If there’s ever been a program feature that made no sense whatsoever to me, it is the impact tha the scroll lock key has on navigation in Microsoft Excel.
Hummmm… Did I say that strongly enough? Probably not, but I’m not going to write those words…
We all know about the Num Lock key and how it locks the keyboard’s keypad into number mode. If you have a keyboard with an attached numeric keypad, the keys default to scroll mode (arrow up, left, down, right, Home, End, etc.). If you press the NumLock key, the keypad locks into numeric mode.
The Scroll Lock key (Scroll Lk) works differently. According to Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org), the Scroll Lock key is left over from the DOS days. It’s functionality is set by the program your using — and most programs don’t even acknowledge the existance of the Scroll Lock key.
Excel, unfortunately, is one of the few that do.
The original function of the scroll lock key was to modify the arrow keys so that we could quickly scroll through a document. The cursor stayed at the same place on the screen, but the content scrolled screen by screen. Of course, in the world of Microsoft Windows (and other graphical user interfaces like those in Linux and on the Mac), we use the scroll bars to quickly move through documents.
Excel modifies the way the arrow keys work if you’ve turned on the Scroll Lock key. It follows the concept of : if you turn on Scroll Lock and press the right-arrow key, the columns scroll one position to the left. Your selected cell (the active cell) stays the same, though, which means that it quickly shifts out of the window.
Let’s look at this movement in Excel in a sample spreadsheet. In the image on the left, I selected cell B4. Then, I clicked on the scroll lock key, which stays on until you turn it off. Finally, I clicked on the right-arrow key.
Notice that Column A scrolled off the screen. Formerly, the window showed columns A through F. Now they show B through G.
(click on the image for a larger version)
(click on the image for a larger version)
I haven’t figured out any reason that Excel should support this type of movement.
On the other hand, I have seen (and experienced) the confusion that results when someone accidentally turns on the scroll lock key.
and
Do you know how I got to this page? Via Google while desperately searching for a solution to enable in Open Office the exact same feature that you condemn in your article. I guess that means that features that you don’t use or don’t know how to use are not necessarily useless but may be very important for other people.
Doesn’t it annoy you, for instance, when you have to move the cursor all the way to the top (or bottom) of the page when all you want to do is to have a peek at a line just above (below) the area visible on the screen? This is one example where the scroll lock is useful.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR HELP!
CLaudia R.