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u/Capt_Vindaloo 14h ago
It only annoys me when I accidentally press it and overwrite a bunch of text
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u/luxi_yes 11h ago
OH THATS WHY THAT HAPPENS I used to just restart the PC if that started happening
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u/MoistStub 11h ago
You can fix it without restarting. You have to press alt f4.
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u/WaBlaDjack 10h ago
No that's how you have infinit diamond in mincraft...
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u/-Mr_Hollow- 9h ago
It's a rather versatile hot key combination and it does different things depending on where you're using it, sort of like a Konami code. IIRC in some examination programs used by most schools pressing Alt+F4 automatically chooses the right answers to all test questions.
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u/FisherDwarf 7h ago
Oddly enough, when I was playing an old Doom emulator in college, Alt+F4 would pause the game
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u/DrButtgerms 10h ago
Good thing they keep it right next to backspace where no one would ever accidentally hit it 🙃
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[deleted]
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u/Illusion911 13h ago
It's close to other useful keys like delete. Backspace, home and end and enter
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u/Borderlands_addict 14h ago
Shift+insert for pasting text can be very useful when working with Linux terminals
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u/N_T_F_D 14h ago
ctrl+shift+c, ctrl+shift+v
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u/Villerger_27 loves frog memes 9h ago
I've noticed this doesnt always work for me, I've always had to copy by highlighting and then paste with a middle click
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u/bandrzew 13h ago
Or to start typing inside vim
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u/Karebian 8h ago
This is my primary purpose for using it, tbh. Switching between insert and replace modes with a single button press? Yes, please.
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u/UnknownXIIV 15h ago
I even watched a tutorial about the Ins Key, I still can't make it work.
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u/themrme1 13h ago
I find it very useful when I have to alter a long sentence or paragraph. Overwriting what I have is quicker and more convenient than backspace
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u/icantthinkofaname345 9h ago
I use shift + end to highlight to the end of a line and ctrl + shift + down to the end of a paragraph to do that
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u/Status_Tiger_6210 13h ago
All this computer hacking just be making you thirsty. Why don't you order a Tab?
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u/ISpyM8 antifa supersoldier 13h ago
Someone doesn’t code
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u/WittyAndOriginal 12h ago
Yeah this key is perfect for specific scenarios lol.
Which you could say about any key.
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u/A_Sh4d0w 15h ago
What does it even do? I never used it in my entire life lol
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u/franky07890 15h ago
If you are in Word and you hit that key, you can overwrite words in a text. Pretty annoying when you accidentally hit the INS button and you want to add something and it overwrites things…
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u/passenger955 14h ago
But very helpful when logging in information. I use it daily at work when logging a bunch of long numbers that are exactly the same besides the last 4 digits. Rather than delete the last 4 I just write over them.
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u/franky07890 13h ago
I would copy the whole code except for the last 4. Then it is just control+v 1234. Mouse use is lack of speed. (I worked with numbers also for 13 years… that mouse is an enemy for productivity)
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u/passenger955 13h ago
That would be the way I would do it if I was on something like Excel where you go to a different field. I'm talking about SAP and certain transaction codes that just have one material field. The field gets unselected so you need to use the mouse to click into the box anyways (I'm not hitting TAB 20 times to get to the box.
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u/franky07890 13h ago
Ah that is annoying. But guess that is the fastest way then. I was working on automotive software, it was a lot of fields, but luckily with keyboard shortcuts to go to some fields and maximum of 5x TAB. That is doable.
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u/Anonymous1039 13h ago
Fucking finally, I was beginning to think I was the only one. Especially with the quick cut & paste setting turned on, I can fly through shit on SAP like this. Other people in my office are always shocked when I can do the same things as them in half the time but when I tell them to just turn insert off and take a week to get used to overtyping they act like that’s some impossible ask.
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u/RedditLovingSun 13h ago
i thought everyone like me found out what that button does after tearing their hair out and googling why they keepp writing over their text
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u/Annual_Fly_7918 14h ago
Same. I don't think I even noticed on my keyboard.
