Zonogy

Karabiner-Elements: Caps Lock as Control-Cmd

Most default Zonogy shortcuts use Control-Cmd as the modifier. I like remapping Caps Lock to Control-Cmd, since I don’t normally use Caps Lock for other things.

Karabiner-Elements is a free macOS keyboard customizer that can do this remapping. The rule below goes one step further: holding Caps Lock acts as Control-Cmd (a “Hyper” key), and tapping Caps Lock alone fires Control-Cmd-Space (the default Launcher shortcut).

Adding the rule

In Karabiner-Elements, open Settings → Complex Modifications → Add your own rule, and paste:

{
    "description": "Caps Lock to Hyper (hold) / Cmd-Ctr-Space (tap)",
    "manipulators": [
        {
            "from": {
                "key_code": "caps_lock",
                "modifiers": { "optional": ["any"] }
            },
            "parameters": { "basic.to_if_alone_timeout_milliseconds": 200 },
            "to": [
                {
                    "key_code": "left_control",
                    "modifiers": ["left_command"]
                }
            ],
            "to_if_alone": [
                {
                    "key_code": "spacebar",
                    "modifiers": ["left_control", "left_command"]
                }
            ],
            "type": "basic"
        }
    ]
}

The 200ms timeout determines how quickly you have to release Caps Lock for it to count as a tap rather than a hold.