"A" behaves as "SHIFT" with tap-hold but only for some keys, allow other actions on other keys.

[amospalla]

Hello,

I am using home row mods, for example, my "A" key behaves as a "SHIFT" when hold with the help of tap-hold action.

I do touch type, so I only use the left shift with the middle half right keyboard keys, and I use the right shift for the other left half part of the keyboard. This means that I do never press "A" to shift for example the "R" key, but I do to shift the "P" key.

Is there any way to assign different actions to "A" + "R" different to "SHIFT" + "R"? That would allow me lot of room for new actions without the need to search for hard to reach key combinations.

I've thought about this, tried some naive fake + fork but without success and I don't know what else I could try.

Edit: I tried a funky combination of fake keys + fork but I could not disable the shift, so my actions were shifted. Also tried defoverrides which is great for simple keys but do not allow for sending for example a wheel-up.

[jtroo]

This sounds very similar to the use case described in the docs for multi:
https://github.com/jtroo/kanata/blob/main/docs/config.adoc#multi

Let me know if that works for you 🙂

[jtroo]

With regards to the docs I linked to, have you tried putting that configuration inside the hold of the tap-hold? Seems like that's what you need if I'm understanding correctly.

[gerhard-h]

You could make hold-A multifire shift and (e.g. F13), in the following fork you can then use both shift and F13 as triggers.
(maybe use a fake key instead of F13)

[amospalla]

Wow, yeah, it works!!!

for reference:

(defalias
  shifted_a  (multi lsft (layer-while-held shifted_layer_with_mouse_buttons))
  alias_mlft (multi (release-key lsft) mlft)
  alias_mmid (multi (release-key lsft) mmid)
  alias_mrgt (multi (release-key lsft) mrgt)
  sft_a (tap-hold-release 150 150 a @shifted_a)
)

(defsrc
  a       s            d             f
)

(deflayer base
  @sft_a  _            _             _
)

(deflayer shifted_layer_with_mouse_buttons
  _       @alias_mlft  @alias_mmmid  @alias_mrgt 
)

I never left-shift the keys "12345, QWERT, SDFG or VB", so now I've got available lot of new free easy key combinations. In fact I've got eight times this number of new combinations (4 left mods and 4 right mods).

Thank you very much @jtroo !
How could your idea be done @gerhard-h ? I never understood fake keys, and while I tried to apply them and something happened I never grasped how they behave or work.

[gerhard-h]

On big problem with understanding fake keys might be that there is no exsample in the docs how to use on-release-fakekey (the part where I define fakesft ) to get an on-release callback?

I also don't understand why I have to use (release-key lsft) instead of any fake key action?

My config differs from amospallas by reapplying shift
(I allthough changed mouse stuff back to letters because my PC can't do mouse stuff)
Input: A-xsx
amospalla output: Xsx
my output: XsX
consider mouse dragging to find the better solution for your case

(deffakekeys
  sft lsft
)

(defalias
  fakesft (multi
	(on-press-fakekey sft press)
	(on-release-fakekey sft release)
  )

  shifted_a  (multi @fakesft (layer-while-held shifted_layer_with_mouse_buttons))
  alias_s (multi (release-key lsft) s (on-press-fakekey sft press))
  alias_d (multi (release-key lsft) d (on-press-fakekey sft press))
  alias_f (multi (release-key lsft) f (on-press-fakekey sft press))
  sft_a (tap-hold-release 150 150 a @shifted_a)
)

(defsrc
  a       s            d             f
)

(deflayer base
  @sft_a  _            _             _
)

(deflayer shifted_layer_with_mouse_buttons
  _       @alias_s  @alias_d  @alias_f 
)

[amospalla]

@gerhard-h don't know why but it works better with the code I put above. With fake keys some keys doesn't get shifted, and mouse wheel events don't repeat. Personally can't explain why though.

Still it showed me a bit how fake keys work, thank you very much :)