Inspired by another question: what would you put in place of the CAPS LOCK key?

Uncaps lock. For those times when you use Caps and forget to switch it off.

I think that I would vote for the Control key.

@, $, or Delete

How about a key that generates a random Internet acronym. ZOMG
I’d keep Caps Lock, personally. Or make it programmable so people who don’t want it can have it be whatever they want.

My most used keyboard shortcut “Alt + Ctrl + Delete”; you may abbreviate it as “ACD”.

I like the caps lock key. I would replace it with another caps lock key.

cons lock
no more caps, ever.

I would keep the caps lock key, but I would move it to some more obscure place, so I don’t have to worry about hitting the caps lock when what I want to is to hit the shift key. Alternatively, the caps lock key can be kept where it is, but just make is smaller and at a level below the shift key, so it is less likely to be hit accidentally.

A drink holder.

How about a PORN LOCK key, for those times you just want to look at porn, and nothing else?

I have mine mapped to command. Command + tab is useful.

MIlo here; “feed me” key.

I’ve also mapped mine to command and it is awesome. Making it another backspace key is also popular.

I think the key should be programmable, but for the LOVE OF PASTA, keep the caps lock key available.

I draw architectural drawings for a living, the caps lock key is rather important for lettering.

Or, you know, the software could just enforce the capitalization =)

@johnpowell Your ‘useful’ link just downloaded something to my computer! What have you done to me? ACK! < Caps lock can be useful, too. ;-)

I would make the caps lock key another ‘enter’ key. I want one on the left side of my keyboard, too.

@augustian :: It is just a screencast I made showing how command + tab works. It should have played in your browser. Maybe you don’t have QuickTime installed. Don’t worry, I promise the file will not harm you.

Another Enter button. If there are two shifts, there could be two enters.

I never use the “right shift” though, so maybe I would never use the “left enter”.

See “return”.

Either ”.com” (dot com) or “www.fluther.com”.
See ya….Gary/wtf

@johnpowell Thanks. Whew!

Energy Drink distribution key.

I would put the “any” key there.

so where do we put the “OH SHIT, UNDO, UNDO, UNDO!” KEY?

@evelyns_pet_zebra :: Google has you covered.

I guess I’m in the minority here because I wouldn’t replace it with anything. I’m an excellent typer and I’ve never found the CAPS LOCK key to be an irritation. On the very rare occasions I’ve hit it in error when it should have been the SHIFT key instead, I’ve uttered a mild expletive or two (or three, depending on how fast and what I’m typing) but other than that, I’ve never suffered from any other major keyboardal train wrecks. (Keyboardal? Where the hell did that come from?)

I’d leave it. I don’t use it very often, but when I’m typing out an acronym I like to use Caps Lock rather than alternate which Shift key I’m pressing for every other letter.

@justn , I have used it when I’ve had to type with one hand.

Liking the answers so far. Another thing to throw out – literally; if you have a Windows keyboard, who in the hell ever uses the context menu key? If you don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s the one immediately to the left of the right Ctrl key on most keyboards.

I want a key that answers the question “What did I just do?”

For all those times when something weird happens, a strange function gets invoked, something disappears, I lose my place, I drop a file in the wrong folder, funny characters or icons appear on the screen, things start scrolling uncontrollably, and so on, I want to know, “What did I do that caused this result?” I want to see the exact keystroke sequence that produced the most recent action.

As a second choice, I would like a “go back to where I just was” function that puts me at whatever I was doing just before the last transition—in a different application, at a different point in a document, on a different website, whatever.

Both are ways of enlarging and extending the concept of “undo,” but in the first case I would also like to be able to see what in the world caused some of those bizarre effects so I can maybe avoid them in the future or at least know how to get out of them.

I would also like a software control that allows me to disable the effing Caps Lock key, or a hard key cap that I can stick over it so I never hit it by accident again. It’s a relic of the Shift Lock on a typewriter, but Shift Lock never made me scream out loud.

@IchtheosaurusRex Good point about the context menu key. It drives me crazy on my Logitech s510 cordless desktop keyboard. I use it with my Mac and on that keyboard this is no Windows key on the left, just Alt and Ctrl. I map Alt to Command and the Windows key to Option on my Mac. Its pretty annoying have a useless context menu key instead of an Option key on the right of my keyboard.

@Jeruba Until they change keyboards altogether, that hard key cap sounds like an excellent idea! Patent it immediately.

I don’t think I invented it, @augustlan. As long ago as 1979, you could buy a hard cover to put over the Emergency Shutoff button on top of the old IBM System/3 I worked on. I guess it was too prominent and people must have tripped it by mistake. You could almost set a big bound printout down on top of it and set it off.

It’s a good thing we had one of those covers because for as long as I worked there, I wanted to push that button just to see what would happen. (The FE told me that a guillotine-like blade would come down inside the system and cut all the wires. I never knew if it was true.) I seem to remember hearing of something similar for some volatile keyboard key.

I don’t actually mind the fact that there is a Caps Lock key. I just don’t want it anywhere near those other keys, keys that toggle and don’t have any effect unless you use them in combination with another key. In fact, it would be enough if Caps Lock just worked like the old typewriter Shift Lock, meaning that you had to hold it down WITH the Shift key. That would makes it a lot harder to turn on by accident.

How about a F&*$ M$ off key , like you press it or hold it for 5 seconds and a part of M$ blows up .

Very naughty of you, @sandystrachan, but I like it. I would certainly have pressed it many times before now, especially if I could include a little love note ALL IN CAPS explaining why.

3 times last night i got bluescreened , and then at 1:30am when it wanted to install updates i crashed . I would have killed them all with the amount of times i pressed bashed the keyboard.