I just lost another post to Bill Gates. I was almost done typing up a response. And not a short one, either. And then I accidently pressed the control button. Sometimes, that’s not a problem. This time, it was. For you see, the next two characters I typed were “a” and “t”. The “a”, which apparently I hit before releasing the ctrl button, activated the “select all” macro. As in my entire post. The “t” button, as does every character which follows a “select all” command, replaced the post. Now, maybe my anger is misplaced. Maybe this is a convention which precedes Windows. But apparently someone decided that it would be a good idea to allow a single key, when followed by the THIRD MOST COMMON LETTER in the English language, and then ANY LETTER AT ALL, to wipe out EVERYTHING the user is currently working on. Okay, so Apple’s decision to allow the user to shut down the computer with just ONE keystroke was even stupider. But this one really ranks up there with Stupidest Ideas In Computing. And yes, I did just figue out that “ctrl-v” restores the post. Silly me for not figuring that out earlier. But you know, when I think of the disadvantages of typewriters, “lacks a ‘destroy current document’ key” isn’t something that leaps to mind.
How do you accidently hold down the control key and manage to type two letters while you’re still holding it? I’ve never done that. Do you have an odd typing style or something?
For the hell of it, I just tried doing what you did. CTRL-a selects all the letters, but CTRL-t does nothing (but I suppose if I’d have been typing the word “axe” when I held down CTRL, I would have had your problem.) I’m using Windows 2000 with IE 5.5.
I think he hit ctrl-a and then t.
When you say ctrl-v restores it do you mean you had it copied just in case, or you meant ctl-z (undo)?
But yes, that is freakin’ annoying.
Uhhhhhh, undo?
Internet Explorer doesn’t undo friedo so if you select all and type something the post is gone if it isn’t in the clipboard.
Also I’d like to say that Apple changed the power off button a long time ago to a shut-down/sleep/restart button that pops up a little window asking you which you want to do and offering a cancel.
Well, Ctrl-A is something I use all the time. I’ve always assumed it stood for select All. What key combination would you suggest they should have chosen?
Frankly I like the fact that the Ctrl-key combinations that I use most often are clustered around the left Ctrl key.
Also, I just noticed that although Internet Explorer doesn’t have an Undo function on it’s menu, Ctrl-Z does work.
neutron star
I’m not sure, it usually happens too quick. But one way it if I want a capital “a” and press the ctrl button instead of the shift.
Yes.
Apparently, if you press ctrl-v before putting anything else into the clipboard, it puts the text back.
bnorton:
Actually, I suppose it’s not ctrl-a by itself that annoys me. It’s the fact that typing anything while the text is selected deletes the text, and it’s so easy to select the text. My suggestion would be to keep the ctrl-A, but make ctrl-x the only way to delete it. And maybe put something that alerts the user. It took me a while to catch on to what was happening; the whole thing can happen in less than a second, and so I don’t see the text getting selected. One moment it’s there, the next it’s not, and I’m just left wondering what happened to my post. I guess now that I know what’s happening, it won’t be such a problem, but before it was really frustrating to have a post disappear, and no indication where it went.
Just checked then - Ctrl-Z as undo (and Ctrl-Y as un-undo) work on my version of IE.
Who uses the control keys for typing, anyway? Special commands are what mice and menus are for.
Slow people use it… cause it is faster than the mouse.
My version doesn’t. I feel so lame.
I type about 80 wpm and I use keyboard shortcuts because they’re faster than taking my hand away from the keyboard to use the mouse. 
t
Well, first, this is about the lamest rant I have ever read. Second, IIRC the keyboard shortcuts started with Unix so blaming Bill just doesn’t work.
Third, The Ryan your lack of typing skills is not Bill Gates fault. I use keyboard shortcuts all the time but I know what I am doing. I never have any problems.
Forth, you may want to clean your keyboard. I have dealt with many situations where a ctrl key or a shift key was stuck due to dirt-grime in the keyboard.
Last, if you still can’t type on a standard keyboard with as many posts as you have, maybe you should pick up a pencil and admit that computers are just over your head.
Slee,
::Wondering what happens if I use CTRL-IDIOT. Would all the idiots disappear?::
I love those shortcuts. I use them constantly! Hardly a day goes by that I don’t use at least one of them, usually many times.
The only thing about the keyboard I don’t like is the Caps Lock, which does not need to be where it is, and can quite safely be moved over to sit beside the Num Lock and Scroll Lock, instead of being right next to the shift key where you can aCCIDENTALLY hIT iT wITHOUT rEALISING and render a sentence into shouting.
I hates that, I does.
And here I was, wondering when someone was gonna do that. You have now killed the suspense for me. Thank you.
Same here - I use as many keyboard shortcuts as I can. As a power-user of several complex applications, it slows me down badly when I have to use the mouse.
I don’t use the mouse for any the following: CTRL-A select all; CTRL-C copy; CTRL-V paste; CTRL-X cut; CTRL-Z undo; CTRL-Y redo (in some apps); CTRL-SHIFT-Z redo (in other apps); CTRL-Q quit; CTRL-W shut window; CTRL-O open file; and the most important of all - I hit CTRL-S out of habit every minute or so to keep my files saved up to date. Then there are dozens of application-specific shortcuts that I use (e.g. in Photoshop, to save for the Web, you hit CTRL-SHIFT-ALT-S). They really, really speed one’s work up.
BTW, I tried what The Ryan said he did in the OP, using W2000 and IE6, and CTRL-Z restored the post fine.
a) You can’t blame Bill for this one. He stole it from Apple. Command-A has been “Select All” since, I dunno, the heyday of SuperPaint and Ashton-Tate FullWrite? Back when you PC users were staring at a green or amber characters-only display, at any rate. The early versions of Microsoft Word (before Word 6 at any rate) had oddball keystroke equivalents. Beginning with the version of Microsoft Office (4?) that contained Word 6 and Excel 5, though, the Windows versions started using the same keystroke equivs that the Mac versions had always used, substituting the Control key for the Mac’s Command key. Thus: Control-X (cut), C (copy), V (paste), P (print), Z (undo), A (select all), N (new document), S (save document). For unknown reasons, Microsoft did not also apply Q (quit program) and left the old DOS-era legacy keystroke command Alt-F4 in place, and I’m not sure about W (close window, i.e., close the document without quitting the program), I don’t see it used in that many Windows programs today and I don’t remember for sure about Word for Windows 6.
b) Geez, how long have you been using the computer that you don’t know about Undo? Not knowing about Undo is like not realizing you can edit what you wrote in your word processor! (I find myself thinking “Cmd-Z” a lot in real life, if only it worked there too…)
It all comes, as near as I can tell, from Wordstar.
http://www.wordstar.org/wordstar/history/history.htm
Yes, as I said in the OP, I feel kinda silly for not realizing that ctrl-v would fix it. But the problem was that the posts kept disappearing without any indication of what happened; I didn’t know if I did it, or my computer, or Explorer, or what. Once I tried thinking of ways that I could have done it, I came up with (what I think) is the right answer.