Map a caps lock key that is mapped to ctrl system wide to Escape just in vim

Question

i have mapped my caps lock key to ctrl with the following command under linux:
setxkbmap -option ctrl:nocaps I really like this mapping and want to keep it, but I also would like to map the caps lock key to Escape when I am inside vim. But when I try to map it with :map <C> <Esc> or similar it does not seem to work, presumably because the ctrl key is special and needs a second key to to trigger an key event.

Is there any way I can achieve the above?

Answer 1

Dave is right, you can't. However, there are lots of alternatives to remap the escape key. I personaly use ` which is close (on my keyboard) to the capslock key :-) (as ' is pretty useless , you can remap ' to `)

noremap ' `
noremap ` <Esc>

Answer 2

No. The control, shift and alt keys are handled differently at the hardware and OS levels - they do not generate keycodes but add modifiers to the keycodes generated by other keys. This means that they cannot be mapped within Vim.