I use my caps lock key as a right arrow key. Reaching for escape in Vim doesn't really bother me, and I find it surprisingly useful pretty much any time I'm typing.<p>I use AutoHotkey (<a href="http://www.autohotkey.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.autohotkey.com/</a>) to remap it on Windows, and xmodmap/xset under X on Linux. If anyone has suggestions for doing this easily under OS X I'd love to hear them.<p>The AutoHotkey script is this:
SetCapsLockState, ALwaysOff
CapsLock::Right<p>And the xmodmap/xset commands are basically the same as those mentioned in the article for remapping backspace:
xmodmap -e "remove lock = Caps_Lock"
xmodmap -e "keycode 66 = Right"
xset r 66
It's pretty common for emacs users to remap caps lock to the control key. In fact, it's the first tip in Steve Yegge's Effective Emacs essay.<p><a href="http://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/effective-emacs" rel="nofollow">http://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/effective-emacs</a>
I've been using Caps Lock as Escape for an easy to access escape in vim. I am so used to this now that it is one of the first things I have to change when setting up a machine before I go crazy.