Swap Ctrl and alt just in Emacs on windows

I need to use Windows at work :(, but cannot not use Emacs still. However, I would like to swap ctrl and alt (meta) just in Emacs not in the whole OS. I usually trust my google-fu. However the last few days it did fail me. Help, please help. ​ EDIT: The Link by u/mmarshall540 was exactly the solution. More details: in Windows I already had swaped Crtl and alt because of mymuscle memory on macOS (I use cmd for stuff like copy&paste and more). I wanted to keep the position of the keys. However. Since crtl is now in the position of what is supposed to be meta (cmd on macOS) I needed to swap back ctrl and alt. But just in Emacs. Convoluted, I know. It work for me just fine now and I am a happy camper. Thanx again u/mmarshall540.

Try `key-translation-map`. Example: `(define-key key-translation-map (kbd "<print>") (kbd "<menu>"))` Lots of info from Xah: http://xahlee.info/emacs/emacs/emacs_menu_app_keys.html

Thanx for the hint. I naively tried `(define-key key-translation-map (kbd "<ctrl>") (kbd "<alt>"))`, but it did not work of course. I am tried to guess/look for how the keys might be called in this case.

Yeah, I do not know where the handoffs are from keyboard-to-OS and OS-to-Emacs. If you run Windows, AutoHotKey can probably do what you want, and if you run a Unix-y OS, then scripts must exist for this low-level task. Let me know what you find out.

Emacs at user level only registers "complete" keystrokes, it is not able to handle modifier key presses alone. You could try some different approach, like a [leader key implementation](https://github.com/mohkale/spaceleader) or [general](https://github.com/noctuid/general.el). Maybe there is even a windows tool, which can remap keys before Emacs receives them (some Window Managers can do that on Linux/X11, so maybe this also possible with Windows).

In my Emacs (on macOS) there's variables like `mac-option-modifier` and `mac-command-modifier`, provided by `ns-win.el`. Not sure where they are added to my Emacs installation, but it might give you a clue? EDIT: I think you need to look at the variables `ns-control-modifier` and `ns-alternate-modifier`. Do you have those?

This might not be exactly what you had in mind, but under windows, [http://www.kbdedit.com/](http://www.kbdedit.com/) is sort of the best product you can get for that purpose. It's not free software, but the lite edition ($9) should be sufficient to swap two keys. You can make your own custom layout and then use windows to set a different layout per each application. For emacs, you'll select your custom layout.

Those variables are platform-specific. Look for the `win32-*` variants.

[This gets it done by translating all-the-things.](https://gist.github.com/mmarshall540/8db9b5bac8dc5670cb9323e387de1317) But if there are platform-specific functions that do this on Windows, that might be preferable.

Hi, Thank you for the hint as well. In the end: The Link by u/mmarshall540 was exactly what I was looking for.

MVP - Thank you very much. I mean very very much.

Oh yeah - that's some elisp-fu over there. I wrote some elisp but meddling with keymaps and how they nest is beyond my comfort level.

How did you go about swapping Control and Alt in Windows?

Hi, I just used some new Registry Key Value pair. Put this in `.reg` file: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 \[HKEY\_LOCAL\_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\CurrentControlSet\\Control\\Keyboard Layout\] "Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\\ 05,00,00,00,\\ 38,00,1d,00,\\ 1d,00,38,00,\\ 3a,00,01,00,\\ 01,00,3a,00,\\ 00,00,00,00 Then import the file using the registry editor. Careful, this swaps Caps Lock and Escape too. However there are some versions. See here https://superuser.com/questions/1190329/can-i-switch-the-alt-and-ctrl-keys-on-my-keyboard

Say, I just noticed that M-x and some other character combination do not work here. Any Ideas. Sorry to say that my lisp is abysmal.

Thank you so much!

I use AutoHotkey to map CapsLock to Ctrl in emacs, with the following code in a file caps2ctrl.ahk: ; https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/MovingTheCtrlKey#h5o-14 ; https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/FAQ.htm#Startup #IfWinActive emacs ; if in emacs +Capslock::Capslock ; make shift+Caps-Lock the Caps Lock toggle Capslock::Control ; make Caps Lock the control button #IfWinActive ; end if in emacs Maybe this could work for your case too. The included urls have more details.

Hi, I think this might be a solution too. Willl of course try it out. Thanx a bunch.

Hi, sorry I didn't see this until now. The GitHub gist has been updated to use `input-decode-map` instead of `key-translation-map`. That fixes the `M-x` problem. It also has the side benefit that we can now swap `C-i` with `M-i` and `C-m` with `M-m`. You can read more [here](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Translation-Keymaps.html) about how the key translation maps work. Basically, each time you press a key, your key sequence as it was entered up to that point gets filtered through 3 different translation maps. Since there are some translations in the middle map that use `C-x` as a prefix key, swapping `C-x` with `M-x` in the last map lead Emacs to continue waiting for more keys to see if any of the `C-x` translations from the middle map would apply. If you try the updated code and find any other keys that don't work, please let me know. I usually check GitHub more often than here.

Hola, That did the trick. I will definetelly read up on it some more. But so far you have done me a huge solid. Thanx a bunch