No way to disable Caps Lock

[Lukas Sabota]

In keyboard preferences, there are many options to chance the behavior or Caps
Lock, but there are no options to disable it. Some users do not use caps lock,
and often accidently hit it. It would be nice to be able to disable this
functionality.

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4631: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4631

[Lionel Dricot (ploum-deactivatedaccount)]

it's not a bad idea at all. I suggest you to post your wish upstream on
http://bugzilla.gnome.org

[Craig Box (craig.box)]

Thanks for your bug report. This particular bug has been filed with the
developers of the software. You can see and make comments here:
http://bugs.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=317408

[Craig Box (craig.box)]

Red Hat bug: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=138225
Ubuntu bug: http://bugzilla.ubuntu.com/show_bug.cgi?id=14366

"In keyboard preferences, there are many options to chance the behavior or Caps
Lock, but there are no options to disable it. Some users do not use caps lock,
and often accidently hit it. It would be nice to be able to disable this
functionality."

Raised on GNOME bugzilla: "It is NOTGNOME, all these options are provided by X
server. Could you please file this bug in xorg bugzilla?"

[Craig Box (craig.box)]

Moved to xorg bugzilla at request of GNOME:
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4631

[Sergey V. Udaltsov (svu)]

Yes, it is the right place to report this bug. I will have a look at this option
- but if you really want to help and speed up the process, a patch would be nice
to commit...

[Henrik Nilsen Omma (henrik)]

moving the bug to xkeyboard-config.

[Sebastian Kapfer (caci)]

There is an option to make CapsLock an additional Control key. Is that enough?

[Myk Dowling (politas)]

I'd just like to add a vote to get this enhancement done. For those of us who find capslock an annoying holdover from bygone ages and who don't want to have to delve under the hood with our desktops, it would be very nice.

I also find it disappointing that this has been sitting for over eighteen months without any progress. Surely it can't be all that complicated? The proposed behaviour for capslock is just "do nothing". All that we would like is just an option in the choices to be added.

[James H. Cloos Jr. (cloos-jhcloos)]

Using ctrl:nocaps is the typical way to avoid having a caps key;
it turns it into a control key.

[Sergey V. Udaltsov (svu)]

Good idea, James. Lads, please use "CAPS as Ctrl" option - and you won't have CAPS any more.

This proposed option is redundant.

[Myk Dowling (politas)]

What? No, that is NOT a solution. The problem that I and many other people have with Capslock is that we frequently hit it accidentally. Turning it into a CTRL key may be useful for some people, but it just means a different brand of bizarre, unexpected behaviour. CTRL is stuck down in the far corner of the keyboard for a good reason. This is not a redundant request.

The options I'd like to see available in the GUI (which is the problem here; there are workarounds to do it using commands) are (1) to turn it off completely and (2) to make it act as a shift key, which is usually what people who hit Capslock ACCIDENTALLY are aiming for.

[Sergey V. Udaltsov (svu)]

> What? No, that is NOT a solution. The problem that I and many other people have
> with Capslock is that we frequently hit it accidentally. Turning it into a CTRL
> key may be useful for some people, but it just means a different brand of
> bizarre, unexpected behaviour. CTRL is stuck down in the far corner of the
> keyboard for a good reason. This is not a redundant request.
Occational press of CTRL does not change anything unless you press another button at the same time. So it is harmless for most purposes. I cannot imagine people unintentionally pressing Caps and another key at the same time. Put it onto account of my poor imagination, if you like.

> The options I'd like to see available in the GUI (which is the problem here;
> there are workarounds to do it using commands) are (1) to turn it off
> completely and (2) to make it act as a shift key, which is usually what people
> who hit Capslock ACCIDENTALLY are aiming for.
I am trying not to overload GUI with overly exotic commands. That's why WONTFIX. You can open a bug regarding #2 if you like - it makes sense to me. Feel free to send the patch.

[Craig Box (craig.box)]

Seems it will have to be; they've marked it WONTFIX at fdo.

[Myk Dowling (politas)]

> I cannot imagine people unintentionally pressing Caps and another key
> at the same time.

Um, what do you think we're trying to press when we accidentally hit Capslock?

That would be Shift.

So with Capslock set to CTRL, if I'm starting to type a sentence where the first word starts with V, for instance, and my little finger accidentally hits CapsLock instead of Shift, I get whatever's in the clipboard pasted in.

There are a fair few people who would like this ability, you know.

Google gives about 226,000 results for "Disable Caps lock Key".

How many potential users do you need to make something not "exotic"?

[Sergey V. Udaltsov (svu)]

I will think of it. Funny enough, these days I got simultaneously a couple independent requests for that option.

[Maak58 (maak58)]

(In reply to comment #2 and #8)
> I'd just like to add a vote to get this enhancement done. For those of us who
> find capslock an annoying ...
>

From a practical point of view I would not see any need to include any extra option.
A simple xmodmap -e "clear Lock" does result in the desired effect reliably.

I regularly include this in the Gnome Autostarts as a workaround for CapsLock problems.

[Myk Dowling (politas)]

That's not what I call a "simple" workaround, but I understand that my suggestion is not being accepted.

What bugs me is that there are plenty of people who clearly want their capslock just turned off, but the maintainers of the software aren't interested in providing the option, in order to make it an actually easy thing to do, without having to search the Internet in order to find out how to use xmodmap. The whole idea of having an "end-user" interface is to hide stuff like xmodmap, but the simple to use interface relies on xkb including the option.