Any hope to get one-shots in macros someday?

[viviengarcia]

TL;DR I could use one-shots in macros to do complex operations easier. Is it something Kanata is unable to do or simply not seeing the value of? (Or perhaps current tools are enough and I don't know how to really use them?)

I use my mac for notes, light programming, art and gaming. I commonly type in english and french on a Keychron K1 Pro UK ISO. I have two issues:

1. Punctuation characters often need shift-key combination, which I have a hard time with.
2. Accented characters. US-INT source input let me generate them with dead keys. Usually its something like that ´ e › é , but sometimes it's S-6 S-e › Ê.

I need to be able to easily output sequences/repetitions of them, without having to constantly use dead keys or modifiers, except for the initial character, and also without needing to switch to a different layer when I only need to output one character.
In short, my solutions need to produce as less friction as possible (mental or mechanical).

Until now, I've used several combination of actions:

• on my base layer, I used caps-word-custom, macro and unshift to produce most-used accented chars. It works pretty well, except that accented caps can-t be repeated with rpt-any, although they do if I use caps-words?
• for punctuation and symbols, I use virtualkeys and macros in sequences to produce them. Alternate symbols are produced using tap-dance and all macros finish with sldr, which let me easily enough repeat them or create short sequences.

So my layout works, it has two issues:

• sequences are linked to one layer, unless you start using templates and chords. I've already tried it on a nav layer with only 7 keys and it was a nightmare. The nav layer had also chords combinations so there's that, but still I'm not hopeful.
• it need too much physical keys, I couldn't implement this layout on a 36 keys keyboard

All of this would be far easier if I was able to add a good old (one-shot-release 300 (layer-while-held accents)) at te end of a macro. I'd still have to create a macro for each symbol but it's straightforward.

[gerhard-h]

Maybe you can enhance rpt-any by using switch and key-history even if lengthy.

switch to a different layer when I only need to output one character

Why not?
use tap-hold on caps-key and its mirrored key to activate accented layer (or accented-shifted)
use tap-hold on 3 bottom row keys (and their mirrors) to do accentedaccented´ accented^ Maybe you don't needrpt-any` that way anymore

• it need too much physical keys, I couldn't implement this layout on a 36 keys keyboard

There is no proof that 36 keys is a profound goal, especially if you are not exclusively useing English.
I personaly went back from an 40% to a 75%. I only use 30 letters, 3 punctuation, 2 thumb keys, tab and bspc when touch typing (words numbers shortcuts)
but all the other keys are still there when needed (eg. one handing)

[viviengarcia]

Maybe you can enhance rpt-any by using switch and key-history even if lengthy.

Do you mean including rpt-any into a switch? I have to say I'm very unfamiliar with it, I completely overlooked key-history. Looks interesting but I'm not sure what it does, I'll check it out tomorrow I'm toasted today.

Why not? use tap-hold on caps-key and its mirrored key to activate accented layer (or accented-shifted) use tap-hold on 3 bottom row keys (and their mirrors) to do accented`accented´ accented^

Can't do. I'm really bad with rythm changes. Tap-hold are only for modifiers for me.

Maybe you don't needrpt-any that way anymore

TBH it's not that useful, fortunately accented capitals are a lot more scarce than the lowercase ones. But I found it interresting.

There is no proof that 36 keys is a profound goal, especially if you are not exclusively useing English. I personaly went back from an 40% to a 75%. I only use 30 letters, 3 punctuation, 2 thumb keys, tab and bspc when touch typing (words numbers shortcuts) but all the other keys are still there when needed (eg. one handing)

It's not (only) about having less keys, I really need the thumb keys and column stagger. Horizontal staggering is killing me.

[gerhard-h]

Horizontal staggering is killing me.

With QUERTY horizontal stagger greatly improves T and N even more

[viviengarcia]

With QUERTY horizontal stagger greatly improves T and N even more

Sorry I think I don't have the ref…

[gerhard-h]

horizontal stagger greatly improves T and N

a columnar layout claims the distance each finger has to move shrinks, compared to a staggered keyboard.

            ┌───┐                         ┌───┐
        ┌───┤ e ├───┬───┐         ┌───┬───┤ i ├───┐
┌───┬───┤ w ├───┤ r │ t │         │ y │ u ├───┤ o ├───┬───┐
│ ß │ q ├───┤ d ├───┼───┤         ├───┼───┤ k ├───┤ p │ ü │
├───┼───┤ s ├───┤ f │ g │         │ h │ j ├───┤ l ├───┼───┤
│ ⇩ │ a ├───┤ c ├─━─┼───┤         ├───┼─━─┤ . ├───┤ ö │ ⇘ │
├───┼───┤ x ├───┤ v │ b │         │ n │ m ├───┤ , ├───┼───┤
│   │ z ├───┘   └───┴───┘         └───┴───┘   └───┤ ä │   │
└───┴───┘       ┌───┬───┬───┐ ┌───┬───┬───┐       └───┴───┘
                │ ⇚ │ ⇧ │ ⇥ │ │ ⏎ │ ␣ │ ⇙ │
                └───┴───┴───┘ └───┴───┴───┘

