Esc key

A computer keyboard. The Esc key is in the top-left corner.

The Esc key is a key labeled Esc or Escape that is used to generate the ASCII Escape character, the character code traditionally used to initiate an escape sequence. As the typical computer user is no longer concerned with the details of controlling their computer's peripherals, the task escape sequences were designed for, the escape key was appropriated by application programmers, most often to mean Stop. This use continues today in Microsoft Windows's use of escape as a shortcut in dialog boxes for No, Quit, Exit, Cancel, or Abort.

The most common application today of the Esc key today is as a shortcut key for the Stop button in some web browsers, including Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. As a graphical alternative to the traditional label “Esc”, the key can be represented by the symbol described in Unicode as a “BROKEN CIRCLE WITH NORTHWEST ARROW” (U+238B, ⎋).

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.