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I dislike to have to reach up to the Escape key all the time. For a while I used the program xcape under Linux to map Caps lock to be both Control and Escape. However, I am currently working more and more on a Mac so I can’t have the same keybinding without much increased effort.

I thought that the key combination of Control-Space would be quite nice.

I tried to rebind with:

map <NUL> <ESC>
nmap <NUL> i

But that does not work correctly, often inserting the same text again.

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    An alternative to Esc key that is more 'reachable' is Ctrl-[
    – tivn
    Apr 25, 2015 at 15:58
  • Why would <Nul> be a ctrl-space?
    – Ben
    Apr 25, 2015 at 23:38
  • Control-Space is a potentially difficult thing, since it's a signal which differnt TERMs send differently. It can be <C-Space> or <NUL>, if it's sent at all. Apr 26, 2015 at 19:50

4 Answers 4

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I found this map works for Ctrl-Space :

:nnoremap <C-@> i
:inoremap <C-@> <Esc>
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    Yes, I found that's what I have had to use for vim in terminals. The way to discover such things is to see what Vim produces when you type i<Ctrl-V><Ctrl-Space> or :<Ctrl-V><Ctrl-Space>. Dec 12, 2015 at 4:53
  • Beware if you use Ubuntu 14.04, iBus may be intercepting the keystroke. Check the preferences of the little keyboard icon in the dock that lets you select language / keyboard input method, and change the mapping to something else (I went for <Ctrl-Alt-Space>). Dec 12, 2015 at 4:56
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nnoremap <C-Space> i
inoremap <C-Space> <Esc>
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  • Does not do anything in normal mode exept beeping and in insert mode somehow triggers completion. :/ Apr 25, 2015 at 14:37
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    Do you have existing mappings for c-space? These should work, I think, unless your vim is not recognizing the keystroke.
    – Ben
    Apr 25, 2015 at 23:40
  • Should work for most modern terminals, however you can also map <C-@>like @tivn suggests, that works as well, the reason being both send the same key codes to vim. Apr 26, 2015 at 23:05
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Probably because the touch bar escape key is a bit difficult to hit reliably, Mac now has an option to turn capslock into the escape key. System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Modifier Keys.

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    I believe that option existed before the touch bar, but I could be wrong. At any rate, welcome to Vi and Vim!
    – D. Ben Knoble
    May 14, 2020 at 13:50
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As @pdr written, macOS has the ability to change the behavior of some modifier keys.

You can go to System Preferences -> Keyboard and check on the lower right corner of the window. There is the button Modifier keys....

If you click the Modifier keys... button, then a drop-down panel appears when you can change the behavior of the keys:

  • Capslock
  • Control
  • Option
  • Command
  • Function

Personally, I have mapped Capslock to Escape.

This works also in the touch-bar models of Apple.

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