"Microsoft considering a dedicated Office key for keyboards"

[Lynn McGuire]

"Microsoft considering a dedicated Office key for keyboards"

https://www.osnews.com/story/130160/microsoft-considering-a-dedicated-office-key-for-keyboards/

Just say no.

Lynn

[VanguardLH]

The article claims the Winkey is useless already. Nope, I use it for
Winkey+M to minimize all Windows, Winkey+R to open the Run dialog,
Winkey+L to immediately lock the OS, Winkey+E to open the file explorer,
and ... Those are shortcut for the OS.

While I've bought media keyboards in the past (mostly to get quick
access to the Mute key to silence noisy web sites that are rude when
visited), mechanical keyboards are not so blessed with variants with
media keys (Home/web, E-mail, Skip Back, Skip Forward, Play/Pause,
Volume Up, Volume Down, and Mute). Mine has an Fn key with those media
functions as an alternate choice for the F-keys. This is very similar
to why the Fn key is on laptop keyboards. I find it VERY useful.

Unlike what the author professes, there are LOTS of users of MS Office
(I'm not one of them anymore), especially companies where MSO has a
higher percentage of usage than in the end-user community since
companies want to improve proficiency hence reduce task time and
learning curves (they don't personal customization of their workstations
which is still their property, not of their employees). It won't be end
users that push for an Office key. It will be the volume buyers. The
companies, and they use MSO.

Frankly I, personally, would find little use for an MSO key; however,
that is because I only use a small fraction of the hotkey shortcuts in
MSO, and probably a high percentage of them are common ones shared by
most if not all apps, like Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V for copying and pasting,
Ctrl+B for bold, Ctrl+U for underline, and so on. For other MSO
function, I wander off into the menues or ribbon bar. Yet, for
high-usage or expert users of MSO, yep, I can see them wanting quicker
access to the MSO hotkeys. Once you learn and remember the hotkeys, and
when you are editing a document, it is much faster to use the hotkey
than rove your eyes into menues and the ribbon bar hunting for the same
function. I'm sure Copy and Paste, Bold, and Underline are in the
menues or ribbon bar but I would waste a ridicuously much longer time
finding them there.

The Window key DOES have purpose when paired with a Windows computer.
You really think that majority of manufacturers care about the extreme
minority of end users of Linux? They're in business to make money and
stay in business. Seems a better choice would be to build a key macro
function into Windows and let users decide what key does what, even the
other keys (tab, ctrl, shift, CapsLock, ScreenLock, or even the regular
keys, like A, B, C, D, and so on). To further that customization, add
keycaps that have a programmable display, so they match the function
they were programmed to perform.

To see if users, er, companies would find an MSO keyboard a feasible
choice for their employees that would increase their proficiency in MSO
which is the vastly major portion of the office suite market, it would
be informative if a paper was written showing which of the common
hotkeys (usable in and out of MSO) along with the hotkeys in MSO are
used by their frequency. The Dvorak keyboard layout has been with us a
long time. Obviously it isn't designed to be alphabetical, but instead
to provide access with the shortest finger travel to the more used keys
from the home positions on the keyboard. For typists (which excludes
smartphone users since they don't have a real keyboard and are still
super slow with the 1- or 2-finger hunt-and-peck method of typing),
hotkeys represent faster input speed hence less time composing or
editing a document. The faster you can type, the faster you can produce
the document (and, like me, the more content you can add in a shorter
time to be verbose). More hotkeys (that you can remember) means faster
typing, plus not every OS is GUI based or there are occasions when you
input into a console (aka command shell), so hotkeys are your only means
of accelerating your typing or even to add formatting or structure to
your document.

Also, just because it would be called the MSO key wouldn't mean it was
usable only within the scope of the window in focus for the MSO apps.
After all, Ctrl+B, Ctrl+V, and other hotkeys that are common across the
OS and within many apps didn't exist in OSes before Microsoft introduced
them. Other apps, and perhaps even the OS, would adopt those MSO
keystrokes. Did you also complain when the Fn key appeared on
keyboards? It isn't just used on laptops due to the undersized real
estate for the 104 keys. It is also used to provide alternate or
*additional* functions via the keyboard usable across the OS and most
apps. It's very likely the MSO key would do the same. Did you complain
when Apple added their squiggly icon key (Command) or their Option key?

