Keypresses with rolling motion don't get captured

[arabshapt]

Speed is very important for this tool, once muscle memory kicks in. So it would be great to be able to do a rolling motion right_command => a => s => d => f => raycast://confetti

[saml-dev]

I don't have this problem, I use rolling motion all the time. I also can test by pressing keys in a sequence but leaving them all pressed as I go and it still works. Can you try that test?

[arabshapt]

Thank you for responding:) I really like potential behind this project if hammerspoon can really do everything as fast as raycast and similar. You can rely on their speed and functionality. I would really love this to work.
I use karabiner typically, but for this test I turned it off and the problem was still there. I am using glove80 and also apple built in keyboard. On both of them it doesn't trigger(on fast roll, almost simultaneous but with slight difference) "a" in leader=>s=>a sequence

I tried pressing s and holding it while tapping a and it worked. But on the screenshot what you see is not that test, but a fast roll. And the "a" passes through to the application in the foreground.

This is how it looks when doesn't work

[arabshapt]

I like how it doesn't close even raycast when I trigger it. Typically these overlays close each other(chatgpt, raycast, leaderkeyapp)

[arabshapt]

This issue and the multi leader (global and appspecific configs) feature would make me switch to this solution. I am new to lua and hammerspoon, but I hope this issue with keys passing and not getting caught by hammerspoon is fixable...

[arabshapt]

It seems like it is because of keypress listener is in each layer and between layer changes there is a split second where the keypress passes through to the next app. This is either a limitation of hammerspoon or we could have a global keypress listener that always listens.
What do you think the issue is?

[saml-dev]

The way the recursive binder spoon works is it registers global keyboard shortcuts with macos. This is generally more reliable than listening to every keystroke globally, because MacOS will sometimes shut off those listeners without warning. For example, lets assume this config:

leader_key = "f18"

a = "..."
b = "..."

[j]
f = "..."

• On startup, register a global keyboard shortcut for f18
• When f18 pressed, register global keyboard shortcuts for a, b, and j
• When j pressed, unregister a, b and j and then register f

So there is some amount of delay between pressing a key and the next layer being ready for pressing, though it should be very short. It's possible computer performance impacts this too, I've tested on an M1 Macbook Air and an M4 Pro Macbook Pro.

All that to say, getting rid of this small delay would be a complete rewrite of the RecursiveBinder spoon and require extensive testing to make sure it is reliable long-term. It's possible but I won't be taking on that work right now.

[saml-dev]

I am working on a standalone MacOS app that provides the same functionality as Hammerflow plus more, with a nice GUI for configuring (while maintaining the TOML config for anyone who prefers interacting with it that way). It uses a global event listener so should be more performant, but I still have a ways to go before it's ready for release.

[arabshapt]

Open or closed source?:) Leaderkeyapp is swift app, but it closes raycast and any other overlay when activated. With hammerspoon it doesn't interfere with anything (which i like). Do you know whether it is possible to have native swift application that doesn't close raycast, intellij popups and so on?

In any case take into consideration the feature regarding app specific leader(based on frontmost app) and global one. You can build the fork of leaderkey that is in my repos, to get the feel for it.

[saml-dev]

It is closed source, and will be paid (one time fee). I am writing the key capture in Rust and haven't gotten to the UI yet, it's a Tauri app though so will see what options they have for overlays in general

[saml-dev]

I confirmed I can show a webview window without taking focus away from Raycast 🥳

[arabshapt]

How did you manage that?:) I was able to get my overlay over raycast, but i could test that only by opening floating window first and then opening raycast, because raycast is already open the triggering of floating window was closing raycast... The main idea is that this leader key should behave as though it is as near to keyboard as possible, to use shortcuts on raycast and similar through leaderkey

[arabshapt]

Also will webview slowdown the whole thing(triggering)? Whichkey/hints will be shown in webview, I assume...
if that works on linux, windows and mac then it would be very good. But of course one should start with one platform...

[saml-dev]

I just created a button that would open the pop-up after a two second delay. So I could click the button, then open Raycast, then the pop-up would appear without taking focus away from Raycast

[saml-dev]

The actual key capture happens on a separate thread from the UI, so no the UI will not slow down the key capture