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'm finding it difficult to adjust. There are several shortcuts that are second nature to me now and I hadn't realised quite how ingrained they are in how I use the keyboard.

In particular, I keep going to the old Ctrl key for Ctrl+Z (undo), and for cut, copy & paste operations (Ctrl+ X, C and V). Experimenting with going from the home position to Ctrl+Z I don't know which finger to put on Z, as it feels awkward with either my ring, middle or index finger. Is this something I'll get used to the same way I've got used to the original position and I should just give it time or is this arrangement not suited to windows keyboard shortcuts.

I'd be interested to hear from people who have successfully made the transition as well as those who have tried it and move back, but particularly from people who were doing it on windows.

Will it lead to any improvement in my typing speed or comfort when typing.

Do you have any tips for finger positions or typing training to speed up the transition.

Solution 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

Solution 2

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.

Solution 3

I've done it for quite a while now, and it's natural to me, even though I'm not an Emacs user either (I'm in the Vim camp of that particular war :) ). In fact, it's so natural that moving to other machines (coworkers, family members, etc.) causes me grief because Ctrl isn't where it 'ought' to be.

Solution 4

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.

Solution 5

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.

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Comments

[Edi]

If it weren't a Windows system, I'd agree. For me, the regular use of Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-A, Ctrl-X, etc. in Windows makes it more useful to swap Caps Lock with Ctrl on Windows systems,even though I'm a vim user.

[Brendan Foote]

Is there a way to do this inside of emacs--say, if I don't have admin access to a Windows machine so I can't modify the registry?

[John Smith]

+1 for making it another caps lock key. @onebyone.livejournal.com: If you don't need alt-gr, I guess that you have never used any international keyboard layout?

[John Smith]

I'm in the Emacs camp, but I've got the impression that Vim gurus change their caps lock key to esc? :)

[John Smith]

Caps lock is quite simple to rebind in OS X and Gnome at least. Only Windows seems to make it complex (and maybe some Linux window managers I guess)

[R. Martinho Fernandes]

Without it, I need to press Ctrl+Alt to input any of the following: @ (important),£ (not very useful), § (what the hell is this?), {[]} (essential), ¨ (not in my language).

[Bryan Ward]

For Vim users switching caps lock and control is still favorable because ctrl+[ is the same as escape. Thus you can have the control placed conveniently for other applications and avoid the extra few inch stretch to the escape key.

[sage]

This is exactly what I wanted to find, but I foolishly searched for regedit instead of reg - I created exactly that reg file and it works great!

[yetanothercoder]

I want to swap capslock with RIGHT control, couldn't goole it, has anybody got such .reg file? (there is only with-left-control-swap in the link) Thanks!