I see no use for the numlock key, I’d rather just have the numpad on the whole time. Are there actually cases where it is useful or people who for some reason prefer their numpad turned off?

  • @[email protected]
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    62 years ago

    Yes, there are arrows on the numeric keyboard which can be used for various reasons, also home and end buttons.

    • @[email protected]
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      42 years ago

      Right, but do you ever turn num lock off? I think the OP was trying to say it should just be stuck on because why would you use those arrow, home/end/pg up/etc buttons that kick in if num lock is off?

  • @[email protected]
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    162 years ago

    I can be useful. If NumLock is turned off you can use 2, 4, 6, and 8 as arrow keys for example. Although with most modern programs you can easily rebind keys so it’s more a thing of the past, like the “Pause” button.

      • @[email protected]
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        112 years ago

        I have never seen pause used that way for modern games. Most of them just use Escape instead, with pause being left for lower-system things like the REISUB sequence.

        • Fleppensteyn
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          22 years ago

          Don’t know what to tell you, for me it often works. Maybe give it a try? Esc usually brings you to the menu, which implies pausing, but it’s separate from pause key.

      • @[email protected]
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        32 years ago

        I am an avid gamer and have never used that button to pause a game. Escape is the go to for that, no?

  • @[email protected]
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    92 years ago

    I can’t even remember when I would’ve needed the arrow keys on the numpad.

    My keyboard has also SysRq, Scroll lock and Pause/Break keys on top of the numpad, never needed any of them.

  • @[email protected]
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    2 years ago

    It depends on if you are a heavy mouse user or a heavy keyboard user and you are using a laptop with a restricted keyboard. Personally to scroll a document I prefer the buttons page up/down home/end. Often I also use those buttons to select big parts of a file that I want to copy. E. g. Shift+Ctrl+End form me is a useful combination. On the other hand I rarely use the numeric pad for numbers, but I also feel more comfortable typing with the left hand, I guess that a lot more people heavy keyboard user would prefer the numeric pad.

    Yes the mouse is changing the habits for a lot of people, but the numlock may still be useful for some.

  • @[email protected]
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    22 years ago

    I don’t think I’ve ever used numlock for anything other than “oh shit, I must have accidentally hit it when I was entering numbers via 10 key so I need to turn it off.

  • @[email protected]
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    2 years ago

    I think it is still is useful, as some software still hasn’t figured out how to turn on numlock automatically, and for a few applications number pad scrolling can be better than the arrow keys, but it is probably less useful than the scroll lock key at this point.

  • Untitled_Pribor
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    52 years ago

    Yes. On my keyboard there’s no separate “end” key, it’s part of 3 on the numpad, that key is very useful when using the terminal, because you don’t need to wait for 5 years for the cursor to make it to the end of your command.

      • @[email protected]
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        32 years ago

        emacs?! set -o vi unless you just want to see the world burn

        (I’m kidding, I use the emacs shortcuts in bash, but vim is my goto text editor)

        • WalrusDragonOnABike
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          22 years ago

          If you have keyboard software, you might be able to use that. I use autohotkey for reassigning keys. The script would be:

          SetNumLockState, AlwaysOn
          NumLock::End
          
          

          For windows,
          Just put it in a txt file after installing AHK and use .ahk at the end of the file name. There’s a way to make it the default script, but I think but I use just task scheduler to make it start on boot/login.

  • @[email protected]
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    52 years ago

    Never used it, really inconvenient. Stays off here and now you gave me an idea to rebind to something useful.

  • @[email protected]
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    142 years ago

    I have a smaller keyboard that doesn’t have dedicated arrow keys, or any of the home, page up, etc. They’re all on the numpad, so numlock for me is very useful.

  • justanotherjo
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    62 years ago

    no use whatsoever. this is an artifact from the days when the arrows, etc. did not exist as separate keys.

  • key
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    72 years ago

    It’s useful if you enable Mouse Keys mode. Which is useful if you find yourself without a working mouse for one reason or another.

  • wjrii
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    62 years ago

    For a full size, 104-key PC keyboard, everything that is mapped to the numpad is also somewhere else, and the keys are spaced out enough that you’d almost never need to turn off the numpad, so the key is just there for oddball legacy apps that do weird stuff. It was more important before IBM released the fully “modern” 101-key Model M.

    For laptop keyboards and other reduced format keyboards that still include all or part of a numpad, it can still be useful. I actually use autohotkeys instead, but one of my budget mechanical keyboards only has the non-arrow nav keys and the rest are accessed by turning off NumLock.

  • pinchcramp
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    2 years ago

    I haven’t used numlock in years but I remember that for certain games that you played with the arrow keys, I preferred to use the arrows on the numpad instead of the dedicated ones.

    And according to Wikipedia, the reason why numlock exists in the first place is the fact that certain keyboards didn’t have dedicated arrow keys, but did have a numpad. I guess numlock on full-sized keyboards is just a relic that keyboard manufacturers are schlepping around because it’s cheap enough to produce and doesn’t really hurt 🤷

    • Bill
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      152 years ago

      You can still get some mechanical keyboards with numpads but not arrow keys, though since these are variations on compact layouts they tend to omit the numlock key as well.

      • pinchcramp
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        92 years ago

        Interesting. Most compact keyboards I’ve seen save space by removing the numpad, not the arrow keys. I assume you can emulate arrow keys by pressing some modifier key on those?

        • Bill
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          62 years ago

          Exactly that. Royal Kludge makes one.

          I think it’s a good layout. I have a tenkeyless at home and for some tasks I definitely miss the number pad more than I’d miss the arrow keys, especially since the number pad by design doubles as arrow keys and always has. I’ve seen even smaller keyboards that have numpads but not the number row, which would also be sweet. Reclaim some vertical deskspace as well as horizontal.