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Comment by joenot443 | Hacker News Reader

> Remap the Escape key to CapsLock else you will never like vim (provided you are a normal person)

I think this is great advice for EVERYONE, vim user or not. Someone else made this suggestion on HN some 8 years ago and I haven't looked back since.

CapsLock is essentially useless for modern computing needs, but having a No/Cancel/Quit/Esc button immediately under your left pinky is fantastic. Your brain will get used to it in a day or so, give it a try!

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Best use for capslock in my book is tap for escape, hold for ctrl.

Where do you map it that way?

Karabiner-Elements will do this for you on Mac.

I consider it indispensable.

As my sibling commenter said, use Karabiner Elements if you are on macos. Though it's not an out-of-the-box thing.

Add this config to ~/.config/karabiner/assets/complex_modifications/custom-capslock.json

    {
      "title": "Change caps_lock to Esc and Control",
      "rules": [
        {
          "description": "Post Esc if Caps is tapped, Control if held.",
          "manipulators": [
            {
              "type": "basic",
              "from": {
                "key_code": "left_control",
                "modifiers": {
                  "optional": [
                    "any"
                  ]
                }
              },
              "to": [
                {
                  "key_code": "left_control",
                  "lazy": true
                }
              ],
              "to_if_alone": [
                {
                  "key_code": "escape"
                }
              ]
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }

and then in the GUI enable it in the Complex Modifications tab. Last you need to map "capslock" to "left_control" in the Simple Modifications tab.

Ooh! Can I do this with "z" and "/" (letter if tapped, control if held)?

Yep! You can do whatever you want with complex modifications. The only tricky part is figuring it out. It shouldn't be TOO different than the above if you replace the appropriate values.

My GUESS is that it would be something like this:

    {
      "title": "Hold z or / for control",
      "rules": [
        {
          "description": "Hold z for control",
          "manipulators": [
            {
              "type": "basic",
              "from": {
                "key_code": "z",
                "modifiers": {
                  "optional": [
                    "any"
                  ]
                }
              },
              "to_if_alone": [
                {
                  "key_code": "left_control"
                }
              ]
            }
          ]
        },
        {
          "description": "Hold / for control",
          "manipulators": [
            {
              "type": "basic",
              "from": {
                "key_code": "/",
                "modifiers": {
                  "optional": [
                    "any"
                  ]
                }
              },
              "to_if_alone": [
                {
                  "key_code": "right_control"
                }
              ]
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }

I use this executable for Windows: https://github.com/ililim/dual-key-remap

as said here: https://superuser.com/questions/1716264/xmodmap-holding-a-ke... using this https://github.com/alols/xcape :

  $ setxkbmap -option caps:ctrl_modifier
  $ xcape  -e 'Caps_Lock=Escape'

if that need be run multiple times (i.e. in bashrc), add a guard:

  pgrep xcape >/dev/null || (
   setxkbmap -option caps:ctrl_modifier
   xcape  -e 'Caps_Lock=Escape'
  )

That sounds awesome! I'm going to look into that.

Yes, CapsLock is useless, and I've been remapping it to Ctrl since forever, which serves me a lot more than Esc.

It can be both if you care to. You don't have to choose

I've done Esc-on-single-press-Ctrl-on-hold once, but some games don't recognize the Esc press. Couldn't get to a menu anymore :P

Currently just have Esc on the CapsLock.

If I remap CapsLock to Escape, then how will I enable cruise control for awesome mode?

But seriously, I have hitting escape muscle memory engrained, I cannot remap it to any key because I won't ever think to hit capslock even if it's ergonomically "better"

I thought that, remapped it, and it turned out to be incredibly easy to swap over. I think it's because it's so much nicer to use.

My point is that it's NOT nicer to use for me.

I just instinctively did it to see my motion and it's an awkward feeling for me to move my left pinky over to the capslock key, definitely something I have to be mindful of doing to make happen and probably will take a long time for me to get used to.

Meanwhile, I actually extend my ring finger up and barely touch the escape and move it back down, all of that is very comfortable for me and I can do it without looking 100% of the time and never miss it.

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