Are ya ready kids?!
Imagine you are disabled and only have the use of one finger.
How do you press "Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V"?
Stickykeys allows you to use your one functioning finger to press Ctrl then release it, then press C and release it, and you'll have done the equivalent of pressing both at the same time.
I use it to mine continuously in Minecraft without having to hold the mouse button myself.
TIL what sticky keys is used for
yeah, the fact that we all know if it but none of us knew what it did is still kind of a failure. if the pop up defined sticky keys it might actually have seen some use in everyday life. like i might actually start using that when I'm on the phone at work and need to do stuff on the computer at the same time. assuming it's still easily accessible in Windows 11.
People with disabilities exist, and they use computers too.
EDIT: love the unimaginative and annoying replies that rather than use their brain and contribute would instead throw insults. A person with low hand dexterity, like for instance people with paralysis, upper limb amputees of all kinds and people who use computers alternatively, like with their feet, or alternative keyboards and hardware adapters can initiate common key chords with this feature. For instance, common ones like ctrl+c ctrl+v, by pressing the key five times, then the letters. It is stopped by pressing the sticky key again. It's a good basic feature that enabled the use of computers for people who are usually ignored and undervalued by the tech industry. If you are a person with a disability you're likely to already know this while ignorant ableists, as in this meme, usually act as if it is some kind of alien function. It is not, people had to fight tooth and nail to get even this basic shit out the OS back in the day.
EDIT2: How about we all learn something new and interesting together instead of fighting.
I really think it's less "I don't understand and hate this accessibility feature" than "why is my computer suddenly interrupting what I'm doing to announce a feature I don't need?" The press-5-times thing is the problem. Why would a mobility-limited person even think that was how you turn it on, rather than say... knowing where in the Config panel it is, or turning it on during the computer's initial setup?
Computers also don't default to having a screen reader going, TVs don't usually default to having captions turned on (I'd personally love this being the norm, haha). It's a strange option to suddenly activate due to an arcane key combo. It'd be like turning on the magnifier because you quad-clicked on something.
Why would a mobility-limited person even think that was how you turn it on?
Because it is a standard PC feature codified by ISO, present in all computers since 1994 that was specifically required by organizations for the rights of people with disabilities who had to fight the tech giants for it based on the direct feedback from people with disabilities, and sometimes was implemented in secrecy by rogue developers who believed on it.
I feel like you're being deliberately rude and not reading what I said now. First off, thanks for dismissively passing me a link I need to pay $237 to read, no thanks ISO, but also I bet it doesn't say you must enable sticky keys by pressing the key 5 times.
I know this because Macs don't have this terrible shortcut enabled. You just turn sticky keys on in the Accessibility options. I also know this because the other article you posted tells the story of Gregg Vanderheiden, who wrote the first sticky keys driver in assembly and used the 5-press as a hack to signal for his driver to take over. Once the feature was officially implemented, the 5-press should no longer have been needed as a trigger.
And in fact, the "rogue developer" (Ed Tecot) who bravely worked on accessibility features from further down in the backlog for the Mac didn't implement the 5-press either. And that article specifically calls out Microsoft, by the original designer, for having a bad shortcut!
It’s turned off by default on Macs—as the inventors intended. “You want sticky keys turned off by default because it’s just going to annoy them,” shared Vanderheiden in the call. “It doesn’t help you, it doesn’t help them, it doesn’t help the disability community.” But somehow, the wires got crossed with Windows, and to this day it’s enabled by default, an accidental 5-Shift-press away from discovery.
You asked “Why would a mobility-limited person even think that was how you turn it on?”
They know because they were the ones who asked for it. Just like the first thing a person learning to use computers is what the mouse clics does, the first thing a person with disabilities learn when dealing with computers is what the disabilities functions are, they are widely documented. The very popup that MS shows up has an extensive explanation of what it is and link to disable it immediately.
It's a problem when Windows fails to properly disable an accessibility feature after a user chooses to disable it.
Good thing it doesn't fail at that when you actually read the settings and disable it properly.
I haven't had the sticky key pop-up in like 10 years, on multiple Windows versions.
I must be bad with computers.
Turning off that shit is one of the first things I do on a fresh install.
Turning off sticky keys is one of the first things I do after accidentally activating it during a raid and wiping the team.
The problem is that I always forget about it, until it inevitably triggers.
Guaranteed by the 5th or 6th time I stop what I'm doing and take care of that!
It always annoyed me because every month or so, after getting the pop up and disabling it, it would just show up again
Then you didn't disable it
It allows users to press keys like Shift, Ctrl, Alt, or the Windows key one at a time, rather than holding them down while pressing another key.
And here is my obligatory; “just use linux”.
How is Linux an alternative to Sticky Keys?
I somehow thought it was a Windows thing, but being an accessability feature of course isn’t.
I was also joking because it seems to be 90% of our comments to suggest using linux😅
It's good advice irrespective of the time or topic.
You guys are missing the true point of sticky keys:
Admin console without admin password.
Sticky keys and the windows key I always immediately disable.
The windows key has a lot of uses. I got a keyboard that has a physical toggle to turn the windows key on and off so I can switch between work mode (on) and gaming mode (off) easily.
Do I just have huge hands or why have I never had issues with the windows key and gaming? In fact it is my preferred way of taking away focus from a full screen app
For me, it's more for protecting against unintentional presses.
What I'm saying is I never unintentonally press the windows key
I have big hands and soft keys, accidental presses happen a lot. Glad my keyboard has a toggle for it.
The windows key is so super useful though. Not just for quickly starting or finding shit without using the mouse, but also for moving windows around, maximizing them, making them take up exactly half of your screen, locking your screen, etc.
I am very confused why anyone would disable the super/command key. Ever since moving to linux its become the most used key on my entire board.
Admittedly i am using a shortcut heavy tillable win manager. Blown away how fun it is to operate a pc keyboard only. (Overspendinging on nice keyboard switches also helps)
The Windows key as part of a combination is great. It's an extra modifier key.
The Windows key by itself is terrible because it immediately steals focus from the current application and can't be disabled without something like AutoHotkey.
And it was even worse back in the day when computers barely had any RAM and basically relied completely on the swap file to do multitasking. You'd be in a game, accidentally hit the windows key, then you'd have to wait like a full minute or more for it to swap your game memory out so it could swap your other desktop apps back in, only to then have to wait again for it to swap that stuff back out to get back into the game. And all of this was happening on a hard drive.
And during this whole process, there was a moderate chance that individual applications or your entire system would crash.
Even the mode change for the display would take more time.
It's soooooooo easy to disable. The pop up for it even tells you how!
I just disabled it by switching to Linux
So wait, Linux doesn't have any easily accessible disability options?
That's bad design.