Capstan

A Windows utility that repurposes the Caps Lock key for keyboard layout switching and adds macOS-style accent input via long-press.

Features

• Layout Switching: Press Caps Lock to switch keyboard layouts — toggle between two favorites or cycle through all installed layouts
• Accent Input: Long-press a letter to see available accents (like macOS), then select with number keys or mouse
• Currency Symbols: Long-press $ (or £, €, ¥) to quickly access other currency symbols
• On-screen Overlay: Shows current layout when switching and accent options when long-pressing
• Shift for Case: Hold Shift while the accent overlay is open to toggle between lowercase and uppercase accents
• Background Operation: Runs quietly in the system tray

Installation

Easy Way (Recommended)

1. Go to the Releases page
2. Download the latest Capstan-vX.X.X-win-x64.zip file
3. Extract to a folder of your choice (e.g., C:\Capstan)
4. Run Capstan.exe
5. (Optional) Enable "Run at Windows startup" in the app settings

No .NET installation required — everything is included.

Building from Source

Prerequisites

• Visual Studio 2022 with ".NET desktop development" workload
• .NET 8.0 SDK

Steps

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/fr2019/capstan.git
   

2. Open Capstan.sln in Visual Studio 2022

3. Build and run:

   • Press F5 to build and run in debug mode, or
   • Select Build → Publish to create a release package

Creating a Release Package

dotnet publish Capstan.csproj -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained true -p:PublishSingleFile=true -p:IncludeNativeLibrariesForSelfExtract=true -o .\publish

Zip the publish folder for distribution.

Usage

Layout Switching

1. Run Capstan
2. Choose your switching mode:
   • Toggle between two favorites: Select your two preferred layouts from the dropdowns — Caps Lock switches between just these two
   • Cycle through all layouts: Caps Lock cycles through all keyboard layouts you have installed in Windows
3. Click "Hide to Background"
4. Press Caps Lock to switch layouts

Accent Input

1. Enable "Long-press for accents" in settings
2. In any text field, hold down a letter (e.g., e)
3. After a moment, the accent overlay appears
4. Select an accent by:
   • Pressing a number key (1-9)
   • Clicking with the mouse
   • Using arrow keys and Enter
5. Hold Shift to see uppercase variants

Supported Characters

• Vowels: a, e, i, o, u, y (and uppercase)
• Consonants: c, n, s, z, l, d, t (and uppercase)
• Punctuation: ? ! " ' -
• Currency: $ € £ ¥ ¢ ₹ ₽ ₩ ₪ ₿
• Greek & Cyrillic: Common accented variants

Notes

• Caps Lock no longer toggles capitalization — use Shift for capitals
• The app runs in the background after hiding
• Right-click the system tray icon to access settings or exit
• Settings are preserved between sessions

Troubleshooting

The overlay doesn't appear: Make sure "Long-press for accents" is enabled in settings.

Layouts aren't switching: Ensure you have at least two keyboard layouts installed in Windows Settings.

App won't start: Make sure you extracted all files from the zip, not just the .exe.

App crashes or behaves unexpectedly: Check capstan.log in the same folder as Capstan.exe for error details. The log file is automatically kept under 1MB.

Logging

Capstan writes diagnostic information to capstan.log in the application folder. This log:

• Records app startup, shutdown, and errors
• Helps diagnose crashes and unexpected behavior
• Automatically resets when it exceeds 1MB
• Can be safely deleted if not needed