Comments on: Remapping Caps Lock

By: Keyboard shortcuts for Mac, Linux, and Windows — The Endeavour

Keyboard shortcuts for Mac, Linux, and Windows — The Endeavour — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 13:13:46 +0000

[...] Remapping caps lock Patterns in Windows keyboard shortcuts Visual Studio keyboard shortcuts [...]

By: FreshCode

FreshCode — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 23:36:24 +0000

If you’re ever on a Windows box, here’s a portable app I made to temporarily remap Caps Lock to backspace without rebooting or logging off: http://www.freshcode.co.za/post/Remap-Caps-Lock-Without-Reboot.aspx

I would be happy to add support for other keys such as Control and Escape if it would be useful to others.

By: Jeromy Anglim

Jeromy Anglim — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 06:17:45 +0000

I posted the details of my approach to updating navigational keys in case it is of interest:
http://jeromyanglim.blogspot.com/2010/07/how-to-edit-text-faster-on-windows-by.html

By: Jeromy Anglim

Jeromy Anglim — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 08:36:42 +0000

I’ve been using AutoHotKey to do something similar to what Bill Casarin mentions.

By: George Crews

George Crews — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 03:08:24 +0000

As a programmer, I use CapsLock for such things as manifest constants, etc. so a swap makes more sense for me. In Ubuntu Linux, I swap the keys from the desktop menu by selecting System -> Preferences -> Keyboard -> Layouts -> Options -> Ctrl key position -> Swap Ctrl and CapsLock

By: Craig

Craig — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 02:43:59 +0000

I just drop caps lock altogether and leave left control as is. So, I have two control keys.

remove Lock = Caps_Lock
keysym Caps_Lock = Control_L
add Control = Control_L

I’ve noticed that I like using caps lock as control when I edit text in emacs, a time when I rarely touch the mouse and when both hands are generally glued to the home row on the keyboard.

On the other hand I have found that I like control in its “normal” spot for other tasks. These “other tasks” tend to be more mouse centric. Like editing a photo in gimp or pasting text in and out of my web browser.

The downsize to all of this is that remapping keyboards really makes your computer, “your computer”, and as such the computer’s of others tend to be much harder to use. I truly realized this when I once tried the Dvorak mapping.

By: Dave Richeson

Dave Richeson — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 23:02:34 +0000

I also re-map the Caps Lock key to be the Control key. It is one of the first things I do when I get a new computer. It is very easy to do on a Mac:

Apple menu->System Preferences->Keyboard->Keyboard tab->Modifier keys

By: Alessandro

Alessandro — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 20:14:41 +0000

In Windows, “the useless Scroll Lock key” is sometime useful: you can get a memory dump file of an otherwise unresponsive system using the scroll lock key; see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/244139

Then the dump file is useful to diagnose the problem (often due to a bugged device driver) using a debugger like windbg.

By: I. J. Kennedy

I. J. Kennedy — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:10:22 +0000

I map capslock to control as well. In fact it was the first XP device driver I ever wrote, because I was highly motivated. On the rare occasions I’m on my desktop, I use an old 84-key keyboard, which has the control key where God intended it! Can’t imagine what they were thinking when capslock got moved to its current, prominent position.

By: Isaac

Isaac — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 17:38:18 +0000

Heh. I use xmodmap on my EeePC to make the SuperL/Windows key into a modifier key used by my WM.

By: TwoPi

TwoPi — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 17:18:58 +0000

All netbooks should be sold with KeyTweak preloaded.

By: John Johnson

John Johnson — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:41:47 +0000

Another reason for disabling left-control – I got used to hitting it (and scrunching my fingers) until I used Emacs so much I decided to use the registry hack. I still occasionally reach for the old control key and start typing unintentionally in HHHIN CAPITAL LETTERS.

By: Bill Casarin

Bill Casarin — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 15:55:55 +0000

To get more use out of the caps-lock key, I’ve remapped it as another modifier key. It’s a bit more involved but you can make it work in both windows and linux (google ‘home row computing’).

Some things you can do with setup:

Global vim-like key bindings
- Map cap+hjkl to arrow keys
- Map caps+g to pg-up
- Map caps+b to ctrl+arrow left
- Map caps+w to ctrl+arrow right
- etc

You’ll never need to use your mouse again!

Cheers.

By: Tweets that mention Remapping Caps Lock — The Endeavour -- Topsy.com

Tweets that mention Remapping Caps Lock — The Endeavour -- Topsy.com — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 15:43:27 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by John D. Cook, John D. Cook. John D. Cook said: New blog post: Remapping Caps Lock http://bit.ly/bGWoR3 [...]