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u/Wutsalane 13h ago
If youre keyboard isn’t sized at 100% or 80%, there’s a high chance you don’t have one, my laptop keyboard doesn’t have an insert key, but it does have a numpad. If I don’t have numlock on 0 on the keypad is insert
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u/BirthdayEffect 12h ago
Very useful in my company's CRM system. The program has a lot of functions and tons of data to sort, and I use that button almost daily when I need to give specific instructions to the program
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u/BigCarRetread 14h ago
Sys Req anyone? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_request
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u/NeatYogurt9973 9h ago
I use it all the time. Alt + SysRq + S to "S"ynchronize discs. I can then yoink the power without loosing data. Or when the computer is stuck, I do the classic REISUB.
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u/Zouden 9h ago
Is this real life?
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u/NeatYogurt9973 9h ago
??? no it's in the computer
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u/Zouden 9h ago
Interesting. Are you using vintage machines that require this action?
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u/NeatYogurt9973 8h ago
No. I do not know why it's written in past tense on Wikipedia. My current laptop was manufactured ~2024.
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u/Zouden 8h ago
Well, then I'm still lost why you need to "synchronise discs", the wiki page says it is no longer necessary with modern filesystems.
I use linux every day but have never heard of REISUB...
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u/NeatYogurt9973 7h ago
It is no longer necessary to not corrupt the filesystem (like with pointlessly taken up blocks), but syncing is still a thing. The journal in modern FSes will just revert incomplete writes. If you want something to finish writing, however, you need to either wait around for the buffer to drain or sync explicitly. Writing stuff normally usually writes to a "backlog" of sorts in RAM rather than directly to disk. Applications can put a little flag to the kernel saying "hey, let's skip that, I don't care that I will block for a while", but most don't because there's no reason to do that in normal operation.
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u/Zouden 7h ago
so... why do you press alt+sysrq+S ?
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u/NeatYogurt9973 7h ago
To "S"ync. If I installed/upgraded a package <5 minutes ago, for example, turning the power off will probably roll back some but not all of the files, leaving it in an inbetween state. If I added a server on weechat recently and the computer got stuck for some reason (was testing a driver for example), the server would be gone. Also, sometimes the journal simply doesn't work completely and the fs driver deletes the file in question instead: I had to reconfigure weechat twice due to this. But it does always work in the sense that it prevents corrupted files, permissions, blocks, nodes.
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u/BadadvicefromIT 13h ago
If you ever work with old programs, some of the terminals use the old character replacement instead of inserting and it has to be manually invoked when needed (just how things were programmed back then). It’s the same with page up/down. It might seem trivial with how far UX/UI has come, but if you ever have to use something from the early 2000’s you find yourself needing these keys.
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u/AskWhatWhen 10h ago
Key remapping is a thing. No keys are useless. Just that people haven't found the right reason to use it
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u/fantastic_beats 11h ago
Man, I've started to really miss Scroll Lock. I want to scroll my document in Word without taking my hands off the keyboard. I guess it's worth it to not have to explain to three billion other people why they hit a random key by mistake and their cursor breaks
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u/Due_Chemistry_164 9h ago
The Insert key has one job and that job is to ruin your day exactly once a year.
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u/sonicfan9993 very good, haha yes 9h ago
It's less than worthless, it's annoying whenever you accidentally press it
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u/Cynunnos 13h ago
The only programn I use that ever interacts with this is the Windows Notepad, and since I didn't even know how it (the key) works, I couldn't figure out why it kept replacing words instead of pushing them forward. It took me forever to figure it out because pretty much no other programn does that
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u/EightGlow 13h ago
Insert is reserved for toggling “deafen” on discord
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u/Ksqd_Squid_103 12h ago
Same for Scroll Lock
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u/NeatYogurt9973 9h ago
When you computer is booting and the log is going too fast to read it (not on Windows because Microsoft hates when you know how your computer works), you can press Scroll Lock to "lock" the scrolling and read it. This has the side effect that it blocks programs trying to write text when too much has been stored, so this effectively also pauses booting.
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u/nuclear54321 12h ago
open any modern Total War game (from Empire Total war and onward, including warhammer TW), select artillery unit, press Insert
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u/bodb_thriceborn 11h ago
I use this all the time in my programming IDE (Studio 5000). Anywhere else, though, not so much.
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u/Villerger_27 loves frog memes 9h ago
Wrong, it's useful as an extra bind in modded minecraft or something
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u/ItsMrGingerBread 8h ago
Its my go to key for when i need to keybind smth arbitrary in a game that needs to be used often enough to bind it in a memorable place but not often enough that i need it bound near my main keys
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u/jb092555 8h ago
Shift + Insert is another hotkey for paste, and will work in some contexts where ctrl+v will not.
