TouchCursor for Linux / X11

"There's no place like Home Row..."

I've copied these configs out from my private WIP dotfiles, to provide an example of how to get TouchCursor bindings under Linux / X11.

• http://martin-stone.github.io/touchcursor/
• https://github.com/alols/xcape
• https://github.com/autokey-py3/autokey
• https://github.com/viktorvan/TouchCursor
• Old (pre-sierra only) Karabiner customizations
• My Karabiner-Elements complex modification
• My Windows configs
• Example Layout

Note (2026): this repo is archived. autokey (used below for the Hyper combos) is a heavyweight, aging Python daemon — there are much better options now for implementing TouchCursor-style layers on Linux:

• touchcursor-linux — a purpose-built TouchCursor port for Linux, runs as a user-level systemd service, works under both Xorg and Wayland
• keyd — a general-purpose key-remapping daemon (C, kernel-level via evdev/uinput, sub-1ms latency) with native layers, key overloading, and per-application layer switching; what I've since switched to
• kmonad — a general-purpose advanced keyboard customization tool (Haskell), cross-platform (Linux/Windows/macOS)
• kanata — a general-purpose keyboard remapper (Rust) inspired by kmonad, cross-platform (Linux/macOS/Windows)

Use xcape to:

• Set the CapsLock to emit an esc on tap, and act as a control key modifier when held
• Set the Space key to emit a space on tap, and act as the hyper key modifier when held

Use autokey to map all the Hyper_L combos

You'll need some sort of init script, like this:

  killall xcape

  # Clear changes
  setxkbmap

  # TouchCursor-ish
  #   Based on the example from: https://github.com/alols/xcape

  # Map an unused modifier's keysym to the spacebar's keycode and make it a
  # control modifier. It needs to be an existing key so that emacs won't
  # spazz out when you press it. Hyper_L is a good candidate.
  spare_modifier="Hyper_L"
  xmodmap -e "keycode 65 = $spare_modifier"
# xmodmap -e "remove mod4 = $spare_modifier" # hyper_l is mod4 by default
  # This is in example, but breaks things here :/

  # Map space to an unused keycode (to keep it around for xcape to use).
  xmodmap -e "keycode any = space"

  # Finally use xcape to cause the space bar to generate a space when tapped.
  xcape -t 500 -e "Control_L=Escape;$spare_modifier=space"
  # Play around w/ the -t value, to your liking