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Comment by lolive | Hacker News Reader

The best keyboard hack I will ever recommend is to remap:

    CapsLock+hjkl -> the arrows

    CapsLock+Spacebar -> Return

    CapsLock+ui -> PgUp and PgDn

    CapsLock+yo -> Backspace and Delete

That's the best way to reach control keys, imho.

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The best way to reach control keys is to leave them in the corners of your keyboard, and then use your palm, not your pinkies.

Best remapping I ever did was changing my Caps Lock -> Control and Control -> Caps lock

Out of curiosity:

    > CapsLock+hjkl -> the arrows

Why use hjkl, which are on the same row, and not wasd (or another selection of keys)?

Because you want to press Caps Lock with one hand, and use the other to navigate. Also, vi.

If you're used to using hjkl for vi-style navigation, they're just as natural as wasd, and potentially more relaxed since they're all on the same row. And you wouldn't want to frequently use Caps Lock as a modifier with wasd, which are right next to it; Caps Lock with hjkl splits the combination across hands, which would make it more natural.

No really obvious way to do that in OS X (Mountain Lion)

These would typically be done within your editor itself.

Unfortunately, you have to install 3rd-party software. Thankfully, there has been quality free software for this since 2007. https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/ https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/seil.html.en add-on is needed to remap the caps lock key.

Once you re-map Caps Lock to Control (in the system preferences), I wouldn't be surprised if you could get there with some edits to ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict

Try Karabiner: https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/

The amount of remapping options beats anything else I've tried on any operating system. I'm stuck on OS X for now because of this program.

On Linux, this is a simple addition to your ~/.Xmodmap:

    keycode 66 = Mode_switch
    keysym h = h H Left
    keysym j = j J Down
    keysym k = k K Up
    keysym l = l L Right
    keysym space = space space Return
    keysym y = y Y BackSpace
    keysym u = u U Next
    keysym i = i I Prior
    keysym o = o O Delete

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