Turning the worst key on a keyboard into the most useful one

One of the best changes I've ever made.

Keyboards are pretty much the tool we interface with most when it comes to software development, and yet there's a single key on our keyboards that I feel is without a doubt the worst key when it comes to writing code. Fortunately, we can turn it into something much better.

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[bastiana]

sql devs called they want their key back

[warrenhenning]

INTERESTING. I FIND CAPS LOCK VERY USEFUL FOR EXPRESSING MYSELF ON THE INTERNET. I CAN REALLY GET MY POINT

[Malix_off]

VERY INTERESTING, BUT NOW I HAVE A SMALL PROBLEM

[RickGladwin]

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.

[georgimirchev]

"Turning 'setxkbmap -option caps:swapescape' into a ten minute video"
Impressed tbh

[_modiX]

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.

[CodingWithLewis]

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.

[dukeofnorfolk]

Right ctrl key: "Finally, a worthy opponent"

[pietrosanchez]

Most videos we watch, we understand. When he said he remaps caps lock to control, I felt understood 😭

[Cobinja]

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.

[lkjhoiuyyjhgghfyrthgvjhguty]

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.

[philippkolb]

i heavily customized all my qmk keyboard layouts but never thought of swapping esc/caps. thanks a bunch and keep it up <3

[JuanoD_]

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.

[AS-jdvr]

I use it as backspace with colemak. Such a time saver and great idea!!

[Chalisque]

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.

[josh]

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.

[slayvict]

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

[samjiman]

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.

[ws_stelzi]

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!

[LexicalNoScope]

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