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The Touch Bar was what finally pushed me over the edge to remap caps lock to escape. I'm shocked at how much I enjoy ESC being close to the home row (I'm not ev

by josho 7y ago

The Touch Bar was what finally pushed me over the edge to remap caps lock to escape. I'm shocked at how much I enjoy ESC being close to the home row (I'm not even a big vim user). For this change alone I am glad to have the Touch Bar.

giancarlostoro 7y ago
Ah! Thats what I might do... At work we just have Bluetooth keyboards so its not as annoying to us thankfully since the Magic Keyboard has all the keys and the keys dont suck as much. I make too many typos on the new MBP keyboards I never made on a previous Mac.
heisenbergs 7y ago
Same. That plus the realization that you can adjust volume or screen brightness by holding the brightness/volume button and then simply sliding left or right made it actually intuitively usable. It's still a little gimmicky and probably not worth the effort.
rc_mob 7y ago
How to do this?
- hxegon 7y ago
  System Preferences > Keyboard > Modifier Keys button on the bottom right click the "Caps Lock" dropdown and set to escape
js2 7y ago
I use caps lock as control. It would be hard to relearn that muscle memory.
- djsumdog 7y ago
  I've done this for years and keep typical a capital C every time I try to copy something or send a break in a terminal when I use someone else's machine. More people need to map Caps Lock to Control. It just makes sense, and it's where control use to be on many old Sun keyboards.
- nsxwolf 7y ago
  As an old Sun keyboard user, Caps Lock as Control feels right. That's also where it is on my HHKB keyboard. As a vim user, escape is too high up on most modern keyboards anyway. The ADM-3A terminal vi was invented on placed it to the left of the Q key, which was a lot easier to reach. HHKB puts it where the tilde key traditionally is, which is pretty close to the original intent of vi. Remapping tilde on touchbar MacBook Pros would be a good solution, if there was an obvious other place to put tilde/backtick.
  - isomorphic 7y ago
    Not just terminals and UNIX workstation keyboards--Apple's very first keyboard on the Apple II. (I don't think Apple shipped a keyboard with the Apple I.) Of course it helped that there was no lower case, obviating the need for Caps Lock, and who needs Tab, but there were Shift keys.
  - js2 7y ago
    > As an old Sun keyboard user I've been used to the control key in that position since about 1980: http://www.hp9845.net/9845/history/comparison/images/closeups/apple2-top-view.jpg http://www.hp9845.net/9845/history/comparison/images/closeup...
  - salgernon 7y ago
    During the 80s there was such a plethora of keyboard variants, I learned never to trust where ESC would be; you can use control-[ on most keyboards to generate the same key. When the MacBookPro went useless for ESC, my muscle memory just switched over. (This is somewhat conditional on control being next to 'A', which is the only place it should ever be!)
- mclehman 7y ago
  You could have both, I've never needed to hold down escape or tap control. That said, I've had caps lock bound to backspace for years, so I'm not advocating for something I do myself.
- lucky_cloud 7y ago
  I do both. Press and release = escape; press and hold = control.
  - js2 7y ago
    Oh that's neat. I guess you use Karabiner? https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/132564/how-can-i-remap-caps-lock-to-both-escape-and-control https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/132564/how-can-i-r...
    - lucky_cloud 7y ago
      Yep!
eeeeeeeeeeeee 7y ago
Vim user, I did the same. I do prefer the caps lock placement too since I’m doing it so often. But it still makes the TouchBar a total waste of space (and it adds cost)
elif 7y ago
That is a bit of twisted logic. It does not say anything positive about touchbar, but conflates a negative in a somewhat dishonest way and ignores the core of this topic, that it is now compulsory. For instance, prison has forced people to change their life for the better, but that does not logically lead to "I am glad to have prison (compulsory for everyone)"
disease 7y ago
I've had my Caps Lock key mapped to 'delete word' after having it mapped to several other things while trying to combat RSI and am loving it. Great for both writing/editing prose as well as code.

by josho 7y ago

giancarlostoro 7y ago

Ah! Thats what I might do... At work we just have Bluetooth keyboards so its not as annoying to us thankfully since the Magic Keyboard has all the keys and the keys dont suck as much. I make too many typos on the new MBP keyboards I never made on a previous Mac.

heisenbergs 7y ago

Same. That plus the realization that you can adjust volume or screen brightness by holding the brightness/volume button and then simply sliding left or right made it actually intuitively usable. It's still a little gimmicky and probably not worth the effort.

rc_mob 7y ago

How to do this?

hxegon 7y ago
System Preferences > Keyboard > Modifier Keys button on the bottom right click the "Caps Lock" dropdown and set to escape

js2 7y ago

I use caps lock as control. It would be hard to relearn that muscle memory.

djsumdog 7y ago
I've done this for years and keep typical a capital C every time I try to copy something or send a break in a terminal when I use someone else's machine. More people need to map Caps Lock to Control. It just makes sense, and it's where control use to be on many old Sun keyboards.
nsxwolf 7y ago
As an old Sun keyboard user, Caps Lock as Control feels right. That's also where it is on my HHKB keyboard. As a vim user, escape is too high up on most modern keyboards anyway. The ADM-3A terminal vi was invented on placed it to the left of the Q key, which was a lot easier to reach. HHKB puts it where the tilde key traditionally is, which is pretty close to the original intent of vi. Remapping tilde on touchbar MacBook Pros would be a good solution, if there was an obvious other place to put tilde/backtick.
- isomorphic 7y ago
  Not just terminals and UNIX workstation keyboards--Apple's very first keyboard on the Apple II. (I don't think Apple shipped a keyboard with the Apple I.) Of course it helped that there was no lower case, obviating the need for Caps Lock, and who needs Tab, but there were Shift keys.
- js2 7y ago
  > As an old Sun keyboard user I've been used to the control key in that position since about 1980: http://www.hp9845.net/9845/history/comparison/images/closeups/apple2-top-view.jpg http://www.hp9845.net/9845/history/comparison/images/closeup...
- salgernon 7y ago
  During the 80s there was such a plethora of keyboard variants, I learned never to trust where ESC would be; you can use control-[ on most keyboards to generate the same key. When the MacBookPro went useless for ESC, my muscle memory just switched over. (This is somewhat conditional on control being next to 'A', which is the only place it should ever be!)
mclehman 7y ago
You could have both, I've never needed to hold down escape or tap control. That said, I've had caps lock bound to backspace for years, so I'm not advocating for something I do myself.
lucky_cloud 7y ago
I do both. Press and release = escape; press and hold = control.
- js2 7y ago
  Oh that's neat. I guess you use Karabiner? https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/132564/how-can-i-remap-caps-lock-to-both-escape-and-control https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/132564/how-can-i-r...
  - lucky_cloud 7y ago
    Yep!

eeeeeeeeeeeee 7y ago

Vim user, I did the same. I do prefer the caps lock placement too since I’m doing it so often. But it still makes the TouchBar a total waste of space (and it adds cost)

elif 7y ago

That is a bit of twisted logic. It does not say anything positive about touchbar, but conflates a negative in a somewhat dishonest way and ignores the core of this topic, that it is now compulsory. For instance, prison has forced people to change their life for the better, but that does not logically lead to "I am glad to have prison (compulsory for everyone)"

disease 7y ago

I've had my Caps Lock key mapped to 'delete word' after having it mapped to several other things while trying to combat RSI and am loving it. Great for both writing/editing prose as well as code.