Remap Ctrl to CapsLock

The CapsLock is a huge keyboard button in prime spot in home row. Contrarily, Ctrl and Escape are somewhere far in corners. It’s no wonder why Emacs people like to remap Ctrl to CapsLock to avoid “Emacs pinky”. Vim people do the same, but for Escape key.

For a long time I was tempted to do the remap. However, I never did it because I didn’t want hassle of using different keyboard layouts. I want all my keyboards to be as identical as possible. That’s why I use ThinkPad USB keyboard.

Then I got a new work laptop. Unfortunately Dell has “wrong” order of keys, and it’s not even user customizable.

This is a perfect opportunity to jump into custom key remapping, because I need identical layout in all keyboards.

Configuration 🔗

First I created following ~/.Xmodmap file:

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clear lock
clear control
keycode 66 = Control_L
keycode 37 =
add control = Control_L Control_R

In iw3m I have mode based “vim-grammar-like” setup to perform actions with key combinations. Maybe later more about it. However, my mode configuration in there:

bindsym k exec --no-startup-id "xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap", mode "default"

I.e., key remap (idempotent) happens by typing S-m q k.

Result 🔗

It took only 1 day from muscle memory to learn the new place of Ctrl. I expected it to take longer because I’ve been hitting the “standard” Ctrl position for almost 30 years. I really recommend everyone to utilize CapsLock for something else. It’s really enjoyable to use it. 💖

Next steps 🔗

Keyboard modifications are device specific and without persistence. I use USB switch with 3 computers and devices are often reconnected. Next I have to figure out the least hacky way to implement automated xmodmap execution on keyboard connection. Maybe with udev rule, lets see.

Update on July 17, 2021: Automatic xmodmap on keyboard connection