This is actually a problem I encounter when using a keyboard switcher between two PCs with caps lock reassigned. It doesn't change the key map immediately so sometimes it gets pressed and then I can't turn it off (I can't even issue the proper terminal command in Linux since uppercase is treated differently).
@@cassandradawn780 I.... I should have remembered that. Thanks! In my defense, I grew up using classic Mac computers in the 1990s and 2000s which didn't work this way.
I consider using shift for caps a bad habit... what happens when you want to type text in caps? Maybe your itty bitty JS code does not require it too much, but back in my day (TM), we used to write a ton of C macros and they are by convention in capital letters, so... not to mention that even outside of the context of programming it is very common to find text that requires multiple upper case letters one after the other. Acronyms, initials, etc... Imagine typing NASA by holding down shift... how much slower are you going to be than just pressing the caps lock key and forgetting about holding shift? I mean, maybe for short, one letter situations it could be ok, but holding shift means losing 1 entire finger during typing... and that is an expensive price to pay, specially for people who have shorter fingers and can't afford to slow down their typing speed in exchange for absolutely nothing.
@@tiranito2834 I can comfortably and easily type 130 wpm with my finger holding down shift. I think that's a skill issue on your part. Holding shift shouldn't slow you down by more than a couple wpm whereas pressing caps adds two keystrokes which is far slower.
@@The9thDoctor Some speed typing champions actually recommend using caps-lock, because apparently it "allows more flexible movement" with your hands. It sounds super counterintuitive because it adds a key press, turning caps-lock off again, but apparently that's how it is.
As a dev who uses vim and hates making the hundred mile journey to the escape key every 2 seconds, and who also only uses the caps lock key when I hit it by accident, this is the content I crave.
@@RickGladwin I always bind it to Escape but now I either do it at the OS level or at home I have a keyboard which is programmable so caps is Escape at input level
What purpose does anything between space and left arrow key have? I don't think I've ever used them in my entire 15 years of using computers other then to set up a bind or macro.
@@friendofp.24 Do you count right shift in that as well? As a German QUERTZ user, right Alt (called Alt Gr on those keyboards) is inevitable. It's used for various inputs such as the @-sign (Q + Alt Gr), square brackets, curly brackets and the pipe. (I guess that's one reason that makes QUERTY superior for programming.) But if you never used any of them, you are missing out. Especially the menu key, which is functionally unique even on US keyboards. (If you are using the others for macros, I'd argue you put them to good use though.)
@@friendofp.24 As a Pole I can say that the right alt key is used to write "ą/Ą", "ć/Ć", "ę/Ę", "ł/Ł", "ń/Ń", "ó/Ó", "ś/Ś", "ż/Ż" and "ź/Ź" (right alt + x). Frankly for some Poles it remains useless, as they are too lazy to use these letters when typing on computers or phones...
You took the comment I was going to make. Caps lock is next to the A because that is where the "Shift Lock" was on typewriters. Check your old IBM Selectric.
Nearly everything on QWERTY is an old relic of typewriters. This is the reason I opted for Colemak and modified the “Caps lock”-key, which is Backspace for Colemak, to escape, as it proved to be more advantageous for me as a vim user.
@@Carltoffel Correct. It's very unfortunate that laptops can't have inter-changeable keyboards and that you cannot bring your own. I tried to carry my own Keychron with my mods for a while, but noticed it's just extra baggage to carry. It's so much easier to just learn the typical QWERTY/Z and stick to it when you switch machines and also have to work on foreign machines. I do however make an exception to the rule when it comes to the caps lock key and did nearly the same he did. Single press ESC, long press LCTRL, but with some additional mods. It's such a great experience, but I have to use will-power to not caps lock all the time when I sit on someone else's machine. It can be frustrating, because muscle memory rules over you.
@@_modiXdepending on the system, you could also just change the layout, but then you need to know the layout without looking, as the indicators are wrong
I use CAPSLOCK daily as an engineer. The norm here is to always write in the blueprints with uppercase, and in Portuguese, we need the special characters, like in ÁGUA. It's a nightmare to write it with the shift key.
Yep, I though the same thing. In engineering drawings It's basically ALL CAPS, until you have to respond an email and end up "internet shouting" to your boss.
I'm not engineer, but I came here for the same reason. It's so much easier to press caps and then the special character that we have on Czech keyboards. Řeka, Žižkov, Šeberák.
Does that convention actually have a purpose? Writing in all caps just makes it harder and slower to read as we are not accustomed to having words in all caps
Around that time I was buying a new MacBook Pro and fortunately they still had the old model in stock that had the standard keyboard. So I picked up the older model rather than the newer one. Best choice ever!
I have the MBP 2019 that has the ESC back back, but guess what, I didn't press it for weeks. I love this mod and being using Caps for the very same thing for years.
@@dreamsofcode I also mapped Caps+Number row to F1-F12, since there are 10 keys from 1 to 0 and two more keys until backspace. The touchbar is just cancer, I couldn't accept not having feedback for function keys, but luckily you don't need function keys often on a Mac system.
Maybe have a look at the EURKEY Keyboard Layout. It is the basic US Layout but rightAlt is used exactly like you described your Capslock/FN. So writing German, Greek, French whatever is all very intuitive
@@timchristopherhill1221 Wouldn't be practical for my use case. I use my keyboard not only for my personal machine but also for my work machine where I can't install additional software.
thats unfortunate. im in the same boat - for mac and linux EURKEY is just a layout thats available to choose. For Windows you have to install the layout - thats true. But in the end: you found a solution that works for you - thats what matters most :)
I'm keeping my caps-lock key - but thanks for the tip. My new laptop don't have physical buttons which is putting me off. I might look for some other unused key, maybe Scroll-lock...I think I use everything else except a couple of the Function keys. Ta.
Colemak is the best layout, I don't get why nobody seems to use it. Dvorak is honestly far too popular, I learned Colemak in about a month because of it's similarity to QWERTY and went from a 100wpm average to a 150wpm average, while my friend tried to learn Dvorak, and a year later they only improved from ~70wpm to ~90wpm average, and gave up and went back to QWERTY to practice that.
Wait, is that why my Ergodox EZ defaulted to putting backspace where the capslock key would be? I mean, really handy, but I didn't realize that other keyboard layouts (Ergodox defaults to QWERTY, and I use Norman) did that by default.
1 thing u can add on ur mapping. Press shift + capslock for toggle the normal capslock key so u dont miss the capslock funcionality that u maybe use once a year 😄
I have mine set to turn on CapsLock when I press both Shift keys at the same time, SO I CAN TYPE ALL CAPS WHENEVER I WANT and still use the CapsLock as Escape/Control.
I acutally use the capslock key when writiting 2 or more upper case letters. That makes it easier to correctly stick to the standard 10 finger writing. And I'm wax faster with that than always holding shift down.
