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Swap Control and Caps Lock on the 2005 Powerbooks System
If you've been trying to swap the control and capslock keys on a new Powerbook and all the old tips aren't working, give this a try...

Edit the following file: /System -> Library -> Extensions -> AppleUSBTopCase.kext -> Contents -> PlugIns -> AppleUSBTCKeyboard.kext -> Contents -> Info.plist Add these lines:
  <key>Swap control and capslock</key>
  <integer>1</integer>
to each of the entries in the IOKitPersonalities section. Save your changes, then do touch /System/Libraries/Extensions directory, reboot, and you're done! This hint is similar to John Fieber's instructions.

[robg adds: Note that this is for the 2005 PowerBooks only, as they now have the same USB keyboard as desktop Macs. If you have an older PowerBook, uControl, which is mentioned on John's page and previously here on hints, is probably your best bet.]
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Swap Control and Caps Lock on the 2005 Powerbooks | 10 comments | Create New Account
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uControl broken by 10.3.8
Authored by: GlowingApple on Feb 15, '05 11:32:57AM

I believe uControl was broken by 10.3.8. I was running uControl since 10.3.3 and when I updated from 10.3.7 to .8 uControl stopped working. I tried to reenable the driver, but nothing seems to work. So if you still want to use uControl, be careful updating your computer...as I know of no way to roll back an update you're stuck without it.

---
Jayson

When Microsoft asks you, "Where do you want to go today?" tell them "Apple."



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uControl broken by 10.3.8
Authored by: GlowingApple on Feb 15, '05 11:35:25AM

Nevermind, I didn't notice that they had made an update since then.

---
Jayson

When Microsoft asks you, "Where do you want to go today?" tell them "Apple."



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uControl broken by 10.3.8
Authored by: SantaCruzMacboy on Feb 15, '05 04:16:44PM

Quick update.
I upgraded this morning to 10.3.8 and realized after reboot that uControl didn't work. I freaked. Then, to troubleshoot, I went to System Preferences, clicked on the uControl icon, and clicked the "Check for Update" button.

And, what d'ya know?
A new version (1.4.6) had already been posted for 10.3.8. I downloaded it, installed it (rebooted) and all was once again right w/the world.

Gotta love the speed of open source work.
Thanks Shane (and everyone else who contributes to uControl... it makes my mac and me much happier.)



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Swap Control and Caps Lock on the 2005 Powerbooks
Authored by: rushmoom on Feb 15, '05 01:12:38PM

You are SO the man. I was pretty disappointed that uControl didn't work on my new powerbook. I knew there had to be a way for the new keyboards. Thanks!



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Swap Control and Caps Lock on the 2005 Powerbooks
Authored by: Tiny Clanger on Feb 16, '05 06:54:48AM
That ucontrol link goes to a blank page. http://gnufoo.org/macosx/macosx.html works better...

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Swap Control and Caps Lock on the 2005 Powerbooks
Authored by: wastl on Feb 26, '05 02:20:05PM

Thanks for the tip - the caps/ctrl swap works great. Unfortunately, it seems to alter the behavior of the FN key. With the keys swapped my FN key is 'permanently' stuck down. F1 to F10 are always in function key mode - the brightness, volume, num lock, etc. are not accessible regardless of what you physically do with the FN key. Anybody else have this problem?



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Swap Control and Caps Lock on the 2005 Powerbooks
Authored by: BobHarris on May 02, '05 09:00:19PM

Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) has a new feature in

System Preferences -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Keyboard Tab -> Modifier Keys...

That allows you to change the 4 modifier keys "Capslock", "Control", "Opton", and "Command" to behave like any of the other modifier keys.

So if you want to swap Capslock for Control, you change Capslock to be Control, and you change Control to be Capslock (of just make Capslock be Control, and let Control stay Control; who needs a Capslock key anyway :-)

Or swap Command and Option on a PC keyboard so that "Alt" next to the space bar was now Command and the "Windows" key in the Option position is now Option.

However, I still see a need for uControl and DoubleCommand as they allow me to do things like make the 'enter' key a 'fn' (function) key on my iBook, and it has other features.

But this is a step forward for Mac OS X.



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Swap Control and Caps Lock on the 2005 Powerbooks
Authored by: afn on May 03, '05 05:17:47PM

I just found out about "modifier keys" options, and I'm super happy about it-- I'm perfectly fine with ctrl either in the 'correct' place (next to the A) or in the 'standard' place (lower-left corner), but I absolutely can't stand the Powerbook layout which has Fn in the corner and makes Ctrl impossible to find :-)

That said, there seems to be a bug in this feature: the caps lock light is still toggled when I hit the caps lock key, regardless of what it's mapped to. Even worse, if I map another key -- say, the ctrl key -- to Caps Lock, it DOES toggle caps lock, but doesn't turn the light on.

Can it really be that the caps lock light is hardware-controlled?! Or is this just a stupid bug in the keyboard driver? Anyone know of any workaround? Anyone else have this problem? I've got a brand spanking new 12" Powerbook...



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Swap Control and Caps Lock on the 2005 Powerbooks
Authored by: driftwolf on Aug 23, '05 03:54:15PM

A step forward would have been to remove the little used
caps lock key from where they've got it and swap it with
much-used control key. Putting the swap in the control
is a software workaround for poorly designed hardware.

I've talked to many people (dozens? maybe hundreds?)
who use keyboards for everything from programming to
secretarial work to multi-language translations,
and EVERYONE thinks that putting the caps-lock key in
the most accessible location while putting the control
key down and away is the most stupid thing they've
seen. All in the name of making left and right sides of
the keyboard "look nice and balanced". What a stupid
reason. Nobody I've talked to uses the caps lock key
that often, why the hell put it where it can be easily used?

Sigh. Oh well, at least Tiger gives us a slightly
workable alternative. Now to get a sharpie and
re-label my keyboard...

cheers,
Marc



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Swap Left Control and Caps Lock on Tiger
Authored by: paulCO on Nov 18, '05 08:41:31AM

Has anyone figured out how to map ONLY the left control and swap it with caps lock? The new Tiger feature of mapping both control keys to caps lock is great, but not quite what I want. I had either uControl or DoubleCommand working on Panther, and loved it.

Neither one of those programs seems to work properly in Tiger - I keep getting some kind of a stuck control key, so everything I type or click becomes an undesireable action until I manage to disable the setting.

So far, my only choice has been to disregard caps lock altogether and have 3 control keys. (left, right, caps)



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