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kanata[1] and komokana[2]. kanata is basically like QMK for any keyboard without the firmware requirement. I use kanata with my trusty old iMac keyboard which

by bsnnkv 4y ago

kanata[1] and komokana[2]. kanata is basically like QMK for any keyboard without the firmware requirement. I use kanata with my trusty old iMac keyboard which is to this day my favourite keyboard of all time. But now I have all the cool QMK-style layers with it. So that is awesome on its own, but where it gets even better for me, and this is where the seconds have really added up to hours, is that I wrote another piece of software which programmatically changes layers on kanata whenever a different window is focused in my tiling window manager. This has honestly changed -everything- for me. I no longer have to waste keys on my keyboard to switch layers, I no longer have to -think- about switching layers, I just focus another window with alt+hjkl and whatever keyboard layer I expect for any given application is automatically applied. Definitely one of those "you can never go back" experiences for me. [1]: https://github.com/jtroo/kanata https://github.com/jtroo/kanata [2]: https://github.com/LGUG2Z/komokana https://github.com/LGUG2Z/komokana

fouronnes3 4y ago
This is exactly what I've been looking for, thanks! QMK has always been weird to me: why is it hardware specific?
- deadso 4y ago
  One advantage of it being hardware specific is that I can move my keyboard between machines and not have to worry whether my shortcuts are available. Also, I believe tools can only register themselves so early in the input processing stack in the OS which can prevent you from having your macros/shortcuts available in certain applications. An example of this is for RDP in windows, where if you use fullscreen RDP, it will use the remote instance's keyboard shortcuts instead of triggering the hooks you have on the host. Having the shortcut in firmware makes your shortcuts resolve before even leaving the keyboard. Of course, there are downsides to having it all in hardware as well.

by bsnnkv 4y ago

fouronnes3 4y ago

This is exactly what I've been looking for, thanks! QMK has always been weird to me: why is it hardware specific?

deadso 4y ago
One advantage of it being hardware specific is that I can move my keyboard between machines and not have to worry whether my shortcuts are available. Also, I believe tools can only register themselves so early in the input processing stack in the OS which can prevent you from having your macros/shortcuts available in certain applications. An example of this is for RDP in windows, where if you use fullscreen RDP, it will use the remote instance's keyboard shortcuts instead of triggering the hooks you have on the host. Having the shortcut in firmware makes your shortcuts resolve before even leaving the keyboard. Of course, there are downsides to having it all in hardware as well.