Emacs caps lock minor mode?

Question

Is there a command in Emacs to turn on what might be described as "caps lock minor mode"? I'm looking to do something like M-x toggle-caps-mode, then every letter I type in the buffer is a capital letter until I do M-x toggle-caps-mode again.

Note: I'm NOT looking for directions on how to swap caps and control. In reality this is because I have already done that. I am generally quite happy with it, but occasionally I'm editing code where there are a bunch of constants that are in all caps, and it gets to be a strain holding down the shift key. I'm aware of the various upcase conversion functions; I'd rather not have to type the word, select it, then run upcase-region.

If it matters, I'm using Aquamacs 2.2 w/ Emacs 23.3.1.

If yow have swapped caps and control then you have caps lock on the control key, don't you? Why don't you use that? — Tom, Oct 27 '11 at 18:28
I guess I'm playing fast and loose with the word "swapped". I really mean that I've remapped caps to control. Control is still control, but I could actually swap them. Still curious if there's a simple answer to this question. — dantswain, Oct 27 '11 at 19:46

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 27 '11 at 21:17

5

You don't need to type the word then select it. If you want to upcase the last word, press M-b M-u or ESC b u. Ok, you'll need to press b several times if it's a word_with_underscores.

If you really want a caps lock minor mode, try John Paul Wallington's lockcaps.el.

answered Oct 27 '11 at 21:17

Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'

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It's a whole bunch of `word_with_underscores`s I'm working with! lockcaps.el looks promising, though. – dantswain Oct 27 '11 at 21:31
@dantswain You only need to type them once anyway. Then you just type the first few letters and use completion (semantic with `M-TAB` or dynamic with `M-/`). – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' Oct 27 '11 at 21:51
1

Autocomplete's just never been my style, but `lockcaps.el` did just want I want. – dantswain Oct 28 '11 at 03:04

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 27 '11 at 19:29

2

You can try something like this:

(define-minor-mode caps-lock-mode
  "caps-lock mode"
  ;;   The initial value.   
  nil   
  ;; The indicator for the mode line.   
  " CAPS-LOCK"   
  ;; The minor mode bindings.   
  '(("a" . (lambda () (interactive) (insert-char ?A 1)))
    ("b" . (lambda () (interactive) (insert-char ?B 1)))
    ;;etc 
    ("A" . (lambda () (interactive) (insert-char ?a 1)))    
    ("B" . (lambda () (interactive) (insert-char ?b 1)))    
    ;;etc
    ))

answered Oct 27 '11 at 19:29

Oleg Pavliv

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I found this: http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnu-emacs-sources/2004-08/msg00013.html and the various replies, which end up giving a slightly more compact version. I was hoping for a built-in, but if this is the answer, then this is the answer. I'll give it some time to see if anyone else has anything different to offer. – dantswain Oct 27 '11 at 19:51
Thanks, it's an interesting thread. Especially about how to replace the long keymap with a single function. – Oleg Pavliv Oct 27 '11 at 19:55

Emacs caps lock minor mode?

2 Answers2