https://patents.google.com/patent/US3569991A/en?oq=US3569991— Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.79.70.131 (talk) 15:48, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inventor 

message: The fact that using the caps lock on Internet forums and in other electronic communications could be considered rude or as shouting by the recipients should be included here.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.69.198.243 (talk) 11:17, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  SHOUTING ON FORUMS! 

message: Why is the caps lock button written as "caps lock" or sometimes "Caps Lock"? It should have spelled CAPS LOCK just as the title of this article. People do not have respect for the interplay between semantics and form nowadays... 217.77.157.57 (talk) 13:01, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spelling 

message: the last guy whO EDITED THe page has a sense of humor... REVERTED!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sick&ridiculous (talk • contribs) 00:29, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  funny 

message: The main article could be improved considerably if there were some discussion of the actual lever mechanism underneath the Shift Lock of the Commodore 64, or the Caps Lock of the IBM Selectric typewriter.  Unlike modern PC keyboards, it behaved like the Shift-Lock or Caps Lock of 1970s and 1980s typewriters:  the first time you pressed it, it went down, and entered into a latched position.  It won't come up again - not even if you accidentally brush against it - until you deliberately press it a second time.  Some of us consider this preferable to what passes for keyboards nowadays.
To illustrate this, somebody ought to post a picture of the latching mechanism under the caps lock (that is, shift lock) keys.  198.177.27.23 (talk) 07:47, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Post a picture illustrating the physical design of the original caps lock mechanism (as in shift-lock) 

message: With spelling mistakes and a non-verifiable reference - Tom Williams's articles appear to not include 'Yarrr ye pirates be scurvy dogs' - I'd say this section can be safely removed.
alagahd (talk) 01:34, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  "The Captin's Lock" appears bogus 

message: One of the differences between whether or not the letters become lowercase if the Shift key is pressed happens to make it lowercase on a PC, while a Mac remains capitalized. I haven't used a Mac in 18 months, though. Mechamind90 (talk) 20:42, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I can verify the behavior is as reported by Mechamind90. On a Mac, holding down the Shift key while Caps Lock is engaged produces capitalized letters. tHIS iS tO pREVENT tYPING lIKE tHIS. (Tested with Mac OS X 10.5.8 and Windows XP SP3.) Should this be documented in the article? Also: what is the behavior in UNIX/Linux? alagahd (talk) 07:41, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  From my experience 

message: I mean, what was the REASON this was included on computer keyboards at the end of the 1970s at all? Except for politicians and government, these things are never decided without a reason. I'd even dare assume that this key WAS useful once, with ancient terminals. But when exactly, this would interest the reader. Pity there's nothing found anywhere about these facts. -andy 212.114.254.107 (talk) 15:15, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I was about to post the same comment. This article should discuss the reasoning behind the placement and inclusion of caps locks, and why there is resistance from the industry to remove or move it. Kingturtle = (talk) 23:22, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article could need some historical info. 

message: My workplace requires filenames in ALL CAPS, but outgoing emails in Standard English Capitalization.  I get mixed up at least two dozen times each week, and accidentally START TYPING WRONG. (backspace, backspace, backspace...)
I would love to have a utility where I could select a batch of text I've already typed, and hit Shift-Caps to invert mY aCCIDENTAL cAPITALIZATION.  Ctrl-Caps could make the entirety of a selection toggle between all-caps and lowercase.  Alt-Caps could put a pre-defined filter, such as making the first letter of each sentence a capital, and the rest lowercase; this could be switched depending on the language of the user.
I can see this being as subtle and expected a behavior of operating systems ten years hence as hover behavior has become today.  However, somebody has to be the innovator; as the inventor of this idea, I hereby license it freely for use by all.  Get to work, penguins!  --BlueNight (talk) 02:34, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks.  As for the appropriateness, other editors on this page have made jokes or suggested pulling the key off due to their annoyance.  I've noted its utility in industry, and suggested a workable solution (with a precedent - hover behavior) on a page that will (barring its deletion) be around as long as Wikipedia thanks to the GFDL/CC.  --BlueNight (talk) 05:34, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

text: Well, it turns out such a utility already exists, CAPshift by Skrommel (from 2005!) displays a short menu with these type of options when Capslock is pressed.  I guess I'm not the only smart person in the room.  My ideas about Shift-Caps and Alt-Caps would still be useful variations, though. BlueNight (talk) 17:05, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Better Caps Lock 

message: Saw this in the article.
:Although a shift lock key is not the same thing as a caps lock key, it is nowadays rare for a computer to have both.
Uh, really? In my experience every computer I've ever seen has both a shift key and a caps lock. Since I'm not sure where the author was coming from with this statement I'll just leave this here instead of editing it out.
--121.223.137.109 (talk) 18:31, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: It's referring to "shift lock key", not "shift key". See image —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 19:28, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I see, that makes sense. Thanks for the clarification. --121.223.137.109 (talk) 05:41, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shift + caps lock 

message: On PC keyboards, the key often comes with a funny step shape, unique on the keyboard.  I am surprised the article has not addressed this.
I researched this in the past, and discovered the step was added to the key so that it was harder for a user to hit the key by accident (when hitting the 'A' or 'Shift' keys).  I am sure there must be some good references for this somewhere, but I don't have time to search today.  Cheers.  --175.143.9.56 (talk) 03:45, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shape of the key 

message: cLUMSY TYPISTS LIKE ME OFTEN HIT THE "cAPS lOCK" KEY BY MISTAKE. tHE RESULT infuriates ME, AND i WASTE SIGNIFICANT TIME CORRECTING IT, USUALLY BY RETYPING. (tHOUGH nOTEPAD2 AND ms wORD, oUTLOOK, ETC. HAVE A "TOGGLE CASE" COMMAND, IF YOU CAN FIND IT.) Accidentally hitting the "Insert" key creates a different kind of disaster (accidental erasure by "overtyping"). tHE "cAPS lOCK" KEY AND THE "iNSERT" KEY ARE almost never useful.
After experiencing enough negative incidents caused by the near-useless "Caps Lock" and "Insert" keys, a smart typist learns to pry them off and toss them in a drawer (for optional restoration someday). (Hesitate: Laptop keys often cannot be put back.) (On the rare occasion that a removed key can briefly be useful, it can still be operated with a small object such as the back of a ballpoint pen.) If valuing function above form ("defacement") is not acceptable, an alternative might be a keyboard utility configured to ignore the near-useless keys until they are held down for 800ms (or pressed multiple times), and acknowledge them with a beep and/or screen pop-up. (Now find a "reliable source" that "noteworthably" advises either of these.) -A876 (talk) 20:45, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Competent typists have none of these problems.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.239.195.102 (talk) 20:05, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: lESS THAN USELESS!