There have been many life-changing Linux moments for me, but most fade into my backstory as they become the status quo. There's one little keyboard trick Linux taught me that I'm reminded of every time I use it (maybe 1,000 times a day), and that's converting the Caps Lock key to Ctrl.
  • @handvat@lemmy.ml
    6•3 years ago

    As a Vim user, I really like using the caps lock key as the escape key. I do not get why the caps lock is placed in such a prominent place, while I never have used it on a physical keyboard. Even when I want to type in all caps, I just tend to hold shift while typing out of habit I guess.

    • @Reaton@lemmy.ml
      2•3 years ago

      Always wondered if you change the keyboard layout in order to use the caps lock key as the escape key or if there is another way to map it.

  • @nour@lemmygrad.ml
    5•3 years ago

    Interesting article, thanks for sharing. Well, I don’t mind reaching for the Ctrl key, but I got another way of using the Caps Lock key for something more useful than Caps Lock: I need to type special characters rather often, so I had set my Caps Lock to be the Compose key. This lets me do stuff like typing (Caps Lock) oA to get Å, typing (Caps Lock) << to get «, or typing (Caps Lock) CCCP to get ☭ (yes, the last one is a real option, I’m not sure why they added that, but I use it). I can also define my own combinations by editing the ~/.XCompose file (I can see the expected format by looking at any non-empty Compose file in the directories inside /usr/share/X11/locale/). These two articles have different instructions on how to enable the Compose key when using GNOME: here and here.

  • SeerLite
    5•3 years ago

    I use caps:escape_shifted_capslock as an xkeyboard (setxkbmap) option.

    Make Caps Lock an additional Esc, but Shift + Caps Lock is the regular Caps Lock

    That way I can use it as Escape for Vim/Kakoune but still keep the caps lock functionality in reach