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Comment by swang | Hacker News Reader

Everyone keeps talking about vi/emacs stuff. While that was annoying, the more annoying aspect was when macOS softlocked and I was unable to hit the chord (cmd+opt+esc) to get the kill task window because the touchbar froze as well.

Having a virtual ESC key in software that can be frozen, where part of your keyboard chord to kill apps includes the ESC key is really, really, stupid and caused me lots of wasted time that could have been saved had there just been a hard ESC key.

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Mapping the Caps Lock key to Esc in the modifier remap interface is how I handled this situation (and others with essential ESC). Figured that probably wasn't coincidence that they added Esc to it when the new keyboard was introduced--was as much of a nod to mitigating a bad idea as we got.

But yeah, it was stupid, especially given that software developers are a very visible market for them in the Bay Area. As soon as the 16" came out with an Esc, I ordered one at work and bought one at home so I guess they won, but it's another step towards getting me on a Linux or Windows PC a generation or two down the line.

This didn't work for those of us who map Caps Lock to Control, like god intended. IIRC, it wasn't possible to map the left Control key to ESC for some reason.

I actually use Karabiner now to do Ctrl if held, Esc if tapped. It’s a little tougher to walk people through though:

1) install karabiner elements

2) select complex modifications

3) add rule

4) import more from internet

5) import change caps lock key v4

6) add rule change caps_lock to control if pressed with other keys, to escape if pressed alone

...is my actual current setup, along with a bunch of other key mapping. But I started with what I posted above, which everyone with Mojave+ on a MBP has available already.

Is karabiner going to stop working in 10.16? Because of the kext lockdown/deprecation?

I'm very afraid of getting too used to it and then having it stop working.

https://github.com/pqrs-org/Karabiner-Elements/issues/2149

I hadn't seen that before, but figures. More and more, a nice Lenovo, Dell, or System76 laptop running Linux is starting to sound really good. Hell, it's got better gaming support than Mac now, with Vulkan.

As far as the immediate concern goes, Karabiner is such a popular thing that I suspect there'll be some way to support it. If not, I won't upgrade. I just bought this MacBook Pro, and it'll probably continue to be usable on 10.15.x for its lifetime. I'm not too interested in my gaming keyboard and 10 key pad becoming unusable, at any rate.

If they actually completely kill software support for this, I guess next best thing would be a USB intermediary to process the key codes. Possible it's doable with a Raspberry PI or something, and there are enough mechanical keyboard enthusiasts on Mac someone would be motivated to do it. Won't help for the internal keyboard though.

btw, this issue has some "system-supported" ways to do the simple modifications. That at least would let me do a workaround for some of what I'd need to replace (swapping modifier keys, mapping my ten-keypad to arrow keys, etc.)

https://github.com/pqrs-org/Karabiner-Elements/issues/2196

Karabiner also lets you disable the Touch Bar escape so you don’t accidentally trigger it.

Re left ctrl, btw, it’s possible now to map ctrl to esc. It’ll map both keys though—-the apple interface doesn’t do left/right.

It’s a “simple modification” (specific type) in Karabiner though, if you use that. I use PC mechanical keyboards so most of my typing devices a) have swapped around mod keys and b) map right ctrl to fn so I can do Mac device hotkeys from pc keyboard.

Real Vi/emac users don’t use the esc key. It’s way too far frome home row.

Right! Real vi users have a foot pedal for escape.

:__)

*yes, fingers pointing at me

I think most people actually remap to the ~ key, or if they're extreme they'll use tab. On my keyboard Escape already came as the ~ key and you have to use fn to access ~ or `.

The ergonomics of moving it closer far outweigh any benefits from it being physical vs touchscreen.

Remap caps-lock to escape and you're good to go! Or remap capslock to control and use Ctrl-[. Or use karabiner and remap capslock to control-when-held and escape-when-pressed-quickly.

AutoHotkey can do this "caps lock as both escape and control" thing too. I use this, from http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Map_caps_lock_to_escape_in_Windows :

  ; Author: fwompner gmail com
  #InstallKeybdHook
  SetCapsLockState, alwaysoff
  Capslock::
  Send {LControl Down}
  KeyWait, CapsLock
  Send {LControl Up}
  if ( A_PriorKey = "CapsLock" )
  {
      Send {Esc}
  }
  return

When I first started using Emacs, I used to joke that with all the various modifiers and prefix keys for escapes that it was just a generation away from needing foot pedals.

Or they use ctrl+c

Right. I've been a long time vim user and I don't really use the escape key while vim-ing. I use ctrl+c.

don't you mean toe pedal?

Mapping the sequence 'jk' to Esc supercharged vim for me. Faster, but also helps me stay in the flow longer.

Run `:inoremap jk <Esc>` to try it out.

add in kj too and you can just press both keys at the same time and it will work like it was just one key press. the added benefit is that it's basically a no-op from the standpoint of vim too just in case you were already in normal mode.

I wonder if any people remap hjkl to jkl;. Having to shift my hands one key over always annoyed me.

'jk' are on the strongest two fingers on the right hand home row, since that's what you'll be doing the most. 'h' can be hit once or twice with no real effort, but there are better ways to move left and right within a line, such as `bBeEfFwWIA`. I also remap `H` and 'L' to move all the way to either end of the line, but I might be doing it wrong

I just use my index finger for both j and h. Are you used to the arrow keys? I noticed with jkl;, my fingers line up with the arrow-key directions.

On the keyboards vi was designed for, Escape was positioned where the Caps Lock key is now on modern US-101 keyboards. May as well just map it there.

I'm puzzled by this claim.

The keyboard for the ADM-3A shows a Ctrl key to the left of A. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADM-3A#Hardware

The VT100 shows CAPS LOCK to the left of A. https://vt100.net/docs/vt100-ug/chapter1.html#S1.1

So on which visual terminal was ESC to the left of A? Or are you perhaps referring to ex, an antecedent of vi, which was designed for hardcopy terminals? If so, which hardcopy terminal had ESC to the left of A? I've looked at the images for some and can't find that.

You’re right. Next to Q is correct, still more reachable than it is now. Now Tab is in that position and we’re used to that.

Some of us just have big hands. :3

i am a real vi user its not too far I use esc

I think the parent was a bit tongue-in-cheek. It's in reference to the keyboard layout vi was developed with and the fact many vi users are obsessed with keeping their fingers on/near the home row (much like, "a /real/ vi user doesn't use the mouse"). Ctrl-[ is an equivalent to ESC on American English keyboards.

https://dave.cheney.net/2017/08/21/the-here-is-key

https://vim.fandom.com/wiki/Avoid_the_escape_key#Avoiding_th...

This happened to me last week.

I did not notice at first, but I could not reduce the volume, since its control was gone.

Then I tried to restart finder, but the escape key was ‘gone’.

I have an even better story about the one that replaced this (same model).

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