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Clicking became very difficult on my early 2009, 17" MacBook Pro with Mavericks (10.9.1). I thought about using the Caps Lock key to send a mouse click.

I saw this question with an answer involving a third-party tool, but I wish to find a more low-level solution.

Community
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meduz
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    It would probably help to include which version of OSX you are using. – dwightk Mar 20 '14 at 13:57
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    Have you checked to see if your problem is the battery which can swell and push up under the trackpad – markhunte Mar 20 '14 at 15:34
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    What about a mouse? – Rob Mar 20 '14 at 15:49
  • or maybe enable tap-to-click so you don't have to physically press on the keyboard (I'm assuming it is broken in some way..?) – Kevin Grabher Mar 21 '14 at 00:54
  • @Rob : a mouse is not a solution for a laptop (for instance in a plane) :-) but thanks for the idea. – meduz Mar 27 '14 at 20:15
  • @markhunte : indeed, it is perhaps the cause. but the battery is still functional so I will wait until it fails to change it. I hope it does not break more things... – meduz Mar 27 '14 at 20:17

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I don't know any way to do it without third party software, but it is possible with KeyRemap4MacBook and PCKeyboardHack.

First use PCKeyboardHack to change caps lock to F19. Then save this file as ~/Library/Application Support/KeyRemap4MacBook/private.xml:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
    <name>f19toclick</name>
    <identifier>f19toclick</identifier>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::F19, PointingButton::LEFT</autogen>
  </item>
</root>

Then open the KeyRemap4MacBook application, press the ReloadXML button, and enable the setting.

Lri
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  • ok, found your solution documented in https://pqrs.org/macosx/keyremap4macbook/pckeyboardhack.html.en#faq - it is excatly what I needed. I used brew cask install pckeyboardhack and brew cask install keyremap4macbook to install using homebrew casks. Works like a charm, thanks! – meduz Mar 27 '14 at 20:14