Caps Lock, I love you

I love Caps Lock now. All it took was making it do something completely different.

Several years ago, I discovered the idea of a Hyper key: one key that sends Control, Option, Command, and Shift together. Steve Losh’s 2012 article is the earliest mention of the term in this context that I could find on the web.

That gives you a whole set of shortcuts that apps and the OS usually leave alone.

So I replaced Caps Lock with Hyper. On a Mac, you can set it up with Raycast, Karabiner-Elements, or the standalone Hyperkey app.

Now I hold Caps Lock with my left pinky and press another key to do whatever I assigned to that combination. Finally, some work for that pinky!

Everything gets a shortcut

Most of my Hyper shortcuts take me to an app:

• Hyper+B: browser
• Hyper+T: terminal
• Hyper+S: Slack
• Hyper+C: coding environment
• Hyper+E: editor
• Hyper+N: notes

And Hyper+Space switches input languages. I previously wrote about fixing the delay when switching languages.

Any app I use on my laptop more than once a day deserves a Hyper shortcut. The letters mostly match what I use the app for, so I don't have much to memorize.

I already know where I want to go

I used to hate opening the app switcher with Cmd+Tab or looking at the Dock. I knew which app I wanted. But there I was, looking through icons to find it, then getting distracted by notification badges and other shiny things.

I only wanted to open the browser. Why am I looking at Slack?

Now I press Hyper+B, and I am in the browser. Hyper+T, and I am in the terminal. I don't use the app switcher or the Dock anymore.

If an app doesn't have a shortcut, I open Raycast and type the first couple of letters of its name.

Caps Lock was always in the right place. I finally gave it something useful to do.