@@glanda7862 Some programmable keyboards allow you to add a Caps Word key (which you can put wherever you want) They type CAPS for just the next word and go back to lower case unless you tap it again Great for when you need to do a title or something, which is almost every use, except when you’re screaming at someone on the Internet
I bind the caps lock key to the compose key. The compose key is a standard part of the X window system, but has been adopted in almost all wayland compositors too. It allows you to "combine" multiple characters into one. For example: Compose, ">," "=" → "≥" Compose, ":", ")" → "☺" Compose, "-", ">" → "→" You can set this binding in the GNOME or Plasma settings or with input { kb_options = compose:caps } on hyprland
I do this too. On Windows you can achieve the same with WinCompose. it even comes with a a sequences window that displays all the sequences you can do and iirc you can even configure them there. I think Compose key is actually the best use of caps lock
While not relevant to US keyboard layout nor to typing source codes, the Caps Lock is enormously useful exactly because its behavior differs from what holding down Shift does. In languages with more than 26 letters, the fifth row is used to insert the additional letters, while holding shift and pressing these still inserts numbers. In another words, you are unable to insert these additional letters in their capital form using a Shift key, so Caps Lock comes to the rescue.
Yeah, if ones language has more than 33 letters you're tied to Caps lock. But I do wonder why not use AltGr to add diacritic symbol in case of Czech keyboard?
ayyyy another capslock non-capslock user :D. neat thing to do for people who want to use the caps lock key for other things on windows: you can use powertools to rebind the capslock key to anything you like or you can make a autohotkey program at put it in the startup folder. i did the ahk approach and its been working great for about 4 years. great video and ty for reading :)
Remember that a conventional QERTY (or QUERTZ in other parts of the world) comes from an actual mechanical typewriter. On such a mechanical typewriter typing anything needed some force behind your fingers and having to hold down constantly one of the shift keys can be very arduous and interrupting the flow of typing. I have learned typing on such a mechanical typewriter! One very apparent thing of a such a typewriter is that you have to learn to not fat finger all the keys because there only were a kind of scuffed delete function on the more expensive models. So you learned in order to not have to type out a letter one time more just because you made an error on the last paragraph! If you would have written on a mechanical typewriter you wouldn't categorize the "A" or any key reachable be the little finger as "prime real estate"! Mechanical typewriters were on the going out in the mid 90s but that was not a hindrance to my typing abilities! IMO the caps lock key was retained on a modern keyboard in order to have JUST ONE thing less a secretary can moan about when the had to switch to computers! And yes that was apparently a very serious thing even before my time back then!
Yeah, but alike the humanoids that had evolved from neanderthal we would like to capitalize on our newly realized real-estate, whether or not it used to serve a different purpose. (like the time we actually evolved from magnetic cassettes to floppy drives and then to compact disc drives. I'm looking at you, floppy!)
@@jc_art_ Oh, why the keys are ordered how they are would be an even longer video. It basically went this way: when the typewriters were invented "somebody" guesstimated that this ordering of the keys might be a good and efficient way. Because many peoples (and secretaries) basically don't like change when very newfangled stuff comes around. So this ordering of the keys mostly stuck till this day.
@@jc_art_i think i saw a video about that a longer time ago, and together with the other answer, it tries to have a specific minimal angle between the most used together letters, that they don't disturb each other
I use caps as backspace on regular keyboard, but when I built my split keyboard backspace is under my thumb, so I mapped caps to something I have never used, so this video makes me reconsider my mapping choices
Very cool! Great to see a good solution. Caps Lock is important for people with hand mobility issues, or for people with fewer than two full hands. Some people are not physically capable of pressing two keys at the same time.
KDE Plasma shows a prominent caps lock indicator in the panel by default if caps lock is enabled! KDE also comes with 17 predefined different caps lock behaviors one can enable via the system settings (though none of them are the Esc on tap & control on hold behaivor). I just used those to swap caps lock and esc inspired by your video to see how I like it.
I came to the same conclusion (that caps lock is useless) years ago, and my caps lock key has been acting as back space ever since. I love it, it's amazing
On Windows, you can press Win+Space (I believe) and other OSes may have similarly intuitive keyboard shortcuts, so I’m not sure if that’s too useful. :/
@@ThePC007 I have some problems with my fingers. I also use the "sticky keys" accessibility option. Since I frequently switch layouts, it's more convenient for me to do it with one key instead of a key combination.
Me after hearing there was no built in linux option: It's like, right there on my screen... plasma's Lock Key Status ... it's been there a few years, though it's not exactly the best.
Wise words from Luke Smith "Caps Lock, useless key in a great location". I've been using my Caps Lock key as my ESC key for 3-4 years now, and it's the best choice i have ever made. So much easier in VIM and honestly, in any application i use. I've also rebound my ESCAPE key to the Backtick symbol (`) which makes it easy to quickly write code snippets in applications that support it. Great video as always!
Interesting. How do you type words that start with capital Q, A, Z? Like, with a ring finger or... Oh, wait because QWERTY put rare letters there. I see. I, on the other hand... never hit spacebar with my right thumb)
@@mrluthfians01middle?! that's impressive... unless, you don't use home row) Just tried your method, and weirdly I can hit Q and Z accurately, but A rarely
I do a similar thing, but for the Insert key, another useless key imo, and I bind it to a dropdown terminal, so i always have access to a terminal with one key press that can just stow away and not clutter the taskbar when it's not in-use.
In some languages, the top number keys type diacritics without shift and numbers with shift, so if you want to type in upper case, you would have to keep releasing shift and using other keys to add the characters onto the letters
It's amazing to me how many people don't see the value of being able to Choose Exactly When I waNt to capitAlize a Single Letter and when I want to YELL a bit for EMPHASIS. While I COULD just hold it down for the WHOLE TIME, it's more convenient to JUST TOGGLE A STATE, ESPECIALLY IF I WANT TO YELL A BIT MORE.
My keyboard doesn't have a num lock key. I rebound caps lock to F13. I'm also barely noticeably slower with holding shift for a long sequence, the physical feedback with shift helps me know the state of the keyboard at all times, and the caps lock key makes a perfect push to mute key in that position on the keyboard.
I did something similar. I have a keyboard with only 4 vertical rows in the primary areas. As a result there isn't room for a capslock key because its not useful enough to keep. Instead I re-wrote the QMK firmware for the keyboard to support Tap-dance keys (adds tap, hold, double tap, tap hold, hold tap, etc, functionality). I set up my shift key to have tap to capitalize only the next key entry (so I no longer have to hold it for a single capital entry or punctuation), double tap for capslock on/off, and hold for usual behavior. It has made a huge difference in useability because my pinky is much less taxed by capital letters in general, and I've not lost any functionality of the board. I cannot recommend enough that if people have keyboards with QMK or Vial support, you try to get this stuff working. Seize control of your board! Also I made back-space have a double tap to use the shortcut "ctrl+backspace" which back spaces the entire word. Super useful.
