The Caps Lock key is a relic of the typewriter era. For a modern Textsmith, it is often a nuisance—especially when it begins to ‘stutter’ and lock your terminal into a shouting match of uppercase letters.
The Problem with Accessibility
For users of screen readers like Orca, the Caps Lock often serves as a primary modifier key. When the ‘Lock’ state gets out of sync with the ‘Modifier’ state, the anvil becomes chaotic.
The Fix: xmodmap
We don’t have to accept the factory settings. Using xmodmap, we can strip the ‘Lock’ property from the key entirely.
- Step 1: Clear the lock modifier.
- Step 2: Remap keycode 66 (Caps Lock) to something useful like
InsertorEscape.
By doing this, we reclaim our keyboard. The key still works for Orca, but it no longer has the power to scream in all-caps.
Forged in the terminal. Refined under the anvil.