4 ms·

I like to think that there's an alternate universe where the entire industry adopted NeXT's idea of replacing the dedicated Caps Lock key with a Command+Shift k

I like to think that there's an alternate universe where the entire industry adopted NeXT's idea of replacing the dedicated Caps Lock key with a Command+Shift key combination, because it's such a smart and obviously correct thing to do. Sadly, I'll never live in that universe.

andrewshadura 5y ago
I understand it was quite popular in the MSX world.
yndoendo 5y ago
That world does exist with programmable keyboards. Fn + Capslock = Capslock On / Off toggle. Capslock = Esc. Makes coding in VI / VIM quicker on the touch and lighter on the fingers. Just wish laptop manufacturers would include programmable keyboards so multi-boot allows retention instead of having to run a service to override the OS input device.
- dexterdog 5y ago
  But then whenever you use somebody else's keyboard you're in a different world
- Agentlien 5y ago
  On Windows I use AutoHotkey to swap Caps Lock and Escape which makes Vim much smoother. I also set it up so that it automatically disables itself whenever a remote desktop window has focus.
saulrh 5y ago
I kind of do - I have caps lock remapped to lcontrol and lcontrol remapped to lwin, so the leftmost column of my keyboard looks like ~, tab, lcontrol, lshift, lwin from top to bottom. If I need control+shift I just hit control with the flat of my pinky instead of the tip so it also catches shift, and if I need shift+command I hit shift with the flat of my pinky instead of the tip so it catches command too. It's not perfect, but it a lot easier on my wrist than other configurations I've attempted.
brirec 5y ago
As others have mentioned, programmable keyboards will give you this — I have a keyboard powered by QMK, and I programmed it such that lshift + rshift = caps
harha 5y ago
After your post and looking at the keyboard I finally understand how mechanical keyboard enthusiasts can use winkeyless keyboards. You probably won’t need caps lock and it’s enough to have command and alt at the bottom. Too bad windows and Linux don’t come with standard layouts that are more like Mac and probably next.
selcuka 5y ago
Sinclair Spectrums (and possibly the older ZX81s) used a keypress combination (CAPS SHIFT + SYMBOL SHIFT) as well. It's not invented by NeXT.
PostThisTooFast 5y ago
_moof 5y ago
I have a custom keyboard from WASD that is mostly* the NeXT layout, and I use Karabiner (macOS) to program it to behave like one. It's wonderful. *The keyboard in the post has | in the right place but all my NeXT keyboards had it in some wackass position over the ten-key. Ridiculous.
tssva 5y ago
Chromebooks use the ALT+Search combination for caps lock instead of a dedicated key.

andrewshadura 5y ago

I understand it was quite popular in the MSX world.

yndoendo 5y ago

That world does exist with programmable keyboards. Fn + Capslock = Capslock On / Off toggle. Capslock = Esc. Makes coding in VI / VIM quicker on the touch and lighter on the fingers. Just wish laptop manufacturers would include programmable keyboards so multi-boot allows retention instead of having to run a service to override the OS input device.

dexterdog 5y ago
But then whenever you use somebody else's keyboard you're in a different world
Agentlien 5y ago
On Windows I use AutoHotkey to swap Caps Lock and Escape which makes Vim much smoother. I also set it up so that it automatically disables itself whenever a remote desktop window has focus.

saulrh 5y ago

I kind of do - I have caps lock remapped to lcontrol and lcontrol remapped to lwin, so the leftmost column of my keyboard looks like ~, tab, lcontrol, lshift, lwin from top to bottom. If I need control+shift I just hit control with the flat of my pinky instead of the tip so it also catches shift, and if I need shift+command I hit shift with the flat of my pinky instead of the tip so it catches command too. It's not perfect, but it a lot easier on my wrist than other configurations I've attempted.

brirec 5y ago

As others have mentioned, programmable keyboards will give you this — I have a keyboard powered by QMK, and I programmed it such that lshift + rshift = caps

harha 5y ago

After your post and looking at the keyboard I finally understand how mechanical keyboard enthusiasts can use winkeyless keyboards. You probably won’t need caps lock and it’s enough to have command and alt at the bottom. Too bad windows and Linux don’t come with standard layouts that are more like Mac and probably next.

selcuka 5y ago

Sinclair Spectrums (and possibly the older ZX81s) used a keypress combination (CAPS SHIFT + SYMBOL SHIFT) as well. It's not invented by NeXT.

PostThisTooFast 5y ago

_moof 5y ago

I have a custom keyboard from WASD that is mostly* the NeXT layout, and I use Karabiner (macOS) to program it to behave like one. It's wonderful. *The keyboard in the post has | in the right place but all my NeXT keyboards had it in some wackass position over the ten-key. Ridiculous.

tssva 5y ago

Chromebooks use the ALT+Search combination for caps lock instead of a dedicated key.