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Comment by bodegajed | Hacker News Reader

I'm also on the fence about upgrading. I am thinking of just buying a mac keyboard so I have an escape key. That key is very essential to my workflow. Do you think it's a good idea?

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Mac OS support by default to map the Caps Lock key as an Escape key.

Back in the "old" days, nobody would have voluntarily admitted they used the regular Escape key implying their hand movement is anything less than optimal. Hell, Mac OS was praised for almost not making any use of the carpal tunnel inducing function keys.

Then the touch bar was released ;-)

For anyone else reading this, the option is found in System Preferences > Keyboard > Modifier Keys...

For more complex modifications there is Karabiner-Elements, which is especially useful if you use Hammerspoon.

I use karabiner [1] to remap the capslock key to esc.

[1] https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/

Interesting.. so this is how the esc key is now? I guess it's compromise. Maybe I'll get used to it eventually.

Sigh I'm just sad apple wont budge on a high end non-touchbar model

Touchbar can be useful especially with apps like Pock to save some screen real estate. The only thing that they should do is to bring back ESC key and maybe allow for switching numbers row to F-keys with Fn. That would allow for rich media control and whatever you want on touchbar and still have proper, tactile functionality of keys.

No need for Karabiner if that’s all you’re using it for, you can do it natively in System Preferences → Keyboard → Modifier Keys.

Karabiner Elements is user for a more complex modifier [1]. I use Karabiner to remap Caps Lock to hyper (cmd+ctrl+option) or just esc when pressed alone.

[1] https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/complex_modifications/#modifi...

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