In the '80,s, PC keyboards switched the positions of the CapLock and Ctrl keys. Many, many people liked it the other way, or often hit caplock by mistake. (Bumping Ctrl was not a problem because it's a modifier) I wrote a "TSR" that disabled CapLock _unless_ shift was pressed at the same time. People loved it and it was disseminated around the office.
When I took time to work on my typing technique, it occurred to me that WHEN WRITING CONSTANTS AND SUCH WHOSE NAMES ARE ALL CAPITALS the best habit is to press CAPS LOCK at the start of a CAPITALISED WORD, and again at the end, Trying to type multiple capital letters (more than two) is awkward with one finger busy holding the shift key down. It's kind of like saying the numpad is redundant since every key it can type in is on the number row. Once you're used to the CAPS LOCK approach to typing CAPITALISED word, it is almost as easy as typing lowercase. Especially since if the key you want to type moves from left to right, often you have to change which finger is holding which shift.
I'm so used to changing pinkies that with caps lock I ended up typing slower somehow. It's like I lost a rhythm. I use caps lock as hotkey to move cursor up/down/left/right in text. Or opening drop down options in search results.
I am all for caps lock. Using it for acronyms and such just seems right. When using it normally I really don't need an indicator because I just turn it off when I'm done like you said. I did see one person who used the caps lock instead of shift and I agree that is mostly an abomination. :)
@@matt92hun I have a few laptops with no numeric keypad. For these the number row is not redundant, nor is carrying around a usb numeric keypad a practical option. My typing style is adapted to what is common to all the keyboards I commonly use.
Bro's edging us with the NixOS teaser at the end lmao. I started learning it in a VM few months ago, but other work got in the way and I've been meaning to pick it back up before fully transitioning. I might just tactically wait (procrastinate) until your video so I don't get used to a suboptimal config and then spend hours debating myself into switching once I see how pretty your config is lmao :) Will definitely check out Kanata tonight, I'm excited to finally fix all my buggy hotkeys. Hope you have a great day!
I love these kinds of weird, nerdy type of videos, I just never thought of this. Yeah caps is thr least key that I have used but never thought that I can make this key useful.
great bit of software. i spent years messing around with autohotkey trying to make the spacebar switch to a different layout when held, and it worked ok but it never really worked perfectly so it was a relief to finally find a working solution with kanata's tap-hold-release. i have the jkli keys turn into arrow keys when the spacebar is held down now and have various other keys like home, end, backspace, delete placed around the arrow keys which really makes editing text a lot easier
I have a framework 16. I have NixOS running on it. I still have the Macbook it "replaced" It has Nix-Dawin. I subscribed as soon as I saw you're doing everything I probably should be doing myself. I've been itching to do some of these things for age so I'm glad to have stumbled across your channel! Can't wait to see any followup vids you put out
Less than a minute in to the video and already like where it is headed. Just recently, I asked my friends: do we need the caps key in 2024? Their response was: what's wrong with you. I feel vindicated.
We don’t need the caps key, but we need an equally-sized equally-placed key in the same spot that we can program to do when we want it to do. So, yeah, we kinda need it.
@@brianojeda758 It's funny because in a recent conversation I had on this exact topic it wasn't even a key I considered useless. Think about pause break and scroll lock 🤣. And I unironically was making sure to buy a regular tkl with the full cluster not a 75% because I work with the only environment that still uses them daily. But I'm probably going to do this caps remapping and shift on spacebar hold (suggested in comments) put caps on escape just so it's not completely gone. I think it is a better layout.
I started using fancyWM (tiling wm) on windows a few weeks ago and it offered the capslock key as an option for the activation key. Turned one of my least used keys to THE most used key. Side note, I love fancyWM's implementation of activation keybinds because "activating" the wm before a window operation prevents any possible binding conflicts.
@@attentioncestpaslegal7847 i've been using mt(shift, space) for almost a year now, it's very common to make mistakes with it. every time you hit space (very often), if you roll to the next key too fast (the first letter of the next word), it inserts a capital letter instead of a space and the lowercase letter. you can fix this by increasing the hold time required for it to register as a mod, but when you do that, every time you go to use shift, it slows down your typing, or you insert a space and then a lowercase letter when you want an uppercase letter this doesn't happen if you don't roll keys that much, but that's why i said if you type fast
I never stopped using caps-lock for its intended purpose because I used to write COBOL. Also being not too attached to your own keyboard and setup comes with its advantages. My solutions to the problems you brought up are: - use the corner of you palms for each of the escape (trick learnt from emacs users). I would argue this results in the least movement from homerow typing and doesn't force you to use your left ring finger on keys where you should be using pinky - with the first trick, ctrl-c or ctrl-[ are both one key away from one of the default finger positions and can be used instead of escape in various circumstances. For vim in particular, the slight difference between the two behaviours actually gives a little more fine-grained control over your actions.
Great video. My preferred method for signalling the activation state of various modifier keys on Linux is via sound. I have different tones set up for caps lock, shift, fn, ctrl, alt, num lock, and scroll lock. Personally I never felt much encumbered by caps lock. I mostly do creative writing (prose/scripts/poems), editing, and copyediting, so I always preferred hitting caps lock at the beginning and end of sequences rather than holding shift for the entire duration. It allows me to type capitalized sequences normally rather than awkwardly doing it all with one hand while the other is occupied by shift. The only times I'll capitalize letters using shift are when starting sentences, typing proper nouns, and typing short acronyms.
So, I've set myself an additional 3rd layer for english. In kde's keyboard settings you can use a "Czech, Slovak, Polish, Spanish, Finnish, Swedish, German (US)" [yes, this is the full name]. By typing caps s i get š, caps a gives me á. Not only can i now type in german, but also I am able to have an entire additional layer of key bindings. For temux my leader is [ś]. For esc in vim i use [ľ] caps j and k are vertical scrolling [normaly done with ctrl+e and ctrl+y], caps d [ď] gives me emmet. And you can also add shift, or caps, so yes "ctrl caps shift u" could be a real key bind. [note: i haven't seen the solution yet] And if i do want to use caps, there's a "use 2 shifts for caps mode" option in kde.
Even without ever having to use apple's touch bar, I've bound going from insert mode to normal mode to "jj" a long time ago. It works like a charm because you practically never need to type out two js in succession. Even on a normal keyboard that's far more comfortable than reaching for the Esc key
As a colemak caps user, I cannot express how comfortable having caps set to backspace is compared to having to reach for that key. I’ve also remapped right shift to be delete, so I can easily access that as well.
Was expecting this to just say "use anything else instead of caps", but so glad what it turned into. I have built my own split keyboard with zmk, tried to replicate that style of mapping to normal keyboards with autohotkey and karabiner. Kind of a mess honestly. Cant believe I didnt know about kanata until now!
