Ask Lemmy

With emulators mostly.

My keyboard has two shift keys. I don't think I've ever used the right shift key, not even for usage with emulators for consoles with a lot of buttons... the modifier is always the left shift key since it's closest to my left hand and I can have my right hand on the other side where the arrow keys are. The arrow keys, WASD, Z, X, A, S, Q,W, 1, 2 etc have always been sufficient for most games.

Which one is the wrong one?

I have literally only ever used the right shift key when playing, like, two different games. Both were simulations with insane amounts of controls. One is ARMA, and the other was a flight sim.

I used it because it had a function bound to it that wasn't on the left shift.

Edit: Oh and I think there was a pinball game on DOS that used both shift keys to operate the flippers.

I had to type a bit to check, but found that I mostly use the right shift if the letter I'm capitalizing is on the left side of the keyboard. Oddly, it wasn't 100% though.

Left shift only works for games

Right shift is for typing

I only use it when I have food in one hand and can't reach the desired key + left shift with my other hand.

My brain refuses to remember that they there are any utility keys below the enter on a US keyboard. The right pinky moves over and up, never down. I also never hit the spacebar with my right hand.

I never formally learned to type, I just picked it up because my hands have been glued to keyboards since the 80s.

yep when game controls wasn t with wasd u have to use arrow keys to move the player

only for keybinds that use shift and some other keys that are a little to far away from Lshift on my keyboard.

I rebound it, I never use it

So, everyone who said "no" never learned how to type or what?

I use the right Shift key to capitalize when touch-typing. I only use left Shift for Ctrl+Shift+Esc.

Yes, ofc! I have it switched to the up-arrow on my 60%.
Otherwise no.

Yeah, pretty sure i use it for capitalising symbols on the right of the keyboard.

In fact, i think i might use it for some of the symbols above the numbers, too.

I need to get in front of a keyboard and find out.

yes it gives me access to "%", which is handy for string interpolation

Never. I exclusively use my left thumb for the space bar, too.

I could probably type faster if I fixed those issues, but 30 years of bad habits die hard.

I rarely use the key as shift. It's reassigned to a different function when tapped and that's what I use it for most of the time.

Yes, when doing Ctrl+Insert to copy then Shift+Insert to paste

Yes, but I don't use the right control key.

I also don't use the right alt key, except for keyboards where I don't have a menu key, and don't use it as alt in that case. In both cases, I bind that to Compose.

Yes, but not as often as the left.

While touch typing, I pretty much always use the left shift key. To type "A" for example I slid my hand over one set of keys and pressed the A key with my ring finger. Right shift ends up used mostly with the punctuation marks to the right, like I actually move my entire right hand down to hit shift and ?

I also strike T, Y and B with different hands depending on what I'm typing.

There may be some other eccentricities but I do mostly touch type properly, asdfjkl; and all that.

I use it to wake my computer up when the display is off.

That red-headed step-child? No way.

No, never. My keyboard doesn't even have one (40%)

Never because I can reach left shift with my pinky from basically anywhere on the keyboard

Yes but only occasionally. I have them mapped as space cadet shift keys so left shift key is ( on tap and shift on hold, right shift key is ) on tap and shift on hold.

I use ( a lot but my ide normally adds the ) for me so I don't need it as much for that.

Also, I use left shift for most capitals as I rarely gpt further than ; on the right side of the keyboard.

Smaller keyboards I have shift on hold of A and L as I don't have dedicated shift keys kn those.

Sure, if I'm inputting data with the Numpad.