Also, with Extend you can have both Backspace, Ctrl+Backspace and the CapsLock readily available in your Extend layer as you see fit. It's been my main way of hitting Backspace for years, but nowadays I'm also trying out a tap sequence for deleting whole words at a time.
]]>Not sure which portable version you're using. In PKL you can remap the Caps Lock if you want to. I use it as the PKL Extend key (recommended!).
]]>I'm a bit confused. When installing Colemak yesterday, I noticed that it said the CapsLock key was no longer mapped to Backspace. Is this so? Was this by user request? CapsLock/Backspace was one of my favorite features of Colemak.
I generally use the portable version of Colemak (as the ALT/ALT combination is handy for turning it off), and it didn't map the CapsLock/Backspace either. Yet I have installed this same portable version on another computer and it did!
I guess I'm just confused and hoping someone can give me some insight as to why this might be.
Kind regards,
wussboy
It's actually quite a lot of work to change it, because it requires several manual hacks to modify the special key Caps Lock, repackaging the installer, testing, etc.
So how did you do it? I figured that the functionality of the Caps-remapping must be in the DLL rather than a registry hack. Did you have to write + compile the Colemak.dll yourself then?
]]>I did not have the skill to change CapsLock to Backspace on the Mac OS. I also couldn't get the offered Solaris software to work on my work Sun machine -- so I wrote a very easy and naive xmodmap myself looking at 'man xmodmap', but didn't deal with CapsLock, because (a) I was too lazy to add the slightly more clever entries for it, and (b) the CapsLock on my Sun keyboard was not all that desirable a location to begin with (Sun keyboards, sensibly enough, have their only Control key where you might expect CapsLock; they don't have symmetrical Left and Right Controls). I like the Sun setup so much that I have CapsLock mapped to Control on the Mac -- which is an easy change that Mac OS X allows without external software.
From hindsight, my inability to change CapsLock was a boon. I kept using Backspace as in QWERTY whenever I needed to, and since it was a dreaded trip to keyboard Siberia (instead of keyboard Hawaii as Colemak mandates), my fingers learned to make less mistakes. I can now do 67wpm without frightening the horses.
Still, the CapsLock-to-Backspace was a good publicity hook, even if in my case that's the one thing in Colemak that I didn't end up adopting. There is obviously a large groundswell of antipathy toward CapsLock, which I share from having had to deal with non-Sun keyboards, and my eyes wouldn't have been open to Colemak if it weren't for its feisty anti-CapsLock stance. Mere rearrangement of the letter keys would not have registered on me as something I could possibly learn to use.
]]>(Also, the hair-shirt-wearer in me likes the fact that there should be some penalty to reaching for the Backspace key. Hitting Backspace shouldn't be too easy -- at least for me!)
]]>These are my thoughts about the pros (+) and cons (-) for some solutions:
1) No Caps Lock at all:
- People without patience or being too skeptical may stop exploring on Colemak only because of this if they did not come across all the Colemak pros yet.
+ Weakens the usage of upper case.
2) Caps Lock with a rarely used special key like Scroll Lock or Windows keys left/right:
- Many special keys can not be found on many keyboards.
- Using such a key weakens the work of people to get rid of it.
3) Caps Lock with AltGr+Shift:
+ simply similar to the existing AltGr extensions of Colemak.
+ simply similar to Shift itself to which the Caps Lock is related to.
+ Similar to using Shift as a release of Caps Lock like it can be configured in some operating systems.
+ Similar to Left-Alt+Shift used to change the keyboard layout on the fly in some operating systems.
Left-Alt+Shift shows that at least in some operating systems it is possible to do something with a combination of modifier keys without an additional key which produces a glyph when used solely. If AltGr+Shift is too disadvantageous, a key which produces a glyph when used solely, together with AltGr could be used at least. Then a left hand key would be preferred because AltGr is right hand. Another alternative would be Shift+Backspace like in Asset keyboard layout where Backspace is the old Caps Lock key too.
Now which one to favor? The most important thing in my opinion is to have as many people as possible changing to Colemak as soon as possible. With that point of view the current state 1) is not the solution. A Colemak not widely used but without Caps Lock does not considerably weaken the usage of upper case.
]]>Therefore I've remapped the CapsLock functionality to my right-hand Win key, since I never ever used that. The only problem with that is when I fumble and hit it instead of AltGr, but this happens very rarely indeed.
Turns out I don't have that file uploaded anymore, but it's really easy to reproduce with KMapper. I'd recommend this or something similar instead of losing the old Backspace - and I certainly wouldn't recommend that we start putting out a bunch of different Colemak installs as that will be both confusing and error-prone.
One minor advantage with doing this my way, will be that if you share the computer with non-Colemak users (using a system layout setup, and reg for the CapsLock/Backspace only) they'll still have their Backspace key. Chances are they'll never really miss the old CapsLock position nor the right-hand Win key.
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