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I resolved this pain by making the Caps Lock key work as it should: tap for “Esc” and hold for “Control”. Then I took the Escape key and made it Caps Lock—it’s
by teeray 4y ago
I resolved this pain by making the Caps Lock key work as it should: tap for “Esc” and hold for “Control”. Then I took the Escape key and made it Caps Lock—it’s occasionally useful, but not nearly enough to warrant a home row position.
You can do this with Karaniner Elements on macOS. There’s a way to do it on Windows too, but how escapes me at the moment.
- godelski 4y ago<C-[> is a native remap to Esc btw
- hombre_fatal 4y agoBut it doesn’t work globally in the OS. It’s nice to casually mash capslock as esc to get out of modals and such all over the OS, even in games.
- woleium 4y agoKarabiner elements*
- agrippanux 4y agoSwitching ESC to Caps Lock took significantly less time to retrain muscle memory than I expected.
- xigoi 4y agoI think AutoHotkey would be the program to use on Windows?
- pletnes 4y agoI’d recommend Power Toys for that. AHK is cool but better for scripts and automations. Power Toys has lots of other neat functions and support by MS.
- keithnz 4y agoI found power toys didn't work too well, especially when you want to turn it off and on, or put exceptions for some programs I just have a simple autohotkey script + vim like keys for going up and down in textboxes/selection/dropdowns. <!k::Send {Up} <!j::Send {Down} Capslock::Esc Only downside is the mess that happens when on other machines that don't have that, also try to use ^[ as much as possible.
- TheSpiceIsLife 4y agoAutoHotKey scripts can be compiled in to portable executables.
- layer8 4y agoFor a simpler solution I can recommend https://github.com/randyrants/sharpkeys https://github.com/randyrants/sharpkeys. Of course AHK is great tool for all kinds of more advanced customizations.
- Sirened 4y agoOn macOS you can do this using just the stock OS. It's under keyboard settings. You can also do this on iOS, it's awesome if you have a physical keyboard and like to use vim on your iPad
- jack_the_dev 4y agoI don’t know what’s cooler. This setting in MacOS / iOS or having a dedicated foot pedal to press “i” or “esc”
- teeray 4y agoYou can do the simple remapping. The “tap for escape, hold for control” takes additional software.
- rjzzleep 4y agoHere's a summary on how to do it on the respective OS's https://gist.github.com/tanyuan/55bca522bf50363ae4573d4bdcf06e2e https://gist.github.com/tanyuan/55bca522bf50363ae4573d4bdcf0... It's an interesting concept. I have been using capslock as control for so long that I don't know I could get used to this though.
- hombre_fatal 4y agoTo be clear, that link shows how to use extra software to do it in each OS including Karabiner on macOS.
- johannes_ne 4y agoKmonad for Linux
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- seri4l 4y agohttps://gitlab.com/interception/linux/plugins/caps2esc https://gitlab.com/interception/linux/plugins/caps2esc Works great in Windows and Linux.
- layer8 4y agoFor a more general solution, I prefer https://github.com/randyrants/sharpkeys https://github.com/randyrants/sharpkeys on Windows.
- keybored 4y agoTried that some years back. Or the simpler version where it is just Control. Didn’t work I found out because I was using my pinky to activate a very common modifier key. It was uncomfortable. I ended up remapping caps lock to Ctrl-C. I just use the good old control keys now. Either by using my palm or (more commonly for the left one) the last knuckle of my pinky finger.
- cramjabsyn 4y agoOr switch to a sun keyboard where this was the native layout
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ropable 4y agoFor Windows 10 people: Microsoft PowerToys has a "remap keys" function within the Keyboard Manager. It's very convenient and easy to use.
- vladvasiliu 4y agoI've tried this, it sometimes doesn't seem to intercept the key in time, so funny things happen. Others, the key gets "stuck". I've tried modifying the Super / Win key. It would often happen that the keyboard would become unusable and behave like if it had the Win key stuck, even though it was remapped to something else. This actually happened on Windows 11, not 10 (never tried on that). I don't know if it makes a difference.
- MivLives 4y agoYou can do this in QMK too if you have a custom mechanical keyboard. It'll work regardless of machine or os then.
- rgoulter 4y agoI think a custom mechanical keyboard is going to be much nicer than a foot pedal. Though, I'd encourage a custom keyboard where the thumb can reach 2-3 keys each (instead of only really being able to hit the spacebar). That way, you can put Esc on a thumb key. -- e.g. ZSA's moonlander or planck ez are nice.
- lolive 4y agoI wonder how to do that with .Xmodmap
- naikrovek 4y agoI feel like people who think the "CTRL" key goes on the home row never pressed CTRL+Z, CTRL+X, CTRL+C or CTRL+V in their entire lives. Makes zero sense ergonomically to put the CTRL key on the home row. I tried it for about 0.05 seconds and after pressing CTRL+Z one time I knew it was not a good idea for me. pinky finger does not like pressing a key while being on a higher row than another finger also pressing a key. painful.
- TheSpiceIsLife 4y agoI'm not a programmer, mostly do CAD / CAM and general construction business whatever. I remapped capslock to delete, and shift-capslock to capslock for the rare occasion I want to yell at my future self.
- physPop 4y agothats becauze ctrl z/x/c/v aren't used for copy paste if you're using vim or emacs.
- myrandomcomment 4y agoThat is simple. Just keep your control key and map caps lock to control also. That way you are never out of control.
- zeorin 4y agoMy fix for this is to also remap holding the Enter key to right control. That way I can use the "control" key on the opposite side of the alpha key, the same way one is meant to do with the shift key when touch typing.
- lurker137 4y agoI already had my caps-lock as backspace so I settled on using single quote as ESC. It works great except when I need to use a lot of single quotes of course.
- roveo 4y agoI did the same thing, but also mapped Caps Lock to Cmd+Shift+Ctrl+Option (so-called Super key) when it's pressed together with another key. Useful for application switching and other custom stuff.
- alaaalawi 4y agoI did and still comfortable with the following YMMV. Alt -> Ctrl Ctrl -> Alt Caps -> Esc Esc -> Caps