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Comment by aidos | Hacker News Reader

Interesting idea, I wonder about using it for the Ctrl key instead. I switched to vim some time ago and that's the bit I find most clumsy, especially given the placement on a Mac. I've remapped caps lock to Ctrl, which helps.

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Just out of interest, how often are you really using the ctrl key in a Vim session? My CapsLock is mapped to ESC, which I hit at the end of every edit (so several times per minute), but I don't think I use ctrl much at all.

OTOH I have heard Emacs users need Ctrl/Alt constantly while editing.

I use Ctrl-P/Ctrl-N for autocomplete all the time.

Really should map to tab. Actually should be using super tab or the like.

I use Ctrl+[ instead of escape. This has the benefit of having Ctrl easy to reach for the few shortcuts that do use it and also for other programs.

Actually, on the laptop I'm on, I have Caps Lock mapped to backspace - vanilla unedited colemak layout. On my desktop, I have Caps Lock remapped to LCtrl and LCrtrl mapped to backspace.

Ctrl+w for switching split windows.

Ctrl+u,d for page up and down.

Ctrl+e,y for shifting the screen up and down.

Ctrl+],t for moving in and out of tags (with ctags).

Ctrl+v for visual block mode.

Ctrl+[ instead of escape.

Ctrl+p,n for autocomplete.

Ctrl+r for redo.

Ctrl+o,i navigate location jump history.

...and probably more that I don't know about.

Additionally:

I have Ctrl+h,l mapped for tab switching.

Terminal multiplexers like tmux and screen use Ctrl for switching terminal sessions.

If you use KeyRemap4MacBook[1] you can map caps lock to Ctrl, but also map just tapping caps lock to escape. Be warned, the only problem with this set up is that it's so good that you'll have trouble using another one; I disabled it when I got a thinkpad and starting doing about 50% of my development on my x220 instead. After that I changed to using ctrl-[ or ctrl-c in place of escape for most everything.

[1] http://pqrs.org/macosx/keyremap4macbook/list.html.en

Ah, ctrl-c for esc is a good idea.

I use "jk" which works very well for me (fingers stay on the home row).

Only problem with ctrl-c is that it doesn't function exactly like escape(for example, if you're inserting text on multiple lines in visual block mode, ctrl-c will only insert the text on one line and cancel the command, whereas ctrl-[ or escape will properly insert the text). If that's a problem for you, you can rebind ctrl-c to actually work as escape. Either way, I find it quite comfortable.

Just know that Ctrl-c is different from Escape. It skips InsertLeave autocmds and cancels the count (i.e., 3aX<C-c> appends 1 'X', but 3aX<Esc> appends 3).

I suggest remapping your (utterly pointless) CAPS LOCK key to CONTROL.

You said you were on a mac so:

System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Modifier Keys

OSX actually lets you remap all of the mod keys (Ctrl, Opt, Cmd, CapsLock) to each other system-wide in the keyboard prefs.

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