`setxkbmap -option caps:escape` only partially working (no capslock but also no escape)

[MElemental]

Hi I started using exwm and I can't seem to get my capslock to function as intended (functioning as escape). In a terminal SPC ' I ran the command setxkbmap -option caps:escape. Whenever I'm in insert mode it hitting capslock doesn't capitalize characters, which is good. However it also doesn't leave insert mode, which is not what I intended when I ran setxkbmap -option caps:escape.

If swapping caps and escape through setxkbmap in the terminal isn't ideal, what is a better way to swap caps and escape in exwm?

UPDATE: capslock also doesn't leave visual mode.

[timor]

I'm not really sure that is related to exwm or spacemacs. Are you following some kind of guide where it says that capslock is supposed to function like escape?

[MElemental]

I found out that my caps lock got mapped to ctrl for some reason. I managed to clear my xkbmap settings.

[MElemental]

It seems I have to run setxkbmap -option then run setxkbmmap -option caps:escape otherwise it swaps caps with ctrl instead. It seems to work as expected when I open in the xfce enviornment, but it want's to change to caps to ctrl in exwm.

I've added the following to my dotspacemacs/user-init to address this:

  (shell-command "setxkbmap -option")
  (shell-command "setxkbmap -option caps:escape")

I don't know if it's worth reopening, but I thought I'd leave this here for anyone else that may stumble upon this.

[MElemental]

I wanted to update this again, It seems that the file exwm-start bash file (in this repo) has this line in it: setxkbmap -option 'ctrl:no caps'

So if you don't want to do it from .spacemacs you can edit that file to whatever keyboard mappings you want.