The MSO key (if it is even called that) might start out for use only
within the scope of the MSO apps. It won't stay that way. What
OS-level hotkeys introduced in Windows eventually showed up in Linux and
other operating systems? How many MSO hotkeys eventually got adopted by
other apps? There was no Ctrl+V, Ctrl+C or other common hotkeys back on
the Osborne keyboard. There was no Winkey back on the old Northgate
keyboards. Which OS has the higher marketshare now for workstations and
home PCs? The old Northgate keyboards did have the Alt and Ctrl keys to
provide a larger number of logical keys, or hotkeys, than were
physically available. The Winkey added more hotkeys. The "key"
dictionary went up, and users' "key" vocabulary went up (but I've yet to
see someone that remembers all the hotkeys). How many Windows apps
(don't know about Linux apps) that adopted Ctrl+S for the Save function?
Made it a lot easier to bounce between apps when the hotkeys for similar
functions stayed the same. The MSO key, or whatever it gets labelled,
would enlarge the hotkey dictionary, just as did the Ctrl and Alt keys
back when they got added, as did the Winkey, as did the Command and
Option keys on Macs.

If you consider the Winkey as superfluous, how long before you would
find it impossible to complete your computer tasks if you removed the
Winkey along with the other hotkey expanders (Ctrl and Alt key)? After
all, none of them are for alphanumeric input, so they just must be
superfluous, right? Why are there still the Pause, ScrollLock, SysRq,
and Break keys? How often are those used? When was the last time you
used them? Why are there duplicate keys (numbers, Enter, /, *, -, +,
etc)? Because they were added for numerical data entry and calculation.
With the same logic that the MSO key should not be added to otherwise
magnify the hotkey library across the OS and all apps, the numpad
should've never been added nor the Ctrl and Alt keys. The numpad was
added to speed up data entry. Using hotkeys is faster than hunting
through menus or a ribbon bar.

Macro software to redefine keys or add more functions wouldn't exist if
there were no need to have more functions than are possible within the
physical constraints of the keyboard. Golly, who would ever need a
second button on a mouse (it started with just one), or a middle button,
or a scrollwheel, or switchable variable resolution to change the speed
of the mouse cursor? All those users that get mice with even more
[programmable] buttons just must be insane. Why add an on/off switch on
the battery-powered mouse when obviously you could just open the
compartment door to remove the batteries? Yep, convenience and speed.
I'm sure the MSO hotkey, just as with the Ctrl, Alt, Command, Options,
or other accelerator keys, will become just as useful. If it bugs you,
don't call it the MSO key. Call it the tertiary accelerator key (after
the pre-existing Ctrl and Alt accelerator keys). After all, the
original Mac keyboard just used the squiggly icon. "Command" wasn't
added until later. For the MSO key, start with something like an
8-point star icon (two overlapping squares slightly askew of each
other), or a pic of the RoadRunner since its function is to accelerate
using the keyboard by typists rather than rely on a GUI to rummage
through to find those same functions the hotkey combos provide.

I don't see you complaining about keys (fat downward chevron, psc, nlk,
up-arrow with 3 horizontal hashes on stem, slk, wrench for tools, etc)
on virtual Linux-oriented keyboards that aren't on keyboards used with
other operating systems. Hell, there have been keyboards around that
gone far beyond just adding an accelerator key, like the proposed MSO
key. I've had keyboards that had a spring-loaded slider on the left to
let you scroll through documents with varying speed depending on how far
you slid the slider. Some add multimedia keys which are obviously of no
use in non-media apps, but just because they are no use everywhere
doesn't mean they are no use somewhere. Some have a Sleep key, but why
would you possibly need that when Win+L does the job? Because pressing
a button is easier then a hotkey combo that has to be remembered. Why
would you ever need macro programmable keys on a keyboard? Because they
make easier bringing up apps or perform repeatitive functions.

Do you really think an MSO accelerator key will always be only usable
within the scope of MSO apps? The Ctrl key didn't stay fixed to its
original purpose. The Ctrl/Control key allowed input of the first 32
non-printable characters in the ASCII character set. Since you don't
use a teletypewriter, surely the Ctrl key should have disappeared.
Nope, it found another use as an accelerator key for hotkey combos.