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Part 2: Key Rebinding

To "rebind" a key means to set a key on your keyboard so that when you press it, your computer interprets it as a different key. AutoHotkey is great for this!

Why would I want to do that?​

Key rebinding is useful for several reasons. Here are two:

  • First, you can use key rebinding to make less useful keys more useful. A very common form of this is to rebind your Caps Lock key to either Ctrl or Esc instead (I personally bind my Caps Lock to Ctrl, and that will be the first example we'll walk through together below).
  • Second, you can rearrange the keys on your keyboard to be in an arrangement that you like better. Once you rebind them in software, you can then pop the keycaps off and rearrange them to match.

Rebinding Keys Using AutoHotkey ​

First, locate the .ahk file that we created in Part 1: Getting AutoHotkey (or if you're jumping in here, create a new .ahk file) and open it in your Text Editor of choice.

Rebinding a key in AutoHotkey is basically equivalent to creating a keyboard shortcut that takes only a single key as its key combination. AutoHotkey will basically intercept the key you physically press and substitute in the key you tell it instead. 

Let's rebind Caps Lock to be Ctrl instead. Anywhere in your .ahk file, add this line: 

Here's what that syntax means:

Go ahead and save the file, then run or refresh the running script. If you set up your file the way I recommended in Part 1: Getting AutoHotkey, then you can do that instantly with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+F5.

To check whether it worked, try copying and pasting something using Caps Lock+c and Caps Lock+v.

Assuming that worked, then congratulations! You've now approximately quadrupled the usefulness of your Caps Lock key, eliminated that irritating thing where you accidentally turn Caps Lock on by accident, and learned your first bit of AutoHotkey syntax in the process!

Wrap-up and What's Next ​

Try using your newfound ability to remap other keys as you see fit. Each time, remember to save the file before you refresh it, otherwise the change won't be in effect yet. I'd also advise making a commit to your git repository between each major change (like, for example, once you've added a new shortcut and have tested it and tweaked it to make sure it's behaving the way you'd like).

Next, we'll cover custom keyboard shortcuts, which are basically what we just did but with more than one key in the hotkey combination. We'll also explore triggering more complicated results than easily fit on a single line.