This is genuinely a brilliant idea, but surely a simple thing to implement in software for any keyboard?

[jonathanhogg@mastodon.social]

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@molly0xfff/116216671655443853

This is genuinely a brilliant idea, but surely a simple thing to implement in software for any keyboard? Just disengage caps lock whenever the space bar is pressed…

#FreeAppIdea

[solardavy@climatejustice.social]

@jonathanhogg I think this is done in the firmware of the keyboard, but sure you might be able to write a filter (maybe even eBPF) to do this.

[orionkidder@writing.exchange]

@jonathanhogg Someone get on this, please!

[jonathanhogg@mastodon.social]

OK, so it might be that caps lock is implemented in the firmware of external USB keyboards, but Mac laptops already let you remap the functionality of the caps lock key – so I reckon that's all done in software on macOS…

[greem@cyberplace.social]

@jonathanhogg but what if you want the space to be in capitals? What then?

[dougmerritt@mathstodon.xyz]

@jonathanhogg
On external keyboards, the lock functionality (led on the key stays on, and a change in the code sent) is in firmware.

But it can still be functionally redefined on Mac, Linux, and Windows.

That's not as nice as remapping *all* of that functionality, but it's often acceptable.

[jonathanhogg@mastodon.social]

Actually, no, I might be changing my mind on this again! It looks like there is USB HID stuff for turning the caps lock LED on and off and registering key down and up events for it. So surely it must be possible to do all of this in software…?

[djfiander@code4lib.social]

@jonathanhogg the open source qmk keyboard firmware provides a sample implementation for this that any (sufficiently tech friendly) user can include in their custom keyboard layout.

[dougmerritt@mathstodon.xyz]

@jonathanhogg
Oh, nice. Then sure.

[lp0_on_fire@social.linux.pizza]

@jonathanhogg, only Space? I have no doubt that you'll Return to this later when the realisation that that is insufficient Enters your head. There's no Escape.

[th@social.v.st]

@jonathanhogg @cstross 5-bit baudot teletypes had this as a mechanical option - an extra lever would switch back to letters after whitespace in number mode.

[patpro@social.patpro.net]

@jonathanhogg Sounds super-great, pretty sure I can code this in my Keychron!

[max@toet.dnzm.nl]

@jonathanhogg @molly0xfff One of the thumb buttons on my split keyboards is sticky shift on a single tap (so I can release it and the next character I type will be the shifted version), caps word on double tap, and caps lock on triple tap. Glorious.

And yes, you can do this for any keyboard with software like Kmonad or similar.

[stash@infosec.exchange]

@patpro @jonathanhogg Sadly, keychron launcher doesn't seem to let you. I tried using the "Any" key with the `CW_TOGG` code, but it doesn't work on my Keychron K2 HE. It's probably not enabled in their QMK build. Deets: https://docs.qmk.fm/features/caps_word