One thing I learned from using custom keyboard firmware is how many keys don't use both the hold action _and_ the tap action. Caps Lock and Shift are great examples of this because technically, both could be the same key, i.e. tap for Caps Lock (if you want it) and hold for Shift. I personally use "Space Cadet" Shift (i.e. left/right Shift if held, left/right parentheses if tapped) and use the Caps Lock key as the Compose key when tapped and my mic's push-to-talk if held. Home row mods are another thing I can't live without anymore. Some people hate them, but for me the only drawback is using somebody else's keyboard on occasion and starting sentences like "tttthello" xD
escape on capslock is easily the first binding I make on new hardware and keyboards. My macbook, pc, everything. Its the most important binding for my workload in vim. I think its absolutely essential for anyone trying to use a modal text editor like vim, helix, kakoune, etc.
On Windows, I remapped the CAPS key with Microsoft Power Toys Keyboard Manager. It can be mapped to change with only certain applications, or all. If I do need the CAPS LOCK I mapped it to an SHIFT-CAPS LOCK Shortcut. Works great! Took 30 seconds to set up
I absolutely loved the Touch Bar, but they should've spared that Goddamn Escape Key alone. Also, Apple didn't even try to improve the Touch Bar for 4 years. If they'd added the option of Locking the Touch Bar [like what Dell's XPS 13 Plus does], and had added some solid Haptics, it would've been great.
Ever since I've owned an HHKB, which puts CTRL in place of the caps lock key, I've modified the software of every keyboard I've owned afterwards to bind caps lock to CTRL. It's just so much better.
Switched to a ZSA Moonlander keyboard. No staggered keys, no more inaccurate key strikes. Turned the capschlock into tab. A hard to reach key is "capitals until space or other space like character". Zero chance of writing a paragraph in all caps. I like the esc ctrl idea though. Will try that out.
Yes! I swapped caps lock and esc long ago and it's so useful! And I don't even use vim that often. Esc is useful all over a GUI as an standard "exit out of the current dialog" button.
The MNT Reform keyboard firmware actually comes with CTRL in place of CAPS. It has been a challenge to adjust, but is a lot more comfortable for the pinky finger.
I'm using ReNeo with a custom layout that allows me to enjoy the german keyboard layout while also having all the important symbol characters (for programming) in a comfortable custom "third layer"
THE CAPS LOCK KEY IS AWKWARDLY PLACED CONSIDERING ITS FUNCTION, BUT IT IS AN IMPORTANT ONE. Try to type the above in caps with one arm. It’s all about accessibility. That said, I also use it as ESC.
sql devs called they want their key back
🤣🤣🤣🤣
You shouldn't be using ALL CAPS in SQL either given that it's not case-sensitive and any decent tool will give you syntax highlighting either way.
sql dev here imma just map "leader r" to reformat and dodge an rsi
A formatter is a godsend for SQL
in SQL i still need to type variables in lowercase so I just end up using shift regardless
VERY INTERESTING, BUT NOW I HAVE A SMALL PROBLEM
🤣🤣🤣
i can never read "VERY INTERESTING" (all caps) the same. thanks toby fox
This is actually a problem I encounter when using a keyboard switcher between two PCs with caps lock reassigned. It doesn't change the key map immediately so sometimes it gets pressed and then I can't turn it off (I can't even issue the proper terminal command in Linux since uppercase is treated differently).
@@gblargg can't you just hold shift to undo the effect and type the needed command?
@@cassandradawn780 I.... I should have remembered that. Thanks! In my defense, I grew up using classic Mac computers in the 1990s and 2000s which didn't work this way.
INTERESTING. I FIND CAPS LOCK VERY USEFUL FOR EXPRESSING MYSELF ON THE INTERNET. I CAN REALLY GET MY POINT ACROSS!!!!!!!!
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I imagine you screaming this message.)
WHAT?
We all know that being louder means you’re right
ThAt'S InTeReStiNg...
As a kid, I used to always press Caps→A→Caps to type a capital A, instead of using Shift+A.
I’m so glad I broke this bad habit as an adult.
I never broke the habit 💀
@@eljestLiv still do this… but i still type very fast despite it haha so i dont see a reason to stop
I consider using shift for caps a bad habit... what happens when you want to type text in caps? Maybe your itty bitty JS code does not require it too much, but back in my day (TM), we used to write a ton of C macros and they are by convention in capital letters, so... not to mention that even outside of the context of programming it is very common to find text that requires multiple upper case letters one after the other. Acronyms, initials, etc... Imagine typing NASA by holding down shift... how much slower are you going to be than just pressing the caps lock key and forgetting about holding shift? I mean, maybe for short, one letter situations it could be ok, but holding shift means losing 1 entire finger during typing... and that is an expensive price to pay, specially for people who have shorter fingers and can't afford to slow down their typing speed in exchange for absolutely nothing.
@@tiranito2834 I can comfortably and easily type 130 wpm with my finger holding down shift. I think that's a skill issue on your part. Holding shift shouldn't slow you down by more than a couple wpm whereas pressing caps adds two keystrokes which is far slower.
@@The9thDoctor Some speed typing champions actually recommend using caps-lock, because apparently it "allows more flexible movement" with your hands. It sounds super counterintuitive because it adds a key press, turning caps-lock off again, but apparently that's how it is.
As a dev who uses vim and hates making the hundred mile journey to the escape key every 2 seconds, and who also only uses the caps lock key when I hit it by accident, this is the content I crave.
@@RickGladwin I always bind it to Escape but now I either do it at the OS level or at home I have a keyboard which is programmable so caps is Escape at input level
use Ctrl+C that works like an Esc
By any chanse are you using arch btw?
Sounds like you need the vim clutch :)
Personally I use alt-h/j/k/l to escape insert mode instead.
Right ctrl key: "Finally, a worthy opponent"
@@dukeofnorfolk1842💀
What purpose does anything between space and left arrow key have? I don't think I've ever used them in my entire 15 years of using computers other then to set up a bind or macro.
@@friendofp.24 Do you count right shift in that as well?
As a German QUERTZ user, right Alt (called Alt Gr on those keyboards) is inevitable.
It's used for various inputs such as the @-sign (Q + Alt Gr), square brackets, curly brackets and the pipe. (I guess that's one reason that makes QUERTY superior for programming.)
But if you never used any of them, you are missing out. Especially the menu key, which is functionally unique even on US keyboards.
(If you are using the others for macros, I'd argue you put them to good use though.)
@@friendofp.24 As a Pole I can say that the right alt key is used to write "ą/Ą", "ć/Ć", "ę/Ę", "ł/Ł", "ń/Ń", "ó/Ó", "ś/Ś", "ż/Ż" and "ź/Ź" (right alt + x). Frankly for some Poles it remains useless, as they are too lazy to use these letters when typing on computers or phones...
@@dukeofnorfolk1842 I use the right Ctrl _all the time_ , so I guess ymmv…
The caps key is an old relic when typewriters would physically strain you for having to write in all caps for a longer period of time.
You took the comment I was going to make. Caps lock is next to the A because that is where the "Shift Lock" was on typewriters. Check your old IBM Selectric.
Nearly everything on QWERTY is an old relic of typewriters. This is the reason I opted for Colemak and modified the “Caps lock”-key, which is Backspace for Colemak, to escape, as it proved to be more advantageous for me as a vim user.
