Turn off Caps lock when Escape is pressed

Question

Is there any way to disable CapsLock whenever Esc is pressed. Yes, I use VIM! I actually have an alternative all-caps keyboard layout on Ctrl-6 but I find it cumbersome and would prefer to just have the OS disable CapsLock whenever Esc is pressed. Also, I often SSH into other servers for a few hours so I'm on a stock VIM there.

Note that I happen to already have swapped the CapsLock and Esc keys. However, when the Esc key is pressed (which happens to be labeled CapsLock on the keyboard and is next to A), I need it to perform both Escape and Disable-CapsLock-If-It-Is-Enabled.

This is on Kubuntu 12.10. Thanks.

Answer 1

In X11 (on console I don't know) you can do it by redefining the behaviour of the Escape key. I looked at the "shift(break_caps)" definition to see how it works, and adapted it.

Look at this answer on xkb for more details on how/where to put the locally modified files and load them.

And for doing what you want, you need in the local symbols file (eg: ~/.xkb/symbols/mysymbols) a section like this:

partial modifier_keys
xkb_symbols "esc_breaks_caps" {
    key <ESC> {
        type = "ALPHABETIC",
        actions [Group1] = [
            SetMods(modifiers=none),
            SetMods(modifiers=Lock,clearLocks)
        ]
    };
};

and in the local keymap file (eg: ~/.xkb/keymap/mykbd; you can create it with setxkbmap -print > ~/.xkb/keymap/mykbd ) change the xkb_symbols line to add +mysymbols(esc_breaks_caps).

You can now load it with: xkbcomp -I$HOME/.xkb ~/.xkb/keymap/mykbd $DISPLAY and pressing Esc will remove the CapsLock state (actually, the effect happens on the release of Esc; I think that only modifiers keys have immediate effect; others the effect is after their release.)

Oh, if you want to also swap Escape and CapsLock keys; then use this instead (and you put "+mysymbols(esc_swap_and_breaks_caps)" in your mykbd file):

partial modifier_keys
xkb_symbols "esc_swap_and_breaks_caps" {
    replace key <CAPS> {
        type = "ALPHABETIC",
        symbols = [ Escape, Escape ],
        actions [Group1] = [
            SetMods(modifiers=none),
            SetMods(modifiers=Lock,clearLocks)
        ]
    };
    replace key <ESC> { [ CapsLock, CapsLock ] };
};

note the physical keys are <CAPS> and <ESC>; <CAPS> (key engraved CapsLock in your keyboard) send Escape and <ESC> (key engraved Esc) sends CapsLock, whith <CAPS> (sending Escape) also unsetting capslock state

Answer 2

Add these lines to ~/.Xmodmap :

clear lock
keycode 0x42 = Escape

Then, type the command:

xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap

Your Caps Lock key is now remapped to the Esc key.

Reference url.

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Also go through this nice article about Mapping CapsLock to Escape in Ubuntu, which seems to be a unix.se user :)

Answer 3

I'm not sure if this answers your question, but to map the Esc function to the CapsLock key, you can use this:

setxkbmap -option "caps:escape"