Wednesday, August 12, 2015

A better use of Caps Lock

One of the best ideas of Colemak is to remap the Caps Lock key to the backward deletion action. I never type in all caps anyways (who does?), but I mistype things all the time, especially now that I'm learning a new layout. Moving backward deletion to the Caps Lock key also freed up my Backspace key, which I in turn mapped to the forward deletion action, an action which my compact keyboard previously required a highly awkward combo to achieve. Am I happy? Yup.

Unfortunately, though, the Colemak that came bundled with Yosemite did not make the magic happen by itself. Or maybe it was not unfortunate at all, seeing that the solution also work for any layout, including my beloved Dvorak (in case I decide to go back). These are the instructions I followed (for Yosemite):
  1. Download and install Seil.
  2. In System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Keyboard (the tab) -> Modifier Keys, select "No Action" for Caps Lock. Remember to do this for all your keyboards in the drop-down list (see picture; if you don't, then pressing and holding to delete multiple characters might not work).
  3. Open Seil, and select "Change the caps lock key." Keycode 51 is for the backward deletion action, which is also the default.
  4. In Seil under "Other keys," the delete key can also be remapped. Keycode 117 is for the forward deletion action.
  5. Quit Seil and reboot for changes to take effect.

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