@@Carltoffel Correct. It's very unfortunate that laptops can't have inter-changeable keyboards and that you cannot bring your own. I tried to carry my own Keychron with my mods for a while, but noticed it's just extra baggage to carry. It's so much easier to just learn the typical QWERTY/Z and stick to it when you switch machines and also have to work on foreign machines. I do however make an exception to the rule when it comes to the caps lock key and did nearly the same he did. Single press ESC, long press LCTRL, but with some additional mods. It's such a great experience, but I have to use will-power to not caps lock all the time when I sit on someone else's machine. It can be frustrating, because muscle memory rules over you.
@@_modiXdepending on the system, you could also just change the layout, but then you need to know the layout without looking, as the indicators are wrong
@@_modiX I have high hopes to see a ortholinear keybord in a framework laptop.
I use CAPSLOCK daily as an engineer. The norm here is to always write in the blueprints with uppercase, and in Portuguese, we need the special characters, like in ÁGUA. It's a nightmare to write it with the shift key.
@@davidthegoldsmith4195 Came here to say the same. Engineers, designers and drafters would end up with some horrible RSI condition without CAPS LOCK.
Yep, I though the same thing. In engineering drawings It's basically ALL CAPS, until you have to respond an email and end up "internet shouting" to your boss.
You can do the same trick with the shift key, tap to toggle caps, hold to shift
I'm not engineer, but I came here for the same reason. It's so much easier to press caps and then the special character that we have on Czech keyboards. Řeka, Žižkov, Šeberák.
Does that convention actually have a purpose? Writing in all caps just makes it harder and slower to read as we are not accustomed to having words in all caps
I had the same Macbook Pro and absolutely HATED the touch bar. Who knew a simple design choice by Apple would start your villian origin story.
That laptop is one of the main reasons I moved to Linux.
I keep it around so that I'll never forget.
Around that time I was buying a new MacBook Pro and fortunately they still had the old model in stock that had the standard keyboard. So I picked up the older model rather than the newer one. Best choice ever!
I have the MBP 2019 that has the ESC back back, but guess what, I didn't press it for weeks. I love this mod and being using Caps for the very same thing for years.
@@dreamsofcode I also mapped Caps+Number row to F1-F12, since there are 10 keys from 1 to 0 and two more keys until backspace. The touchbar is just cancer, I couldn't accept not having feedback for function keys, but luckily you don't need function keys often on a Mac system.
I would be fine with the touch bar and I kind of miss it but their mistake was taking away the top row of keys. Why couldn't we have both?
"Turning 'setxkbmap -option caps:swapescape' into a ten minute video"
Impressed tbh
LOL
average UA-camrs be like :
TY
9:59**
tbf the tap-hold stuff is there too
Having the caps be a dedicated "hold to copy/tap to paste" key sounds useful.
i personally use it for backspace
I'm from germany and use a us layout. Capslock is mapped to fn with Via and the german Umlauts are mapped to fn + their non-Umlaut letters.
Maybe have a look at the EURKEY Keyboard Layout. It is the basic US Layout but rightAlt is used exactly like you described your Capslock/FN. So writing German, Greek, French whatever is all very intuitive
@@timchristopherhill1221 Wouldn't be practical for my use case. I use my keyboard not only for my personal machine but also for my work machine where I can't install additional software.
thats unfortunate. im in the same boat - for mac and linux EURKEY is just a layout thats available to choose. For Windows you have to install the layout - thats true.
But in the end: you found a solution that works for you - thats what matters most :)
Woah, i have to do that with the fn keys
Oh my god that's such a good idea! I'm switching my layout soo often to just get my umlauts
Love it! I have been using Caps as Escape for the last 5 years and I use it so much I mess every time I use a computer without it.
This seams genius until you realize accidentally clicking the escape key is way worse than accidentally clicking caps lock
I use it as a mouse click. Helps immensely with drag and drop operations using a touchpad.
I'm keeping my caps-lock key - but thanks for the tip. My new laptop don't have physical buttons which is putting me off. I might look for some other unused key, maybe Scroll-lock...I think I use everything else except a couple of the Function keys. Ta.
@@chocolate_squiggle what kind of laptop dont have physical buttons?!!??
Clickpad, a touchpad on top of a giant top hinged button, some dislike them that is it.
Most useless key? More so than Scroll Lock?
Colemak keyboard layout users chilling with capslock as backspace :)
Colemak user, reporting in!
Colemak is the best layout, I don't get why nobody seems to use it. Dvorak is honestly far too popular, I learned Colemak in about a month because of it's similarity to QWERTY and went from a 100wpm average to a 150wpm average, while my friend tried to learn Dvorak, and a year later they only improved from ~70wpm to ~90wpm average, and gave up and went back to QWERTY to practice that.
Wait, is that why my Ergodox EZ defaulted to putting backspace where the capslock key would be? I mean, really handy, but I didn't realize that other keyboard layouts (Ergodox defaults to QWERTY, and I use Norman) did that by default.
I use it as backspace with colemak. Such a time saver and great idea!!
i heavily customized all my qmk keyboard layouts but never thought of swapping esc/caps. thanks a bunch and keep it up
"Creators of the best laptops in the world".. Up until that sentence I took you seriously..😂😂😂😂
as someone who will never buy apple, I think they create great laptops. what's your vote for best laptop in the world?
@4:11 "Keyboard for Dummies" killed me 🤣
Just what I needed. My QMK keyboard microcontroller just died, and I'm stuck with a normal keyboard until the parts arrive. This saved my life.
1 thing u can add on ur mapping. Press shift + capslock for toggle the normal capslock key so u dont miss the capslock funcionality that u maybe use once a year 😄
I have mine set to turn on CapsLock when I press both Shift keys at the same time, SO I CAN TYPE ALL CAPS WHENEVER I WANT and still use the CapsLock as Escape/Control.
Great video. Modifying the caps locks key to both ESC and CTRL while holding it has been one of the best decisions I have ever made.
I acutally use the capslock key when writiting 2 or more upper case letters.
That makes it easier to correctly stick to the standard 10 finger writing. And I'm wax faster with that than always holding shift down.
@@glanda7862
Some programmable keyboards allow you to add a Caps Word key (which you can put wherever you want)
They type CAPS for just the next word and go back to lower case unless you tap it again
Great for when you need to do a title or something, which is almost every use, except when you’re screaming at someone on the Internet
I've been a part of the ctrlcaps lock cult for ages, but I was never aware of the possibility of tap-hold keys. Adopting this immediately!
I bind the caps lock key to the compose key. The compose key is a standard part of the X window system, but has been adopted in almost all wayland compositors too. It allows you to "combine" multiple characters into one.
