Remap Esc to Caps Lock after mapping Caps Lock to Ctrl and Esc with xcape

Question

I currently have Caps Lock mapped to Ctrl when held and Esc when tapped (for vim) via these commands in .xinitrc

setxkbmap -option 'caps:ctrl_modifier'
xcape -e 'Caps_Lock=Escape'

This works, but leaves me without Caps Lock so I want to remap Esc to Caps Lock. I've tried setting it with xmodmap -e 'keycode 9 = Caps_Lock' but that overrides the mapping on the Caps Lock key as well. Is there any way to achieve these mappings?

Caps Lock -> Ctrl and Esc
Esc -> Caps Lock

Answer 1

You can use setxkbmap or xmodmap to swap Caps Lock and Escape. With xmodmap you could have:

! Remove Caps_Lock modifier from real Caps Lock key
clear Lock
! Set real Caps Lock key to present as (left) control
keycode 66 = Control_L
! Set real Escape key to present as Caps Lock
keycode 9 = Caps_Lock
! Make a fake key to hold the Escape keysym, so xcape can use it
keycode 255 = Escape
! Make Caps_Lock and Control_L work as one would expect
add Lock = Caps_Lock
add Control = Control_L

(The lines starting with ! are comments.)

Put this in ~/.xmodmaprc and run xmodmap ~/.xmodmaprc, then run xcape -e '#66=Escape' to add Escape functionality to the real Caps Lock key.