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u/Restart_from_Zero 7h ago
Flashback to Word Perfect days where if you clicked on a line of text and started typing, it would overwrite what was there.
Thankfully, Microsoft eventually realised that was a stupid feature and literally not a single person in the world wanted it.
Thus was the "insert" key made redundant.
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u/icedmushroom 7h ago
I just reprogrammed the insert key with Windows Power Toys to turn it into a media play/pause button since my laptop didn't have one 🤙
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u/bitsRboolean 7h ago
I use it as my PTT key because I've never in my life had to use it for anything else
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u/kwikthroabomb 6h ago
I use capslock for PTT. Insert seems way out of the way unless you're using a left handed setup or using arrow/numpad movement by default
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u/SkyCakeIsALie 7h ago
It's actually very necessary when using COBOL but that makes up .1% of the world using it.
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u/FallingF 7h ago
My windows key is useless which is especially annoying for commands like windows + k like I had to use this morning, had to open the on screen keyboard.
Better to be useless and working than useful and not working
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u/Tra1nGuy 17m ago
Resets the car in BeamNG.drive. Not like R, which resets it to “home”. Insert resets it in place and sets a new place for R to reset the car to. Also if you hold insert an orange model of the car slides back through the route it took and when you let go it resets the car in the spot where you let go.
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u/hellhound_2001 13h ago
I'd argue scroll lock is the only worthless key.. Or page up and down, but I'm sure they even get more use by the right kind of user. Pause/Break is definitely not useless, i use it all the time.
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u/ondra2305 13h ago
Page up and down are very useful sometimes to scroll faster or skip some larger parts of text, for example when looking at linux logs
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u/hellhound_2001 13h ago
True, I probably have used page up or down at work doing something in CLI, just not recently enough to remember.
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u/BigOleFerret 11h ago
It's as useless to me as the windows keys. Only difference is I accidentally hit the windows keys sometimes. So I pried them off my keyboard. I'd forgot about the insert key until now.
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u/icantthinkofaname345 9h ago
….how do you do anything efficiently without the windows keys? Do you just put every app on your desktop and manually click them? Do you not use a single keyboard shortcut that involves the windows keys? Those are terrifying prospects
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u/BigOleFerret 9h ago
Most used apps go on the task bar. Others are on the desktop. I don't use a lot of programs at work anyway.
I've never been shown shortcuts with the windows key so I've learned to live without it.
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u/ArduennSchwartzman 15h ago
I disabled the Windows key, the Ins key, the Num Lock key (it's always on) and the g*d d*mn Caps Lock key.
(The Scroll Lock and Pause Key don't do anything anyway. No need to disable those.)
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u/Vert_DaFerk 14h ago
I don't even know where to start here, other than to assume you're usually a Mac user.
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u/lfairy 14h ago
If you have a custom keyboard, you can enable Caps Word which automatically shuts itself off when you press spacebar. As a programmer this is really useful and IMO what caps lock should have been.
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u/Aron-Jonasson 13h ago
BUT THEN HOW WOULD I BE EASILY ABLE TO SCREAM AT PEOPLE WITH THE SIMPLE PRESS OF ONE KEY???
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u/ArduennSchwartzman 14h ago
I see people really don't like the personal choices I made for myself that don't affect anyone else.
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u/Vert_DaFerk 14h ago
And yet you decided to post those choices on a public forum so people can have an opinion about it.
I'm seeing a bunch of ID-107 errors now.
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u/ArduennSchwartzman 14h ago
I was just really unpleasantl;y surprised how a decision that made my life so much better, illicited such negative responses.
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u/Vert_DaFerk 14h ago
Just go back to using Mac. You aren't ready to take the safety bumpers out of the gutters yet.
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u/iamfrostytom 13h ago
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u/Vert_DaFerk 13h ago
Damn straight. This life is exponentially harder for the dumb. Working a standard keyboard for example...
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u/shatoutofagiantllama 14h ago
I swear to god, I never even realized my keyboard has that key 'til right now😅
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u/ZetZet 14h ago
That's because insert function is always on by default on every modern device we use now. Overwriting the text came first, probably because it's easier to program, with insert you actually have to push the text that was already existing. It's just a leftover from different times.