For example:
Compose, ">," "=" → "≥"
Compose, ":", ")" → "☺"
Compose, "-", ">" → "→"
You can set this binding in the GNOME or Plasma settings or with
input { kb_options = compose:caps } on hyprland
I do this too. On Windows you can achieve the same with WinCompose. it even comes with a a sequences window that displays all the sequences you can do and iirc you can even configure them there. I think Compose key is actually the best use of caps lock
Same here! I end up typing © and ™ a lot for work, so it's easy to just type compose, o, c and compose, t, m. Also, the en dash (-) as compose, -, -, . and em dash (-) as compose, -, -, -
Edit: UA-cam doesn't like the copyright symbol apparently.
@@hclyrics what do you mean? I can see the copyright symbol
@@leysont Weird. My posted comment shows a blank space on my machine (Fedora GNOME), in both Firefox and Brave.
@@hclyrics idk maybe a font issue? I'm on android
While not relevant to US keyboard layout nor to typing source codes, the Caps Lock is enormously useful exactly because its behavior differs from what holding down Shift does. In languages with more than 26 letters, the fifth row is used to insert the additional letters, while holding shift and pressing these still inserts numbers. In another words, you are unable to insert these additional letters in their capital form using a Shift key, so Caps Lock comes to the rescue.
Yeah, if ones language has more than 33 letters you're tied to Caps lock. But I do wonder why not use AltGr to add diacritic symbol in case of Czech keyboard?
Was searching for this comment. Hello fellow Czech viewers 🥰
ayyyy another capslock non-capslock user :D. neat thing to do for people who want to use the caps lock key for other things on windows: you can use powertools to rebind the capslock key to anything you like or you can make a autohotkey program at put it in the startup folder. i did the ahk approach and its been working great for about 4 years. great video and ty for reading :)
Remember that a conventional QERTY (or QUERTZ in other parts of the world) comes from an actual mechanical typewriter. On such a mechanical typewriter typing anything needed some force behind your fingers and having to hold down constantly one of the shift keys can be very arduous and interrupting the flow of typing.
I have learned typing on such a mechanical typewriter! One very apparent thing of a such a typewriter is that you have to learn to not fat finger all the keys because there only were a kind of scuffed delete function on the more expensive models. So you learned in order to not have to type out a letter one time more just because you made an error on the last paragraph!
If you would have written on a mechanical typewriter you wouldn't categorize the "A" or any key reachable be the little finger as "prime real estate"!
Mechanical typewriters were on the going out in the mid 90s but that was not a hindrance to my typing abilities!
IMO the caps lock key was retained on a modern keyboard in order to have JUST ONE thing less a secretary can moan about when the had to switch to computers! And yes that was apparently a very serious thing even before my time back then!
Yeah, but alike the humanoids that had evolved from neanderthal we would like to capitalize on our newly realized real-estate, whether or not it used to serve a different purpose. (like the time we actually evolved from magnetic cassettes to floppy drives and then to compact disc drives. I'm looking at you, floppy!)
(Im not reading all of it, just commenting on the first sentence) if the normal ones were qerty and quertz, where did qwerty come from?
@@jc_art_ Oh, why the keys are ordered how they are would be an even longer video. It basically went this way: when the typewriters were invented "somebody" guesstimated that this ordering of the keys might be a good and efficient way. Because many peoples (and secretaries) basically don't like change when very newfangled stuff comes around. So this ordering of the keys mostly stuck till this day.
@@jc_art_i think i saw a video about that a longer time ago, and together with the other answer, it tries to have a specific minimal angle between the most used together letters, that they don't disturb each other
This came at the perfect time lol, i’ve been thinking about keyboard mapping for a while now and even researched this afternoon
I use caps as backspace on regular keyboard, but when I built my split keyboard backspace is under my thumb, so I mapped caps to something I have never used, so this video makes me reconsider my mapping choices
Very cool! Great to see a good solution.
Caps Lock is important for people with hand mobility issues, or for people with fewer than two full hands. Some people are not physically capable of pressing two keys at the same time.
KDE Plasma shows a prominent caps lock indicator in the panel by default if caps lock is enabled! KDE also comes with 17 predefined different caps lock behaviors one can enable via the system settings (though none of them are the Esc on tap & control on hold behaivor).
I just used those to swap caps lock and esc inspired by your video to see how I like it.
Awww yeaa, one of the best quality of life improvements I found recently. Glad to see someone else enjoying it.
I found it helpful to set the caps lock key plus h,j,k, or l to act as the arrow keys to navigate text a little easier when outside of vim
Same, but with "i" instead of "h", mimicking arrow keys placement felt more natural
I'm stealing this. I was using Alt for similar behavior but it's so awkward to keep that pressed on standard qwerty
I came to the same conclusion (that caps lock is useless) years ago, and my caps lock key has been acting as back space ever since. I love it, it's amazing
Awesome video. I remap my Caps Lock to switch keyboard layout.
Layer switching is a great idea!
i'm using it for language layout switching for many years.
On Windows, you can press Win+Space (I believe) and other OSes may have similarly intuitive keyboard shortcuts, so I’m not sure if that’s too useful. :/
@@ThePC007 I have some problems with my fingers. I also use the "sticky keys" accessibility option. Since I frequently switch layouts, it's more convenient for me to do it with one key instead of a key combination.
@@hhaahh86 Hm, I guess that makes sense.
I use caps lock to scream at strangers on discord
most DE's on linux actually have a caps indicator, kde plasma and cinnamon have an icon on the taskbar for example.
Me after hearing there was no built in linux option: It's like, right there on my screen... plasma's Lock Key Status ... it's been there a few years, though it's not exactly the best.
Wise words from Luke Smith "Caps Lock, useless key in a great location".
I've been using my Caps Lock key as my ESC key for 3-4 years now, and it's the best choice i have ever made. So much easier in VIM and honestly, in any application i use.
I've also rebound my ESCAPE key to the Backtick symbol (`) which makes it easy to quickly write code snippets in applications that support it.
Great video as always!
Ehm that's not a tilde though? This is ~.
Did you mean backtick?
@@greg2303-ai oh ye my bad, i mean the backtick. Pressing shift on that key makes it Tilde, but you’re right
My most useless key is the right shift.
yeah pretty much, guess it's nice for our right handed fellas.
Interesting. How do you type words that start with capital Q, A, Z? Like, with a ring finger or... Oh, wait because QWERTY put rare letters there. I see.
I, on the other hand... never hit spacebar with my right thumb)
For a lot of users the insert key is very useless and even confusing.
@@somestuff7876 i mostly use ring finger for the shift and middle for qaz
@@mrluthfians01middle?! that's impressive... unless, you don't use home row)
Just tried your method, and weirdly I can hit Q and Z accurately, but A rarely
You can use CTRL-[ as an alternative.
for VIM, I use `CTRL+[` instead of `ESC` (it's a default keybind). Though I concur on the tyranny of the 'caps lock' key.
even through for sometime i used it, now i just remapped jk to be esc in zmk config...
I’ve been using Escape instead of Caps Lock for almost a decade, now I am definitely making holding it access a new layer. Genius!
