Home row mods is a superior solution but not every Emacs user is tech-savvy enough to know how to get home row mods. Emacs users come in all forms. There are authors, researchers, people from humanities who use Emacs. Only a few weeks ago I was reading about someone in the fashion industry who uses Emacs. I don't think most of them would be interested to figure out how to get home row mods.

Replacing CapsLock with Ctrl works for many Emacs users who cannot create mods or carry around an external ergonomic keyboard with them everywhere they go. I know it does not work for all but it works for many.

What really is a bad design is to have precious keyboard real estate wasted by the CapsLock key. Anything that changes that is some improvement on it even if that is mapping CapsLock to Ctrl and using pinky sideways. We use the pinky sideways anyway with Shift, Enter, Tab, ... Adding one more key to sideways pinky does not make it a "bad design".

You've ignored other alternatives that would work better than a capslock even for the less tech-savvy crowd

> Adding one more key to sideways pinky does not make it a "bad design".

Of course it does, and you mentioning other bad designs (by the way,you can also remap those) doesn't change this basic fact of keyboard ergonomics: it's bad because you're using very inconvenient key for very frequent operations

> You've ignored other alternatives that would work better than a capslock even for the less tech-savvy crowd

What are those alternatives? Why talk in riddles when you can simply share those alternatives?

I'm looking at a mac user's keyboard settings right now and the only built in options I can find for Ctrl are Caps Lock, Option, Command, Function. If they want to have a better Ctrl experience which of these other alternatives should I suggest them? Install a new tool only to manage key bindings? I've already lost their attention!

> it's bad because you're using very inconvenient key for very frequent operations

Says who? I don't turn my CapsLock to Ctrl but every longtime CapsLock-as-Ctrl user I know swear by them. They say in person and online that CapsLock to Ctrl helped them get over RSI.

How do you decide for them that it's bad for them? You could say that CapsLock to Ctrl is bad for you. I just don't understand how you could proclaim that it is bad for me and others.

> What are those alternatives? Why talk in riddles when you can simply share those alternatives?

I have, you only had to read a short 2nd sentence of the original comment, they're listed after the comma separator

> Says who?

Who do you need to state this obvious and well publicised fact that lateral/pinky motions are unergonomic??? Though it does explain your later misunderstandings and confusing relative and absolute again

> control prefix as a thumb key,

I read that and found it to be not relevant to non-tech-savvy users. Well the problem is how do you really make them alter their keyboard so that control prefix is now a thumb key without sacrificing something else?

Like in the settings I pulled up in the other comment, I could ask them to make their Command or Option as Ctrl. But after doing that, they lose some other key (command or option) from the thumb key which is important too. Both command and option are important and frequent enough to be thumb keys. There is no clear winner about which key should go here.

> or modal key sequencers instead is key combos

Like which ones exactly? Can you name some names? Do you mean like Evil or god-mode? There's a lot of choices there and I know users who use one or the other. But many don't like to change the modeless editing to modal editing such packages invariable force upon you.

Much better is to just enable sticky keys which all major OS seem to be support. But again not everyone likes them. Who am I to tell them otherwise if they have tried both and prefer CapsLock as Control more than sticky keys?

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Like I said earlier the real travesty is the wastage of real estate with the CapsLock key. The stock keyboards come with this travesty. I see anything that changes that as improvement even if it is making CapsLock to be Ctrl and using pinky sideways.

Making CapsLock as Ctrl is the least invasive choice for them. I'm not surprised that most people do this. I'm genuinely surprised that you would go as far as proclaiming this to be universally bad.

> Who do you need to state this obvious and well publicised fact that lateral/pinky motions are unergonomic?

Again, says who? I mean why is your word more important than those who swear by lateral pinky? Care to link to some research that establishes this as a "fact"?

I'm already at the home row all the time. The key under discussion is three millimeters to the left of 'a', where my pinky usually already is. If that small a distance is ever a problem, it's a valuable signal that I need to find an orthopedist in a hurry.

If you're already at the home row, why not use the finger at the home row where you finger already is 0mm to the left of itself??? It can even serve the same role of a valuable signal