On 04/24/2011 08:13 AM, derek wrote:
Thank you very much. It was the Insert key. It was very annoying. Actually is
this owerwrite function of any use?
Hi derek,
As Duncan mentioned, it is very useful when one wishes to type over
existing text. However, this is a fairly uncommon wish in the typical
GUI user environment, where the typist can highlight a group of
characters and then begin typing. The highlighted characters disappear
and the replacement is accomplished without changing the behavior of the
keyboard. Many applications now attempt to guess what you want to
highlight by performing the operation on words. To me this is not an
advantage, for it often means that I delete one or more characters
beyond what I wish. As Rolf noted, the adjacency of the Insert and
Delete keys makes it far too easy to switch unwittingly to Insert mode.
I sometimes wonder whether keyboard designers ever have to type, or
whether they simply dictate their design inspirations into a microphone
as some non-typists of my acquaintance do. When I received a new PC at
work, some bright spark had placed an extra Backslash key next to the
left Shift key _and_ reduced the size of the Shift key. After a few days
of typing backslashes every time I wanted a capital letter, I popped
both keys off and extended the Shift key to mostly cover the useless
Backslash. I once programmed a special keyboard for a one-handed typist
that allowed one to reprogram the meaning of keys, thereby accommodating
individual preference rather than the lumbering Frankenstein of the
average user. Now that would be a worthwhile innovation.
Jim
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