I do a similar thing, but for the Insert key, another useless key imo, and I bind it to a dropdown terminal, so i always have access to a terminal with one key press that can just stow away and not clutter the taskbar when it's not in-use.
I have capslock for application switching and window management using Karabiner. Can’t live without it.
There's a keyboard called HHKB that has the Caps Lock key replaced with CTRL by default.
The actual instructions start at about 6:50. Thanks for this.
In some languages, the top number keys type diacritics without shift and numbers with shift, so if you want to type in upper case, you would have to keep releasing shift and using other keys to add the characters onto the letters
This exactly! That's why the Caps lock behavior can't exactly be replicated just by Shift on its own.
Kanata is game changer for me, thanks for sharing!
It's amazing to me how many people don't see the value of being able to Choose Exactly When I waNt to capitAlize a Single Letter and when I want to YELL a bit for EMPHASIS. While I COULD just hold it down for the WHOLE TIME, it's more convenient to JUST TOGGLE A STATE, ESPECIALLY IF I WANT TO YELL A BIT MORE.
@@tparadox88 yeah it’s weird that he picked caps lock and not num lock as the most useless key
@@misham6547 that's because not all keyboards has a numpad
My keyboard doesn't have a num lock key. I rebound caps lock to F13. I'm also barely noticeably slower with holding shift for a long sequence, the physical feedback with shift helps me know the state of the keyboard at all times, and the caps lock key makes a perfect push to mute key in that position on the keyboard.
@@misham6547 why would you say Num Lock when Scroll Lock is right there?
Fast typing in multi-sized keyboards is an amazing skill! Great video by the way
Peak acting from Elliot this video
I did something similar. I have a keyboard with only 4 vertical rows in the primary areas. As a result there isn't room for a capslock key because its not useful enough to keep. Instead I re-wrote the QMK firmware for the keyboard to support Tap-dance keys (adds tap, hold, double tap, tap hold, hold tap, etc, functionality). I set up my shift key to have tap to capitalize only the next key entry (so I no longer have to hold it for a single capital entry or punctuation), double tap for capslock on/off, and hold for usual behavior. It has made a huge difference in useability because my pinky is much less taxed by capital letters in general, and I've not lost any functionality of the board. I cannot recommend enough that if people have keyboards with QMK or Vial support, you try to get this stuff working. Seize control of your board!
Also I made back-space have a double tap to use the shortcut "ctrl+backspace" which back spaces the entire word. Super useful.
64 views in 3 minutes. you DID NOT fall off
The undelayed numbers are scary
@@dreamsofcode video on eventual consistency perhaps?
In the '80,s, PC keyboards switched the positions of the CapLock and Ctrl keys. Many, many people liked it the other way, or often hit caplock by mistake. (Bumping Ctrl was not a problem because it's a modifier)
I wrote a "TSR" that disabled CapLock _unless_ shift was pressed at the same time. People loved it and it was disseminated around the office.
When I took time to work on my typing technique, it occurred to me that WHEN WRITING CONSTANTS AND SUCH WHOSE NAMES ARE ALL CAPITALS the best habit is to press CAPS LOCK at the start of a CAPITALISED WORD, and again at the end, Trying to type multiple capital letters (more than two) is awkward with one finger busy holding the shift key down. It's kind of like saying the numpad is redundant since every key it can type in is on the number row. Once you're used to the CAPS LOCK approach to typing CAPITALISED word, it is almost as easy as typing lowercase. Especially since if the key you want to type moves from left to right, often you have to change which finger is holding which shift.
I'm so used to changing pinkies that with caps lock I ended up typing slower somehow. It's like I lost a rhythm.
I use caps lock as hotkey to move cursor up/down/left/right in text. Or opening drop down options in search results.
I am all for caps lock. Using it for acronyms and such just seems right. When using it normally I really don't need an indicator because I just turn it off when I'm done like you said.
I did see one person who used the caps lock instead of shift and I agree that is mostly an abomination. :)
More like the number row is redundant, really. I like layouts that use the symbols on the number row by default and switch to the numbers with shift.
@@matt92hun same, that was the main reason why I switched to Typewriter style in my language, and one more reason to switch to Dvorak for English.
@@matt92hun I have a few laptops with no numeric keypad. For these the number row is not redundant, nor is carrying around a usb numeric keypad a practical option. My typing style is adapted to what is common to all the keyboards I commonly use.
Bro's edging us with the NixOS teaser at the end lmao. I started learning it in a VM few months ago, but other work got in the way and I've been meaning to pick it back up before fully transitioning. I might just tactically wait (procrastinate) until your video so I don't get used to a suboptimal config and then spend hours debating myself into switching once I see how pretty your config is lmao :)
Will definitely check out Kanata tonight, I'm excited to finally fix all my buggy hotkeys. Hope you have a great day!
Most videos we watch, we understand. When he said he remaps caps lock to control, I felt understood 😭
Please consider chaptering your videos, they add a lot to clarity to videos and make it them easier to digest
Most of the time I am putting Caps Lock on by accident as on my UHK it is on the A key with the Mod modifier key.
I love these kinds of weird, nerdy type of videos, I just never thought of this. Yeah caps is thr least key that I have used but never thought that I can make this key useful.
What’s the laptop you are using? @ 0:55
@@ad13979 it’s a framework 16, you can tell by the ports
Looks like the framework 16
great bit of software. i spent years messing around with autohotkey trying to make the spacebar switch to a different layout when held, and it worked ok but it never really worked perfectly so it was a relief to finally find a working solution with kanata's tap-hold-release. i have the jkli keys turn into arrow keys when the spacebar is held down now and have various other keys like home, end, backspace, delete placed around the arrow keys which really makes editing text a lot easier
I have a framework 16.
I have NixOS running on it.
I still have the Macbook it "replaced"
It has Nix-Dawin.
I subscribed as soon as I saw you're doing everything I probably should be doing myself.
I've been itching to do some of these things for age so I'm glad to have stumbled across your channel!
Can't wait to see any followup vids you put out
Less than a minute in to the video and already like where it is headed. Just recently, I asked my friends: do we need the caps key in 2024?
Their response was: what's wrong with you. I feel vindicated.
We don’t need the caps key, but we need an equally-sized equally-placed key in the same spot that we can program to do when we want it to do. So, yeah, we kinda need it.
@@brianojeda758 It's funny because in a recent conversation I had on this exact topic it wasn't even a key I considered useless. Think about pause break and scroll lock 🤣.
And I unironically was making sure to buy a regular tkl with the full cluster not a 75% because I work with the only environment that still uses them daily.
But I'm probably going to do this caps remapping and shift on spacebar hold (suggested in comments) put caps on escape just so it's not completely gone. I think it is a better layout.
I started using fancyWM (tiling wm) on windows a few weeks ago and it offered the capslock key as an option for the activation key. Turned one of my least used keys to THE most used key.
Side note, I love fancyWM's implementation of activation keybinds because "activating" the wm before a window operation prevents any possible binding conflicts.
