

How Apple Keyboards Lost a Logo and Windows PCs Gained One (2007) - DLWormwood
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/08/11/how-apple-keyboards-lost-a-logo-and-windows-pcs-gained-one/

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brosephius

      It seems they don’t understand why it is useful to draw a distinction
      between control-C, used to cancel an operation in a terminal environment,
      and Command-C, used to copy content in a desktop setting.
    

anyone know what he's referring to? why is it useful to have a distinction?

    
    
      Microsoft also added a special key for opening contextual menus...
      it’s not only superfluous and clumsy for PCs using two button mice,
      but also less elegant than Apple’s convention...
    

I use the context menu key regularly. using a complex app without ever needing
to reach for the mouse is pretty elegant, in my opinion.

    
    
      Microsoft’s contextual menu key is also typically placed on the right
      side of the keyboard, making it even more puzzlingly useless for
      right handed users. They’d have to hit the right side of the keyboard
      with their left hand while pointing the mouse with their right
    

I've never once used the context menu key that way, and that's not even how it
works. it invokes the context menu of whatever element has the focus, not
whatever element is beneath the mouse cursor.

an interesting history with unnecessary and obnoxious editorializing.

~~~
narkee
>anyone know what he's referring to? why is it useful to have a distinction?

I think because on Windows those two very different operations are overloaded
onto the same key combo, and there could be situations where in context it is
ambiguous which one would be invoked.

~~~
brosephius
ugh, nevermind, I misread the text. I read it has pressing control+c to copy
text, not to cancel something. so the distinction does make sense.

though I still don't like how you can't copy and paste files with cmd+c/cmd+v
in os x :)

~~~
Kadin
> though I still don't like how you can't copy and paste files with
> cmd+c/cmd+v in os x :)

You can remap the Command key to the physical Ctrl key on your keyboard if you
want; this makes some muscle-memory actions a bit more smooth across
platforms.

In general -- and I'm not sure what the official / historical word from Apple
is -- I've always thought that the Command key came about because Apple wanted
a different key for commands that the OS could intercept, without stepping on
any pre-existing application level shortcuts that used Control.

It might have been cleaner had they just kept Command reserved for shortcuts
going to the OS (cut/copy/paste, open/launch, window manipulation, bossing
applications around) and told developers to use Ctrl shortcuts within their
applications. But I'm not sure if that distinction would have been meaningful
to most users.

The Apple HIG on Modifier Keys doesn't give much in the way of rationale for
Command versus Control, except to say:

> Because the Control key is already used by some of the universal access
> features as well as in Cocoa text fields where Emacs-style key bindings are
> often used, it should be used as a modifier key only when necessary.

------
contextfree
The Windows key has become a lot more useful in 7 (and to some extent Vista),
where you have

* win + [left/right arrow] = resize to left/right half of screen

* win + [up arrow] = maximize

* win + shift + [up arrow] = maximize vertically

* win + [down arrow] = minimize

* win + [#N] = invoke Nth-from-left application on taskbar

* win + shift + [#N] = start new instance of Nth-from-left app on taskbar

plus the ability to open the Windows/Start menu and start typing to search.

~~~
lurkinggrue
* Win + P = Change multi monitor setup.

------
Timothee
"the combination of Microsoft’s overwhelmingly powerful monopoly marketing
muscle and its weak and flawed technical contributions. Microsoft has delayed
the progress of new technology into mainstream in far more significant ways"

Isn't that a _bit_ over the top?

------
teilo
Regarding the overloading of Ctrl-C on Windows - The story is actually a bit
more complex.

In DOS, Ctrl-C command was not originally overloaded. Ctrl-Ins was Copy.
Shift-Del was Cut, Shift-Ins was Paste. Both Ctrl-C and Ctrl-Break were abort.
Macs, however, did not originally have the Ins or Del keys, and thus needed
different shortcuts. Besides, Jobs would never have copied DOS. He didn't even
want arrow keys on the original Mac 128K, but finally acquiesced.

As Windows began to mimick the "look and feel" of the Mac OS, they adopted the
use of the Ctrl key as a substitute for the Cmd key. In other words, it was
because Microsoft was copying pre-existing commands from Apple, but
transposing them to Ctrl, that they ended up with ambiguous commands.

Ctrl-Ins and Shift-Ins continued to work for several versions of Windows. At
the same time, newer versions of Word and other Microsoft DOS applications
began to support the newer Windows shortcuts.

Since I was thoroughly used to those shortcuts from my use of QuickBasic and
Word for DOS, I continued to use the original shortcuts in Windows until they
no longer worked, and only then did I switch to Ctrl-X, Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V.

~~~
glhaynes
Good post. The original Mac actually did ship without arrow keys and no
current Apple keyboards have Ins. Not sure how long that's been the case...

------
there
_Most Windows PC users are unaware of the use of either the Windows key or the
contextual menu key, and some PC hardware makers refused to add the keys to
their keyboards, the most notable being IBM._

i seem to recall ibm refusing to do this because of the old windows/os/2 warp
battle. as soon as lenovo bought ibm's thinkpad line, they started putting
windows keys on the keyboards.

~~~
Kadin
That doesn't make a ton of sense; late-model IBM (consumer) computers were
clearly designed to run Windows. While there may be people still bitter about
the OS/2 thing, I think the company as a whole has moved on.

I think that IBM's engineers just thought that the Windows key was dumb,
something that users were unlikely to care about or miss, and not worth
redesigning their keyboards for. So they didn't. Given that the keyboards on
some IBM products (esp. Thinkpads) were one of their defining features, I
can't blame them for not wanting to mess around with it.

Personally I'm in favor of more modifier keys on keyboards, just generally;
although the Windows key is lame in the sense that it's underutilized and
gauche (putting the Windows logo on it), it's nice to have 3 modifiers on a
keyboard in addition to shift. (Plus any hardware modifiers that you need to
simulate a full 101 keys on a laptop.)

~~~
glhaynes
The Windows key came into being around Windows 95, right when Windows and OS/2
were at the height of competition. IBM didn't implement it then (while most of
the rest of the industry did) and then, even once OS/2 was dead, just never
got around to making the change.

------
narkee
>A year later in 1987, IBM released its new vision of the PC, called PS/2; it
only offered a standard port for the mouse and another identical but unique
port for the keyboard, a mistake that would plague PC users for the next two
decades

Hmmm - for as long as I can remember the keyboard ports were colored purple,
and the ones for mice were like a teal. I feel like the frequency of plugging
in one's keyboard/mouse doesn't warrant it being called a plague.

~~~
winthrowe
Perhaps you're not old enough to recall, but that colour coding was indroduced
with the PC97 standard[1], in 1997. While 'plague' is over the top, it was a
great annoyance for a decade.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_System_Design_Guide>

------
awa
I use the logo key a lot in windows. Esp for the 3 shortcuts

Win+E = Opens Explorer

Win+D = Go to desktop

Win+R = Run dialog

~~~
CountHackulus
Win+D is actually toggle desktop. See what happens if you press it twice in a
row.

Win+M = minimize all Win+U = utility manager

~~~
IChrisI
I use Win+D to open things on the desktop without affecting my current window
setup. Win+D, double-click, Win+D quickly before the program opens.

I do try to keep my desktop clean though, I mostly use this on others'
machines.

