you like that it disables the caps lock light
Indeed!
(I only use that key as HyperKey and it’s super annoying when the light switches on/off with every press of the key, which happened often/sometimes with the other tools)
I bought Hyperkey and got a free upgrade to Superkey. Has worked almost perfectly for years. I think twice it stopped working and I had to restart the app.
Karabiner Elements is free and allows more keyboard integration than other tools. BTT is better at manipulating the mouse, but I avoid the mouse as much as possible, so it’s less useful for me.
What I would say, though, is that if you’re going to use a hyper key, don’t waste it by putting it on the Caps Lock key, because then you’re missing the opportunity for one of Karabiner Elements’s most useful features, which is to double up functions on a key.
E.g. I have the Caps Lock key set to Control when held and Escape when tapped.
You use the Control and Escape keys far more often than any likely Hyper Key use, so putting it on the prime Caps Lock key position is wasteful. I have Hyper bound to F12 instead (I also switch the function keys so that I need Fn+Fkey for the ‘media’ features).
I also have:
- Return key set to Control when held and Return when tapped
- Tap both shift keys to toggle Caps Lock on and off (this will turn the LED on and off as well)
- Right Option and Right Cmd swapped, because it makes navigating text and using symbols/accents much easier that way.
Most of these arrangements can be downloaded from the karabiner elements website, so there’s not really much need to go digging in configuration files.
HTH
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You could also use popclip, or text actions in Alfred to do the occasional Capitalization change.
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What are their cool hyper actions have you created?
Is there a way to post keyboard maestro customizations for import?
The biggest problem might have is getting all of the shortcuts organized. If I start out with keyboard maestro, I was hoping to have all of the shortcut keys exist there in order to avoid conflicts.
Out of the 20 shortcut keys I have created I only really use about 4 due to my limited short-term memory.
Does anyone have any suggestions about how to get those shortcuts under your fingertips?
I need to look for the application that I used to have on my Mac called cheat sheet?? It displayed the shortcut keys.
Alas, Cheatsheet is no more.
A free alternative is KeyClu.
A paid alternative is KeyCue.
I use KeyCue, and am happy with it. I’ve not tried KeyClu.
I’m a huge fan of command palettes for that reason. I believe they originated in code editors like VS Code, but I’m not a programmer so Obsidian was where I first realized how great they are. The Vivaldi and Arc Browsers have them now, too.
They’re not as fast as dedicated hotkeys for frequently used commands but they keep your hands on the keyboard and are ideal for commands you don’t use enough to memorize and continually reinforce.
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Here are some ideas and examples:
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Make a list of the tasks you do repetitively, especially simple things that require you to remember each app’s keystroke combination for that task.
- Two examples from my use are that I’m continually changing an app’s zoom level to “Fit Page,” and re-sorting Finder columns between “Sort by Name” and “Sort by Date Modified.”
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Set up a Keyboard Maestro macro for each of these, either global macros that work across all apps, or macros that only work when a specific app is at the front.
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If you want more hyper key shortcuts but won’t remember them, select a simple hyper key combo (such as Hyper+A) (i.e., if your hyper key is your Caps Lock key, press Caps Lock and A at the same time) and make a bunch of macros you won’t use every day that are triggered by this same hotkey combo, Hyper+A. Then when you press Hyper+A, you’ll get a list of all your “secondary” macros.
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Examples:
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Hyper+G = Zoom to Fit PaGe
- KM macro:
- Triggered by hot key when PDF Expert is at front
- This hot key (shift+ctr+opt+cmd+g) is pressed (you must enter this into KM by pressing all five keys, not pressing the hyper key combo)
- Pause for 0.1 seconds
- Type the Command+8 keystroke (this is the keyboard shortcut for Zoom to Fit Page for PDF Expert)
- For Word, it’s the same thing but instead of having KM type a keystroke combination, I use the Show Menu action, with Select menu in Front Application, Menu Title View, Submenu Zoom, Submenu Whole Page.
- KM macro:
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Hyper+M = Finder Sort by Modified
- KM macro:
- Triggered by hot key when Finder is at front
- Type the following keystroke: ctrl+opt+cmd+5 (press these keys together to simulate the keystroke)
- KM macro:
-
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Hyper+ - = Enter an “em dash” (long dash)
- KM macro
- Triggered by hotkey hyper+ - (shift+ctrl+opt+cmd+ -) (“-” = the hyphen key on your keyboard)
- Type the opt+shift+ - keystroke (press option+shift+ -)
- KM macro
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Hyper+R = Alfred Recent Files workflow
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This shows a list of your most recent files in Alfred based on the way you configure the workflow.
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If you have Alfred with the Power Pack, install the Recent Files workflow.
- For the Recent Files workflow to work, you also have to install “fd.” (It’s free.) In the little Configure Workflow button at the top of the Recent Files workflow, there are links where you can get the fd installation files from.
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In the Configure Workflow pop-up, set the Workflow keyword to be “rf” (without quotes)
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Once this is set up, you can open the Alfred pop-up window and type “rf” to get your list of recent files
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But you can do a hyper key combo to do this from a KM macro:
- Triggered by hotkey shift+ctrl+opt+cmd+R
- Type the keystroke cmd+space (or whatever your Alfred hotkey is)
- Pause for 0.2 seconds
- Insert text “rf” by typing
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If you set more than one KM macro to be triggered by the same hyper key combo, then when you press that combo, you’ll get a list of choices presented in a “Conflict Palette.”
- I’m a lawyer and am always having to enter case numbers for my cases
- My practice has a small number of cases, so it’s practical to do this:
- I set Hyper+A to be my “type the case number” macro
- I have multiple KM macros called Hyper+A Able, Hyper+A Baker, Hyper+A Charlie, etc., with Able, Baker, and Charlie representing examples of my case names
- Each macro is the set up the same:
- Triggered by hotkey shift+ctrl+opt+cmd+A
- Insert text by typing 24ABCD123456 (or whatever the case number is for that client)
- Then, when you press Hyper+A, it will give you a list to select from, then it will enter the case number.
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I’m also using Karabiner Elements for hyper key. Mostly because it was really the only app that could pull it off when I first started using it.
The other excellent think KE can do is remap pressing two keys simultaneously. That sounds crazy on the face of it but if I simultaneously press = and <delete>, KE turns that into a forward delete. It’s so much more convenient than fiddling around to with the key. I must use this dozens if not hundreds of times every day.
Some hyperkey shortcuts I use are:
hyper f: runs a Keyboard Maestro macro from anywhere that activates OmniFocus, views all tasks and puts the focus in the find box. Handy if you want to search across all taskshyper c: Run KM macro to copy the selection and paste it into the previous application at the insertion point. Handy if you need to copy several discontiguous chunks from one application into another. Saves manually switching back to the target application and pasting each time.hyper v: KM macro that filters the clipboard before pasting. For example, if the clipboard contains something that looks like a file path and I’m pasting into Obsidian, it will add<file://to the beginning of the string and>at the end. It does some other things depending on what’s in the clipboard and what application I’m pasting into. Generally it’s trimming something or adding something to the path to make it work correctly in a specific application / context.
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Update: I switched back to Karabiner for my “Caps Lock to hyper key” setup. Both hyperkey.app and BTT were working inconsistently for me and I couldn’t solve the problems. Karabiner is working well.