6 ms·

I would encourage you to reconsider rebinding the caps lock key, unless you have a good reason to keep it (perhaps you're a COBOL programmer?). You can change

by least 7y ago

I would encourage you to reconsider rebinding the caps lock key, unless you have a good reason to keep it (perhaps you're a COBOL programmer?). You can change it to behave that way for all usb keyboards and you can also use xmodmap or a program called xcape to add dual functionality to the key in linux.

laumars 7y ago
Not the OP but I too switch between lots of systems. The idea of reconfiguring each and every one of them, including work colleagues machines, physical terminals for on-prem systems, my wife Windows laptop and so on and so forth, just to fix a bad design on a singular work laptop, seems like insanely bad advice. Instead I'm going to order myself a Linux machine for my next upgrade and have my hardware function the way I find productive. YMMV but the appeal of MBPs for me was never OSX/macOS but rather the build quality of their hardware. I don't feel that's the case any longer. I guess if Macs are your main platform then remapping might be a more favourable option but for people where the MBP is the outlier (like myself) changing everything else to fit is just bad advice.
- least 7y ago
  It's your prerogative to do what you want with your machine. Caps lock being on the home row is a bad design in my opinion. Remapping it to something useful is making your hardware work for you, not against you. You obviously can't make your coworkers change their behavior but you're completely in control of your own, where most of your work is likely being done.
  - laumars 7y ago
    My hardware does already work for me. Remapping caps lock is a micro-optimisation where as committing keystrokes to muscle memory is not. So the jarring effect I'd experience when switching back to a system that doesn't have caps lock remapped would easily outstrip any benefit I'd receive from it.
    - least 7y ago
      I switch between different keyboard layouts fairly frequently (I use a kinesis advantage 2 which is quite different from traditional keyboards) so maybe it is just being used to being somewhat uncomfortable when having to type on other keyboards that is making it harder to appreciate the difficulty it actually presents to others. It seems like you are using different keyboards constantly so fixing it on one laptop maybe doesn't offer you much benefit. I doubt that everyone that reads this is constantly changing keyboards, though. For those it would certainly be beneficial unless they are for whatever reason using caps lock frequently.

by least 7y ago

laumars 7y ago

Not the OP but I too switch between lots of systems. The idea of reconfiguring each and every one of them, including work colleagues machines, physical terminals for on-prem systems, my wife Windows laptop and so on and so forth, just to fix a bad design on a singular work laptop, seems like insanely bad advice. Instead I'm going to order myself a Linux machine for my next upgrade and have my hardware function the way I find productive. YMMV but the appeal of MBPs for me was never OSX/macOS but rather the build quality of their hardware. I don't feel that's the case any longer. I guess if Macs are your main platform then remapping might be a more favourable option but for people where the MBP is the outlier (like myself) changing everything else to fit is just bad advice.

least 7y ago
It's your prerogative to do what you want with your machine. Caps lock being on the home row is a bad design in my opinion. Remapping it to something useful is making your hardware work for you, not against you. You obviously can't make your coworkers change their behavior but you're completely in control of your own, where most of your work is likely being done.
- laumars 7y ago
  My hardware does already work for me. Remapping caps lock is a micro-optimisation where as committing keystrokes to muscle memory is not. So the jarring effect I'd experience when switching back to a system that doesn't have caps lock remapped would easily outstrip any benefit I'd receive from it.
  - least 7y ago
    I switch between different keyboard layouts fairly frequently (I use a kinesis advantage 2 which is quite different from traditional keyboards) so maybe it is just being used to being somewhat uncomfortable when having to type on other keyboards that is making it harder to appreciate the difficulty it actually presents to others. It seems like you are using different keyboards constantly so fixing it on one laptop maybe doesn't offer you much benefit. I doubt that everyone that reads this is constantly changing keyboards, though. For those it would certainly be beneficial unless they are for whatever reason using caps lock frequently.