February 02, 2012
KILL THE CAPS LOCK, And four other modest proposals for improving the contemporary computer keyboard
Matthew J.X. Malady in Slate:
2. One change that should have been made to the keyboard decades ago is the addition of a dedicated em-dash key. An em-dash is meant to indicate an abrupt change of thought within the context of a sentence. Writers of all stripes use them often—sometimes too often—but they can be a real pain in the carpal to type.
To make an em-dash using a Mac, you have to do this: First, press the option key. Next, while holding down “option,” press “shift.” Now, while keeping those other two buttons pressed, hit the hyphen key. It’s too much—three keys for one mark. On a PC, there’s a handy “shortcut.” Simply hold down “alt” and then type 0151 on the far right number pad. (Next challenge: safecracking.) Although some popular word processing programs will automatically create an em-dash when you type two consecutive hyphens, that’s no reason to prolong the mark’s banishment from the board.
(At least partially because there’s no dedicated em-dash button on the keyboard, people mess up this mark in many annoying ways. Some use two hyphens--like so. It’s not an attractive replacement. Other typists resort to a single hyphen as a stand-in for an em-dash-like so. That’s just confusing.)
More here. [I heartily endorse an em-dash key. I usually have to copy and paste it from somewhere.]
Posted by Abbas Raza at 12:24 PM | Permalink
Comments
Can't say it's a problems for me but the I'm into mathematics not the aesthetics of literary work. The real advance would be to have programmable keys and displays built into the keys to display what they are programmed to type so we can make our keyboards what we need. I would go for mathematical symbols for example
Posted by: David Cousens | Feb 2, 2012 5:09:17 PM
Very true about the cap lock key. I never hit it except by mistake. What genius thought it should go right above the shift key? GET RID OF THE CAP LOCK KEY NOW.
Posted by: reader | Feb 3, 2012 10:32:17 AM
You can decrease the confusion -- i.e., the ambiguity -- of using hyphens instead of em-dashes by putting an extra space before and after them - like this - so it doesn't look the same as a hyphenated word or phrase. Ubiquitous in emails.
Posted by: Apollo | Feb 3, 2012 10:42:30 AM
I must say I have never really needed the caps lock key but some of those other suggestions are ridiculous.
The number pad is only partially redundant as it also acts as eight directional keys, which can be useful in programmes with lots of objects to control. I've been typing a lot of numbers recently and at those times having a number pad is almost essential, it's something I really miss on my laptop.
A speed typist might not miss the right-hand ctrl, alt and shift keys but try convincing a gamer to get rid of them. Gamers now have one hand on the mouse and the other using W, A, S, D as directions because there are so many other keys nearby. I would struggle to find any modern 3D game that doesn't use the right-hand alt, shift and ctrl keys, usually for making the character sprint, walk or crouch/sneak.
On the plus side I finally learnt what the "Insert" key does and how my documents must've suddenly changed their settings.
Posted by: Jason Bosch | Feb 3, 2012 10:59:11 AM
I use word and when writing I use a double hyphen --
Then I do a global find and replace
replacing --
with ^+
which translates them all into emdashs.
but a dedicated emdash key would be nice.
Posted by: PKgesic | Feb 3, 2012 10:19:00 PM
I haven't even read beyond the em dash suggestion, but yes, yes, yes!!!
Posted by: Sarah D. | Feb 4, 2012 7:28:34 PM
On a Mac, you can change (double hyphen becomes em-dash) through system preferences > keyboard. Of course, if you later want to use a double hyphen -- such as here for an illustration -- you have to find one and copy/paste.
Posted by: Phil S. | Feb 6, 2012 11:59:23 PM
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