Editing 1806: Borrow Your Laptop

{{comic
| number    = 1806
| date      = March 3, 2017
| title     = Borrow Your Laptop
| image     = borrow_your_laptop.png
| titletext = If used with software that could keep up, a scroll wheel mapped to send a stream of 'undo' and 'redo' events could be kind of cool.
}}

==Explanation==
[[White Hat]] asks to borrow [[Cueball|Cueball's]] laptop to view something (possibly a website). Cueball permits this, but immediately begins rattling off a list of very unusual key- and mouse-bindings that he has applied to the device. In the caption, [[Randall]] states that he himself tends to continually re-configure computers that he owns in weird ways, eventually rendering it unusable or at least unpleasant to use for others.

Of the three items in Cueball's list of customizations only the first and half of the second seems like a real and relevant changes.

At first he has programmed the computer so that hitting both shift keys simultaneously will change the keyboard back to QWERTY. The {{w|QWERTY}} keyboard is the standard in the US (as well as some other places using the roman alphabet). This implies that Cueball prefers a different keyboard layout, (most likely the {{w|Dvorak Simplified Keyboard|Dvorak}} keyboard layout, see [[#Trivia|trivia]]), but doesn't need the printed letters to match up with those of the laptop. Cueball would have to make a special customization to make pressing the two shift key trigger this shift (see [[#Trivia|trivia]]). Presumably Cueball can later return to this favorite layout by pressing the shift keys again. 

Cueball tells, in the first part of the second point on the list, that he has changed his keyboard layout so that {{w|capslock}} acts as the {{w|control key}} (Ctrl). Swapping capslock and control is a common thing to do in the world of enlightened users on {{w|Unix}} or for users of the {{w|Emacs}} [https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/MovingTheCtrlKey editor]. The "Caps Lock" key (immediately to the left of the "A" in a traditional layout) is much easier to reach for a touch typist than the more out-of-the-way "Ctrl", and the latter is often used more frequently, especially by programmers. 

However, the second part where Cueball says he has then moved capslock so that it is activated when hitting the {{w|spacebar}} makes no sense. It is quite impractical, as the spacebar is the largest key and it will not gain anything from being used for anything other than spaces, especially not a rarely used key that locks into capital letter mode move when activated. It would make the common accidental application of capslock more likely. And what is worse he doesn't tell White Hat where he has put the space bar function, making it impossible to write a simple text, although he could try to see what the Ctrl keys does now...

Finally Cueball goes out on a limb with an impossible setting, which is that his laptop is setup so that scrolling [[:Category:Time travel|moves through time]] instead of through "space" (as in up and down on the screen). This refers to {{w|spacetime}}, a common model in relativistic physics. The feature in only activated when using {{w|Touchpad#Operation_and_function|two-finger scroll}}, which is often used on {{w|Touchpad|touchpads}}/track pads for laptops as a gesture for scrolling. The title text may suggest that "moving through time" may pertain to undo/redo, or perhaps browser history.

Finally it becomes clear these three settings are not the only important changes, as Cueball's list continues with at least one other point which he doesn't get to finish in the comic. Thus the list may be much longer than four points.

In the title text Randall says that he would actually find a feature where the {{w|scroll wheel}} was mapped to send a stream of {{w|Undo|undo/redo}} commands would be kind of cool. (Notice he is no longer talking about the two-finger scroll from the comic). But only if used with software that could keep up with such a feature. He thus indirectly states that many programs would not be able to keep up. For an example of what this might look like, many digital artists record timelapse footage of their art, which could be thought of as a continuous string of redo commands (occasionally broken up by undo commands whenever the artist needs to correct a mistake).

Outside of art programs, such continuous undo/redo action would produce unexpected and chaotic results. This could also indicate that this was a similar feature that Cueball was referring to when talking about moving through time with the two finger scroll in the main comic. So not as in the computer traveling through time, but rather scrolling through the previous actions performed on the computer, as in moving through the computers past.

People often have reasons to change their keyboard layouts on laptops, due to the reduced keyboard, which can leave vital keys out. Rather than change the keyboard layout all the time in order to access keys which are not accessible in one of the layouts, one can take advantage of text substitution and keyboard remapping programs to set shortcuts for keys they use often.

==Transcript==
:[White Hat walks toward Cueball's desk pointing at his laptop while looking back at Cueball standing behind him.]
:White Hat: Can I load it up on your laptop?
:Cueball: Sure!
:Cueball: Oh, just hit both shift keys to change over to QWERTY.
:Cueball: Caps lock is control. And spacebar is capslock.
:Cueball: And two-finger scroll moves through time instead of space.
:Cueball: And–

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Once I've used a computer for a while, no one else will ever use it again.

==Trivia==
*It has been a recurrent theme for Randall to refer to the {{w|Dvorak Simplified Keyboard|Dvorak}} keyboard layout, and, although he doesn't say so, it seems safe to assume that this is the current setting, as it is one of the most common QWERTY competitors, and has been [[:Category:Dvorak|repeatedly referenced]] in xkcd. 
:Supporters claim that typing speed is faster on a Dvorak keyboard, although this is still contentious, and this is a reason Randall often makes jokes about it as can be seen in the category referenced above. 
*The laptop most likely has a standard QWERTY keyboard, but if Cueball can type blindly in Dvorak he would not be troubled by the fact that the keys typed a different letter than what is on the keyboard's key. 
*In the comic [[1787: Voice Commands]], which directly references Dvorak, Cueball is shown to be able to speak the QWERTY version of a Dvorak keyboard layout, proving that he really knows by heart the relation between these two settings used on a QWERTY keyboard layout.
:The same problem would arise if the computer is set to another language than the keyboard layout, which often happens in countries where more than one language is common.
*The shift key is a modifier key and in general it requires a second non modifier key to trigger an action. Furthermore the user interfaces in most operation systems don't distinguish between the left and right shift key.
:Nevertheless by doing some registry hacking (Windows) or editing configuration text files (UNIX/Linux) it is possible to reach Cueball's approach. The simpler and operating system independent approach would be to use a programmable keyboard, such as a keyboard using QMK firmware [https://qmk.fm/]
:A typical classic configuration for the shift key in Windows is by pressing one of the shift keys five times in a row it turns on a ''Sticky Key'' notice, where the ''Ease of access center'' enables people with for instance only one hand to be able to reach Ctrl+Alt+Delete or other combinations on which two hands are needed.
*A day after the release of this comic, a user on reddit [http://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/5xi92h/a_scroll_wheel_mapped_to_send_a_stream_undo_and/ suggested] a way to make the undo-redo-scrolling work in emacs using undo-tree. It uses shift-scrolling to avoid conflicts with normal scrolling.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Time travel]]
[[Category:Time]]