Is it worth swapping Ctrl and Caps Lock for windows users that don't use Emacs

Question

I\'ve been aware of Steve Yegge\'s advice to swap Ctrl and Caps Lock for a while now, although I don\'t use Emacs. I\'ve just tried swapping them over as an experiment and I

Answer 1

I ended up taking the advice in Zach's answer, but I also made Caps Lock behave as an ESC key if it was held and released on it's own using the AutoHotKey script in this gist: CapsLockCtrlEscape.ahk

I also bound Ctrl+Shift+Caps Lock to Caps Lock for the rare occasions when I might need it using this AutoHotKey script:

#IfWinActive
   ^+Capslock::Capslock ; make CTRL+SHIFT+Caps-Lock the Caps Lock toggle
return

Answer 2

I switched the Caps Lock and Ctrl keys a couple of months ago and after the initial learning period, ~ 1 week, my biggest problem is when I use a computer that hasn't switched the keys.

I first did some registry hack but I can't remember where I found the information on how to do it. Now I'm using a small utility called Remapkey which is included in the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools even though I think I'm using an older version.

Answer 3

For emacs ctrl should be at caps lock - for vim the escape key should be on the caps lock. I really feel that the caps lock button should be renamed "free parking" and OSes should make a system tray utility to quickly change the free parking button from escape, to control, to anything you need to type over and over again.

Answer 4

Copy the following code into a file called caps-ctrl-swap.reg, execute the file, agree to allow registry to be changed, log out and back in and your caps-lock and left-ctrl keys will be swapped. I've used this script for whatever version of Windows was current in 2005 and every version in between. I needed it today since Windows 10 updated overnight and it still works great.

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,03,00,00,00,1d,00,3a,00,3a,00,1d,00,00,00,00,00

Answer 5

I think what's best to put on caps depends on your physical keyboard.

At home I type on a Kinesis Ergo Elan where my ctrl keys are under my thumbs, along with 2*alt, space, enter, backspace, delete, pgup, pgdn, home and end; the rest of the keyboard is fairly normally laid out, except the board is split.

With the ctrl keys ready at hand, it really makes the most sense to put escape on caps lock (and caps lock on esc, for the few times I need it). Even if you're an emacser, hey... it doubles as a spare "prefix alt key", and you probably ask your browser to stop what it's doing a few times every day.

On the other hand, if I'm typing on my laptop where the lower left corner key is Fn rather than ctrl (ffs...) and I can't hold down shift+ctrl with one finger, it might make sense to put ctrl on caps (such that I can hold them with a single finger). At least if you're not a vi'er, or you don't mind the escape key being further away (or have some crazy system).

What's really interesting is putting some funky key on shift+shift (yep, both shift keys). This can be done with xmodmap fairly straightforwardly; I put my compose key there. If you don't need compose, you may want to put something else (like, say, esc).

Answer 6

I actually don't swap control and caps and just make caps ANOTHER control key. I can't think of a single time in my life when I have ever hit caps-lock on purpose, so I haven't missed it.

That way, you get used to using it, but if you slip up and use the old control, things still work. It's worked out very well for me.

There's a .reg file to do this here.