Scroll Lock

Vague One · Post by **Vague One** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 9:33 am

No doubt this is a stupid question, but what is the point of Scroll Lock on the keyboard, I have never had any need for it and have never been aware of an application that uses it. So to satisfy my curiousity, what is it for?

Post by **Kajun** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 10:07 am

I too got upset about this a few months ago and had to look it up. Apparently,

The scroll lock key is intended to temporarily stop the scrolling of text or halt the operation of a program. Today many programs commonly do not utilize or function properly with this key.

Though in Windows/DOS, the Pause|Break key is equivalent.

Excel is perhaps the only program to currently use it - turn it on and move cells using the cursor keys; the screen view moves but your current cell remains the same (rather than moving between cells).

It may well be that a campaign of epic proportions is required to revitalise interest in this undernourished key - which is perhaps the only one still readable on my 'boards.

Post by **Kajun** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 10:16 am

Continuing on, has anyone ever used the Â¬ character for significant purposes?

Vague One · Post by **Vague One** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 10:30 am

I have used the Â¬ character when using data extracts as it is used by some programs as a field separater in delimited data extracts.

I think it is used instead of commas when fields can contain commas.

Post by **Kajun** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 12:40 pm

Continuing from the first post, I'd much prefer that the scroll lock LED reflected the state of the Insert key. That'd be helpful, particular in applications which don't visibly show the state (i.e. most things other than Office)

Bat · Post by **Bat** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 3:12 pm

Kajun wrote:Continuing from the first post, I'd much prefer that the scroll lock LED reflected the state of the Insert key. That'd be helpful, particular in applications which don't visibly show the state (i.e. most things other than Office)

Definitely!!!

Scroll lock can be renamed the KVM switching key as far as I'm concerned.

heavy-rotation · Post by **heavy-rotation** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 5:41 pm

Bat wrote:Scroll lock can be renamed the KVM switching key as far as I'm concerned.

Quoted for truth!

2xCtrl presses on the one I use... makes copy/paste operations impossible and drives me mad

Charmaka · Post by **Charmaka** » Fri Jan 07, 2005 4:56 pm

~ (which is what US-Dvorak renders the key left of 1 as, but the UK version serves the same role) is used for the logical operator "not". Handy when taking notes in a logic lecture.

Much more interesting quote about redundant keys is the one about the pause button. You press it, and nothing happens. Does this mean it's doing its job correctly?

heavy-rotation · Post by **heavy-rotation** » Sat Jan 08, 2005 12:41 am

Charmaka wrote:~ (which is what US-Dvorak renders the key left of 1 as, but the UK version serves the same role) is used for the logical operator "not". Handy when taking notes in a logic lecture.

Much more interesting quote about redundant keys is the one about the pause button. You press it, and nothing happens. Does this mean it's doing its job correctly?

~ is a bitwise NOT too. Quite handy for programmers.

Pause/Break is useful when combined with the windows key (in windows at least), but nothing to do with pausing or breaking.

They should rename those keys (PrintScrn/Scrlock/Pause) F13-15 as they are on Macs infact.