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Now if only I could figure out how to make vim map CAPS LOCK to CONTROL when it starts up, I'd have it made...

Better to just turn caps lock into control all the time, since caps lock is useless.

Here's a page giving directions: http://www.manicai.net/comp/swap-caps-ctrl.html

Or on Windows, search for the program KeyTweak.

Copy the following into a .reg file (not including the --- lines) and run it to replace Caps Lock with Left-Ctrl:

------------

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\K eyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,1d,00 ,3a,00,00,00,00,00

------------

If you want to replace it with Escape instead, use this:

------------

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\K eyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,01,00 ,3a,00,00,00,00,00

------------

You'll need to remove some spurious spaces added by Slashcode (in "Keyboard" and before "3a"). Note that this works on the scancode level and will affect all users and applications, including DirectX ones. It's as close as you can get to physically rewiring the key. You need to reboot for it to take effect. (Stolen from here and here.)

On Windows, Caps Lock and Control can be swepped. A similar technique can be used to make caps lock a redundant control key:

http://www.manicai.net/comp/swap-caps-ctrl.html

There are also ways to do this on Unix, but I don't remember what they are.

On Unix keyboards, the Control and Caps Lock are swapped. I actually find it a bit more comfortable, but many people are used to the PC keyboard design.

Actually, Windows lets you swap caps lock and ctrl if you prefer that.

I have a similar story with a small dockapp called wmfuzzy that displays a time string.

When I switched to OpenBSD on a laptop, it didn't work. I informed the author, and he rewrote some code so it would. I tested it, found a few bugs, and told them of it. Although I couldn't code C at the time, I could read the asset reports and change the system clock so that the bugs would trigger.

Its a great feeling to submit a bug report in the morning and by the next day have a patched version of the code to test.

Its also nice to get a point release and credit in the changelog. :)

Another time, I was playing slash'em and I found that I could get some rather strange error messages with One-Eyed Sam in a certain scenerio. I talked to one of the developers on IRC, narrowed down the problem, and filed a bug report. Last I heard, it was fixed in the next release. (The bug wasn't a game-crashing bug, just slash'em realizing that the shop didn't have a shop keeper.)

Same thing for Windows (2k at least)

Personally, I demand that that the Control key be placed where it belongs, immediately to the left of the 'A' key. Caps-lock needs to be out of the way or disabled altogether. '<' and '>' need to be shift-comma and shift-period, respectively (I've used old DEC keyboards where '<' and '>' are on a single key between 'Z' and shift).

I understand that not everyone shares my preferences, which is why keyboards need to be software-configurable. In Windows 2000, for example, you have to edit the registry to swap the control and caps-lock keys (see
here for instructions). That's ridiculous. In Unix and Linux you can use xmodmap, which isn't *quite* as cumbersome.

I rarely use any keyboards other than my own, and other people rarely use my keyboards, so I don't worry about undoing my re-mappings. But that's not true for everyone. Any user-oriented OS should have a convenient way to define a set of keyboard mappings, an easy way to switch among them, and a way to specify that a mapping applies only to a specific user.

And finally, the physical design of the keyboard has to accomodate this flexibility. Modern PC keyboards actually aren't bad in this regard; Caps Lock is in the wrong place, but it doesn't physically lock when you press it the way it does on some old keyboards.

Ultimately it would be nice for the legends on the key tops to be programmable (but not at the expense of durability). That's not a big deal for me, since I'm a touch typist.