IHatetheCapsLockKey.com and Highlander ASP.NET Development
30 Jul
I’ve been a long hater of the CapsLock key. I finally decided to something about it.
http://www.ihatethecapslockkey.com
I built the website with Highlander — and it was pathetically easy to do using MasterPages. The page is currently pure design (i.e. all HTML and CSS), but I’ll be updating it to use BlackFish SQL — the new name for what you may have known as “nDatastore”. It was really fun to develop — especially since we have made it really, really easy to create CSS-based layout applications. That’s a cool new feature we’ll be showing off in coming days.
Anyway, feel free to run the little app and rescue yourself from the tyranny of the CapsLock key.
Added: Hehe, changed the title.
I suggest adding the option to turn CapsLock into a Control key, and to swap CapsLock and Control. I use the former method (the old fashioned way; by RegEditing) but I know some Emacs fiends who like the latter.
Incidentally, I have a useful Firefox extension that tells me instantly when there are HTML errors and warnings on a page, and it says there are plenty just on the page you did. If you want to do CSS layout, the most essential first step is to produce valid HTML; otherwise CSS simply won’t work properly. And while I’m nitpicking (I’m a fan, really!) I’d point out that inlining your CSS is a bad idea, for the same reason that merging your database, business rules and UI code into the one Delphi unit is a bad idea.
July 30th, 2007 at 5:05 pmThat’s a lot of hate (mind you, Network solutions has a nice 10 year package that makes your hate longer lived and more hassle free!)
A thought about that domain registration tho… Add on features can be mighty handy… I’m thinking that whole private registration thing…
John has a nice house…
July 30th, 2007 at 6:06 pmNo offense, but I wouldn’t use that website as a testimonial for Highlander. The oversized fonts and garish color scheme just scream amateur.
Yes, I am well aware that poor designs and the toolsets used to create them are two entirely separate things, but I’m not the one who needs convincing.
July 30th, 2007 at 9:30 pmNick, you may make other Highlander beta tester jealous. Hey, according to NDA, they cannot blog about what they create with Highlander, while you, an employee of CodeGear, claims your creation on you blog.
Wish you could again select beta testers to claim their experiences with Highlander soon.
July 30th, 2007 at 11:15 pmNick, your www.ihatethecapslockkey.com site looks fancy, some will like the layout, others will not
But it is what it is: a Web*site* - even if it has Blackfish (which is gonna be cool, btw) as data backend.
For Web*applications* there will be something better in Highlander - I forgot its name though
July 30th, 2007 at 11:32 pmAs the previous comment stated that IS a lot of hate. Have you never used the ToggleKeys feature under the Keyboard section of Control Panel? It beeps at you if/when you hit Caps Lock in error.
Since discovering it I no longer have any beef with poor old "Caps Lock"
July 31st, 2007 at 12:49 amThe site design is really "html for dummies" - any good OS web site framework has much better themes (see Drupal, for example) and I am afraid VS are too.
July 31st, 2007 at 5:56 amNick, I’m wonder how long you’ll be able to claim that the program runs on any version of Windows, including Windows 95. According to the Delphi 2007 data sheet, it doesn’t support deployment on NT4 or any of the 9x series.
July 31st, 2007 at 7:27 amThe title of this post shows why English is not used as a programming language. It can be read in two quite different ways: 1. I Hate Both the CapsLock Key and Highlander ASP.NET Development 2. I Hate the CapsLock Key and I Have Some Comments on Highlander ASP.NET Development. I initially read it the first way but I’m sure you meant it the second way.
July 31st, 2007 at 7:41 amdon’t have much thoughts on the caps lock key, but I do on grammatical errors… in the application you wrote "there is is, sitting right there…"
July 31st, 2007 at 9:11 amjust thought I’d point that out.
How about tweaking your utility to allow the ‘insert’ key to be disabled as well? I’m forever hitting it instead of the ‘delete’ key and I can’t remember the last time I actually wanted to overtype something.
July 31st, 2007 at 11:52 pmJust to echo the earlier comment on inline css being bad practice compared to an external stylesheet. Wouldnt normally be finicky but text did extol how great the CSS support was in highlander so I did a view source.
Would be interested to compare the CSS support in Highlander to the latest Microsoft VS 2008 beta though ( which also has new HTML/CSS editing nices ). We need competition to keep vendors improving the development tools. Will take a look when reviews are out.
August 1st, 2007 at 4:25 amHave you used your mind?
August 7th, 2007 at 9:10 pmWhy dont you pull out the capslock from the keyboard