Talk:FilterKeys

Stub or not?

{ Heading added by Steue (talk) 08:36, 4 April 2025 (UTC) }

In my opinion this is not a stub as there is nothing more to say about this topic. Jeroen loeffen (talk) 11:07, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Right shift key

This article says that filter keys can be enabling by holding the right shift key for eight seconds. I have just tried that and it does not seem to work - on my computer, I just have sporadic notices flashing up on the screen saying "Do you want to turn on the filter keys?" (I normally say no). Vorbee (talk) 17:56, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Flashing up on the screen

An icon with "Turn on the Filter Keys - Yes or No" apparently spontaneously flashes up on the screen on odd occasions (this information could be inserted into the article). Vorbee (talk) 11:49, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

How is this term 'FilterKeys' to be understood and translated?

As a:

• special type of keys like "Filter-Keys" or
• function, kind of an order (to the operating system) "Filter (the) keys!"?

Lenovo (lenovo.com/de/de/glossary…) has translated it (into German) as 'Filter-Tasten' which would mean a special type of keys; but I doubt that this is translated correctly.

My understanding is rather that it is a function, a kind of an order.

Steue (talk) 08:31, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, it seems like an instruction: "please filter the keys". Grammatically, Microsoft aren't very consistent on this - Togglekeys also seems like an instruction, but StickyKeys and MouseKeys are adjectiveNouns (keys that are sticky, keys that do mouse things). I'd have thought that Microsoft themselves will have an official translation of all four terms into German. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 13:39, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

Isn't it explained in the first line of the article?

“FilterKeys is an accessibility feature [...] It configures the keyboard to ignore brief or repeated keystrokes”

So it's a configuration tool/option "to filter the keys" or, more precisely, to filter key presses. --CiaPan (talk) 14:32, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks Finlay McWalter.

As for 'Togglekeys': I understand them as 'keys which toggle', so rather a kind of keys, but of course they do have a function. But it could as well be understood as: these three (or so) 'toggle keys' shall toggle the function of all the other keys.

As for 'StickyKeys' and 'MouseKeys' I did and do understand these two terms as types of keys, repectively key functions.

What my (German) user interface shows

If I hold down my right [Shift] for 8 seconds, a window opens, asking:

"Möchten Sie die Anschlagverzögerung aktivieren?"

"Do you want to activate the 'Anschlagverzögerung'?"

Where I literally translate 'Anschlagverzögerung' as 'touch/key delay/retardation'.

So I guess(ed) this 'Anschlagverzögerung' is/was the (official Microsoft) German equivalent of 'FilterKeys'.

perplexity.ai

But then I asked perplexity.ai and it answered (shortened by me):

Microsoft does call:

• 'FilterKeys' → 'Filtertasten', with the sub features:
  • 'SlowKeys' → 'Tastenakzeptanzverzögerung',
  • 'RepeatKeys' → 'Wiederholrate' and
  • 'BounceKeys' → Ignorieren von Tastenprellern'
    { However the (probably) newer German explanation of these three sub features simply does use the English terms. };
• 'StickyKeys' → 'Einrastfunktion',
• *ToggleKeys' → 'Umschalttasten' and
• 'MouseKeys' → 'Mausfunktionen'.

My interpretations

So it seems that Microsoft has decided to give all these English terms (and probably parameters) a 'Keys' as their last part, not caring whether this is grammatically correct or not -- which was not done in German, at least in the user interface.

As for the term in question 'FilterKeys', also the German term 'Filtertasten' can be interpreted:

• either as a type of keys (which indeed is the first meaning which comes to a German mind),
• or as the order 'do filter the keys!' "Filter(e) die Tasten!".

But it seems that this duality/ambiguity has never really been understood, even less used in the right way. It seems that all who used the term 'FilterKeys' or 'Filtertasten' have used the term in the meaning of a type of keys, where it should have been understood and used as a kind of function or order. However the function indeed was called a function, in the user interface.

Thanks also to CiaPan

To me it was rather clear, in the beginning, it just shook my confidence that perplexity.ai used "die Filtertasten" ("the filter keys") in the plural, citing from Lenovo.

I described the problem to perplexity.ai and it agreed, that Lenovo mis-understood and subsequently mis-translated 'FilterKeys' . You can easily get perplexity.ai to translate it.

Steue (talk) 20:12, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

References