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Some Excel users pop F1 off their keyboards (2012)

businessinsider.com

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Re: Some Excel users pop F1 off their keyboards (2012)

#2
This should really be solved in software...

However, I remember trying to map capslock to control on windows a few years back. It involved becoming an administrator and entering an opaque hexadecimal key into the registry.

Simply popping off the key is probably easier.

Oh, on linux it boils down to "setxkbmap -option ctrl:nocaps", which doesn't require root...

Re: Some Excel users pop F1 off their keyboards (2012)

#5
There are dozens of us. It's massively disrupting to the state of flow to miss a key by one, and suddenly another window pops up, but there's no text inside. It takes several seconds for the window to compose itself, and several more to close.

I do keep the F1 key somewhere safe, to put back onto the keyboard, for the next keyboard user.

Re: Some Excel users pop F1 off their keyboards (2012)

#6
tl;dr F1 is generally help . Excel's help is apparently slow to load and close. Hence, the interviewees removed the key to avoid pressing it, when they meant to press F2.

It's disappointing but unsurprising they didn't just have windows (autohotkey?) map it to F2.

Re: Some Excel users pop F1 off their keyboards (2012)

#9
post #6

tl;dr F1 is generally help . Excel's help is apparently slow to load and close. Hence, the interviewees removed the key to avoid pressing it, when they meant to press F2. It's disappointing but unsurprising they didn't just have windows (autohotkey?) map it to F2.

In a corporate environment I cant install anything on my computer.

Re: Some Excel users pop F1 off their keyboards (2012)

#10
post #7

Why would not they remap F1 to something else, say another F2 if they so like it? The functionality has been at both Linux and Windows for a very long time.

Because popping the key is by far the simplest solution, especially if you won't miss it in any of your usual workflows.

AFAIK remapping it will need Autohotkey or similar, and banks & funds aren't the environment the more welcoming to arbitrary binaries, even if free software.

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