Home row actions that don't block input

[DarkKronicle]

I've been working on a less intrusive home row modifier that only modifies a specific subset of keys. I'm pretty happy with the result. The layers haven't been fleshed out fully, so expect some updates in the files for that.

I created this because I wanted a fast way to control my tiling window manager (sway), but didn't want it to get in the way of my typing. I already had a layer for <CAPS>, and didn't really want to use another modifier key because it felt a bit clunky.

My solution: use f as a modifier key, but only when pressing hjkl or sd with it. On top of this, the layout tries to determined if you rolled the presses (i.e. were typing a word), and if it thinks so it will just type the keys as normal. I have no problem typing very fast with this config. You can see more of the implementation with the extensive comments in the config.

hjkl give an immediate action, while s or d switch to a layer. The layers don't disappear until f is unpressed.

I don't think this is a perfect solution, and there may be some redundancy in my implementation, but overall I am very happy with it. For most use cases tap-hold would probably be enough, but I didn't want to delay the typing for the action key.

I do think this works best on letter combos that are pretty infrequent when typing. There's a complicated roll check in the config used just for l right now, but I don't think that would work well with s or d (because they are layer changes).

Even without hjkl, I think the fsd config is really quite slick and can be used in some creative ways.

The config:

latest, permalink

[gerhard-h]

sadly, kanata configs of other people are really hard to read. But I still extracted this very cool use case for dynamic-macro of yours, I would never have come up with:

• switch to a pain layer for just typing (mimic defsrc)
• start recording dynamic-macro (without generating output)
• when leaving the layer (or entering any other layer) stop recording and do a switch based decision
• either the entered keys are a trigger/sequence for a special action - do it.
• or they are just normal typing - then just replay the dynamic-macro .

all this can be multied to a normal key and requires no timeouts to trigger.

since I don't use sequences I'm not sure if this could be done in a simpler fashion.

[DarkKronicle]

Oh good catch with multi! I think sequences would work pretty similarly, but I mainly wanted a way to cancel without typing out the missed ones (tho looking back, I didn't need that). With your logic, I think this would behave pretty similarly to a sequence, with the main difference is that you can cancel it whenever.

I do wonder if there are some interesting use cases using this I haven't considered yet.

Sidenote, I am probably going to remove some of that complicated logic, and just use my f + sd layer idea in the future.