But for the frequent T and N keys it in fact increases (by an anoyingly big amount)

┌───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬───┬──────┐
│ ` │ 1 │ 2 │ 3 │ 4 │ 5 │ 6 │ 7 │ 8 │ 9 │ 0 │ - │ = │ ←    │
├───┴─┬─┴─┬─┴─┬─┴─┬─┴─┬─┴─┬─┴─┬─┴─┬─┴─┬─┴─┬─┴─┬─┴─┬─┴─┬────┤
│     │ q │ w │ e │ r │ T │ y │ u │ i │ o │ p │ [ │ ] │ \  │
├─────┴┬──┴┬──┴┬──┴┬──┴┬──┴┬──┴┬──┴┬──┴┬──┴┬──┴┬──┴┬──┴────┤
│      │ a │ s │ d │ f │ g │ h │ j │ k │ l │ ; │ ' │   ⏎   │
├──────┴─┬─┴─┬─┴─┬─┴─┯─┴─┬─┴─┬─┴─┯─┴─┬─┴─┬─┴─┬─┴─┬─┴───────┤
│        │ z │ x │ c │ v │ b │ N │ m │ , │ . │ / │    ⇗    │
├────┬───┴┬──┴─┬─┴───┴───┴───┴───┴───┴─┬─┴──┬┴───┼────┬────┤
│  ♕ │    │ ♔  │           ␣           │    │    │    │ ♛

[viviengarcia]

I can't decide if this is real or an inside joke... Anyway, in my case it's not that much about the distance, more about the alignment. Staggering is not only bad for muscles, it also makes it really hard for me to know where the keys are. I know the layout, but still I can't find the keys without watching the keyboard. What's making it worse is the fact they couldn't even shift by the same offset from one row to another? I mean, why did they design keyboards like that?

Anyway, I know there are some downsides to use a split keyboard, there always are. But all in all, I think I'll be happier with a split.

[jtroo]

All of this would be far easier if I was able to add a good old (one-shot-release 300 (layer-while-held accents)) at te end of a macro.

I would do this by having the macro tap a virtual key that has this configuration. Why can't macro do it on its own? Implementation details.

[viviengarcia]

Oooh I didn't know virtual keys could do that. Since they're strongly linked to the sequences, I thought they couldn't accept anything else than keys.

So you mean I could do something like:

(defalias
	ea (macro ' e @ols)
	)

(defvirtualkeys
	ols (one-shot-release 500 (layer-while-held accents))
	)

And tapping @ea would repeat the one-shot layer-switch? That'd be awesome! First thing I'm going to try tomorrow!

Also, this makes me think, is there a mean to change one-shot to make it predetermined-multiple-shot? I thnk it could be emulated with tap-dance but would be pretty tedious. Or perhaps a combination of templates and virtualkeys since they're pretty versatiles…

Implementation details.

Yeah I suspected something like that…

[jtroo]

predetermined-multiple-shot

Like this?

(multi
 (one-shot 2000 lctl)
 (one-shot 2000 lsft))

[viviengarcia]

More like this

(one-shots $timing $iterations:optional ($action1 … $actionN))

Of course it would be only usable with short sequences of characters or with modifiers.
My tipical use case is for dead keys, short layer switch before going back, etc…

[viviengarcia]

By the way, I have 2 additional question (not sure if they need their own thread).

1. Is there a mean to escape an openning bracket ( inside a template-expand? Would be useful in some if-equal situations.

2. I cannot change the output of \. Is it usual in non-us keyboards? If it's unusual I can make a dedicated thread or even fill an issue, with relevant context data.

EDIT: after checking the issues I found some similar. I have additional details to add, and the most similar issue is closed, so I'm going to create I've created a new one .

[gerhard-h]

1. Is there a mean to escape an openning bracket (

maybe r#"("#

[gerhard-h]

2. I cannot change the output of \

most likely defsrc use process-unmapped-keys yes and --debug to get some clues

[viviengarcia]

maybe r#"("#

Unfortunately, it didn't work as intended. What I tried to do is something like

(if-equal $condition (multi lsft ) $var (if-equal $condition ) )

But it doesn{ looks like it's possible even with your suggestion. Perhaps using concat will do the trick?

most likely defsrc use process-unmapped-keys yes and --debug to get some clues

Oups… I forgot to add the link to the issue I created! But to answer your suggestion, I already tried both of your suggestions but with no direct improvement.