It’s true, it’s true. For years, I’ve heard grizzled old UNIX guys talk about how horrible the placement of Caps Lock is, and how Control should be there instead. The rationale being that it was used so often in Emacs (as well as any app using libreadline) that it made sense to move it closer to the keys it was used in combination with. However, one of the most common uses is C-a (beginning-of-line), which is more awkward, since caps is right next to the “a” key. It felt duplicitous to call to move Control next to A, while decrying having Meta next to x (M-x is one of the other very common Emacs keystrokes).

But after years of resisting, I decided to give it a try. Big mistake. Oh, I don’t have any problem with using the control key in it’s new position. It’s definitely easier for some keystrokes, like C-y and C-e, which require much less finger-stretching to hit now. I retained the original Control behavior, though, since some combos feel more natural with that, like C-x C-s (save-buffer).

It’s not that I don’t have a Caps Lock key anymore, either; M-u will turn anything to upper-case, so it’s not really a problem. No, the problem now is that whenever I use any other system, I turn into a useless blob, incapable of effectively typing anything. The gibberish which appears on the screen is hideously malformed, full of typos and capitalized letters. Any rational person who happens to observe me in this state must only assume that I’m staggeringly drunk, suffering from palsy, or both.

It’s terrible. Do not, under any circumstances, remap Caps to Control, unless you plan on never using any computers.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 3rd, 2006 at 7:04 pm and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.