True → one of the most important keyboard mods.
Other mega-great → Hold space for Shift.
what?
space for shift kinda sucks ass if you type fast though
@@wi1h Not really, because most letters are lowercase.
@@attentioncestpaslegal7847 i've been using mt(shift, space) for almost a year now, it's very common to make mistakes with it. every time you hit space (very often), if you roll to the next key too fast (the first letter of the next word), it inserts a capital letter instead of a space and the lowercase letter. you can fix this by increasing the hold time required for it to register as a mod, but when you do that, every time you go to use shift, it slows down your typing, or you insert a space and then a lowercase letter when you want an uppercase letter
this doesn't happen if you don't roll keys that much, but that's why i said if you type fast
I never stopped using caps-lock for its intended purpose because I used to write COBOL. Also being not too attached to your own keyboard and setup comes with its advantages. My solutions to the problems you brought up are:
- use the corner of you palms for each of the escape (trick learnt from emacs users). I would argue this results in the least movement from homerow typing and doesn't force you to use your left ring finger on keys where you should be using pinky
- with the first trick, ctrl-c or ctrl-[ are both one key away from one of the default finger positions and can be used instead of escape in various circumstances. For vim in particular, the slight difference between the two behaviours actually gives a little more fine-grained control over your actions.
GREAT VIDEO! LOOKING FORWARD TO MORE :D
Great video. My preferred method for signalling the activation state of various modifier keys on Linux is via sound. I have different tones set up for caps lock, shift, fn, ctrl, alt, num lock, and scroll lock. Personally I never felt much encumbered by caps lock. I mostly do creative writing (prose/scripts/poems), editing, and copyediting, so I always preferred hitting caps lock at the beginning and end of sequences rather than holding shift for the entire duration. It allows me to type capitalized sequences normally rather than awkwardly doing it all with one hand while the other is occupied by shift. The only times I'll capitalize letters using shift are when starting sentences, typing proper nouns, and typing short acronyms.
So, I've set myself an additional 3rd layer for english. In kde's keyboard settings you can use a "Czech, Slovak, Polish, Spanish, Finnish, Swedish, German (US)" [yes, this is the full name]. By typing caps s i get š, caps a gives me á.
Not only can i now type in german, but also I am able to have an entire additional layer of key bindings.
For temux my leader is [ś]. For esc in vim i use [ľ]
caps j and k are vertical scrolling [normaly done with ctrl+e and ctrl+y], caps d [ď] gives me emmet.
And you can also add shift, or caps, so yes "ctrl caps shift u" could be a real key bind.
[note: i haven't seen the solution yet]
And if i do want to use caps, there's a "use 2 shifts for caps mode" option in kde.
Even without ever having to use apple's touch bar, I've bound going from insert mode to normal mode to "jj" a long time ago. It works like a charm because you practically never need to type out two js in succession. Even on a normal keyboard that's far more comfortable than reaching for the Esc key
As a colemak caps user, I cannot express how comfortable having caps set to backspace is compared to having to reach for that key. I’ve also remapped right shift to be delete, so I can easily access that as well.
I recently made caps lock escape myself, and am very pleased with this video
Was expecting this to just say "use anything else instead of caps", but so glad what it turned into. I have built my own split keyboard with zmk, tried to replicate that style of mapping to normal keyboards with autohotkey and karabiner. Kind of a mess honestly. Cant believe I didnt know about kanata until now!
One thing I learned from using custom keyboard firmware is how many keys don't use both the hold action _and_ the tap action. Caps Lock and Shift are great examples of this because technically, both could be the same key, i.e. tap for Caps Lock (if you want it) and hold for Shift. I personally use "Space Cadet" Shift (i.e. left/right Shift if held, left/right parentheses if tapped) and use the Caps Lock key as the Compose key when tapped and my mic's push-to-talk if held.
Home row mods are another thing I can't live without anymore. Some people hate them, but for me the only drawback is using somebody else's keyboard on occasion and starting sentences like "tttthello" xD
escape on capslock is easily the first binding I make on new hardware and keyboards. My macbook, pc, everything. Its the most important binding for my workload in vim. I think its absolutely essential for anyone trying to use a modal text editor like vim, helix, kakoune, etc.
I love that you used my actual keyboard in the thumbnail
The irl footage is a great addition to the video
this is some prime programmingcirclejerk nudev content
On Windows, I remapped the CAPS key with Microsoft Power Toys Keyboard Manager. It can be mapped to change with only certain applications, or all. If I do need the CAPS LOCK I mapped it to an SHIFT-CAPS LOCK Shortcut. Works great! Took 30 seconds to set up
I'm using the caps lock key as escape for years but never knew about also using it as Ctrl
I'll try it, thanks for sharing
A few years ago, I remapped Caps Lock to Delete, and it works great.
The amount of times ive pressed the capslock instead of shift while playing minecraft has led me to some of the most painful loot loss moments
I also use shift+backspace as “delete” on my MacBook, so useful!
legendary videos mate
I absolutely loved the Touch Bar, but they should've spared that Goddamn Escape Key alone.
Also, Apple didn't even try to improve the Touch Bar for 4 years.
If they'd added the option of Locking the Touch Bar [like what Dell's XPS 13 Plus does], and had added some solid Haptics, it would've been great.
Totally agree, my control key is there now. I like having the caps lock be either on a different layer or a double press of the shift key.
Ever since I've owned an HHKB, which puts CTRL in place of the caps lock key, I've modified the software of every keyboard I've owned afterwards to bind caps lock to CTRL. It's just so much better.
The insert key: Finally, a worthy opponent! Our battle will be legendary!
Switched to a ZSA Moonlander keyboard. No staggered keys, no more inaccurate key strikes. Turned the capschlock into tab. A hard to reach key is "capitals until space or other space like character". Zero chance of writing a paragraph in all caps.
I like the esc ctrl idea though. Will try that out.
Yes! I swapped caps lock and esc long ago and it's so useful! And I don't even use vim that often. Esc is useful all over a GUI as an standard "exit out of the current dialog" button.
The MNT Reform keyboard firmware actually comes with CTRL in place of CAPS. It has been a challenge to adjust, but is a lot more comfortable for the pinky finger.
The next step is putting backspace on the backslash key. HHKB layout is so nice
I'm using ReNeo with a custom layout that allows me to enjoy the german keyboard layout while also having all the important symbol characters (for programming) in a comfortable custom "third layer"
THE CAPS LOCK KEY IS AWKWARDLY PLACED CONSIDERING ITS FUNCTION, BUT IT IS AN IMPORTANT ONE.
Try to type the above in caps with one arm. It’s all about accessibility. That said, I also use it as ESC.
you know.. you can just remap esc to caps afterwards right?
@@GottZ But.. but.. having two ESC is better than one, you know, for safety reasons.
im glad im not the only one whos thought of how bad the caps lock placement is.
i remap it to backspace on my keyboards software.
Fun fact, when using the german keyboard layout, the caps key actually works for the numbers as well