Get Rid of Caps Lock - And Remap it to CTRL
TLDR: Remap CAPS LOCK to act as CTRL.
Why do this?
CAPS LOCK occupies valuable space on the home row, making it ergonomically accessible. In professional settings, you rarely need to YELL for a prolonged period. The times you need all-caps text (primarily for LLM agent prompts) are minimal compared to how often you use CTRL shortcuts. Therefore, it's a worthwhile tradeoff to give up CAPS LOCK entirely (just use Shift for capital letters) in favor of having CTRL in a more accessible location.
With the default CTRL placement, taking CTRL+<SomeLetter> shortcuts requires awkward hand positioning. Remapping CAPS LOCK to CTRL makes shortcuts much easier to use.
Why not swap them?
Swapping is an option that can be done after you've become accustomed to using CTRL where CAPS LOCK used to be. However, it's NOT recommended initially, as your muscle memory will default to the previous CTRL position. It takes time for your muscle memory to adjust to ALWAYS use the newly placed CTRL in its rightful place on the home row.
How to do this?
- Mac - Change the behavior of the modifier keys
- Linux: Ask Claude/GPT how to do it for your distribution.
- Windows - Using PowerToys
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