Keyboard shortcuts (hotkeys) that run in the background

[ABDALLAH9877]

Aside from the keyboard shortcuts within the program, I want to add a new feature: the hotkey. What does the hotkey do? Simply put, the hotkey lets you control the program without opening it or while it's running in the background. For example, if I'm playing a game and an inappropriate song comes on, I can simply press the hotkey to play the next track without leaving the game and opening Waveflow.
I don't know if adding this feature might result in drawbacks such as increased processor consumption or higher resource consumption, so please tell me if this feature has any disadvantages so that you don't add it (tell me about the disadvantages first :) )

[InstaZDLL]

Aside from the keyboard shortcuts within the program, I want to add a new feature: the hotkey. What does the hotkey do? Simply put, the hotkey lets you control the program without opening it or while it's running in the background. For example, if I'm playing a game and an inappropriate song comes on, I can simply press the hotkey to play the next track without leaving the game and opening Waveflow. I don't know if adding this feature might result in drawbacks such as increased processor consumption or higher resource consumption, so please tell me if this feature has any disadvantages so that you don't add it (tell me about the disadvantages first :) )

Thanks for asking about the drawbacks first! :)

The good news is that performance isn’t really a concern. Global hotkeys are handled by the operating system, so WaveFlow wouldn’t need to constantly monitor the keyboard or use noticeably more CPU in the background.

There are a few drawbacks though:

• Hotkeys can conflict with other apps or games. If another program already uses the same shortcut, WaveFlow may not be able to register it.
• Support differs between operating systems, especially on Linux/Wayland, where global shortcuts are more restricted.
• On some systems, additional permissions may be required.

Also, something that may already help with your example: WaveFlow already supports your keyboard’s media keys while running in the background, play/pause, next, previous, etc. So if your keyboard has a “next track” key, you should already be able to skip a song without leaving your game.

What WaveFlow is currently missing is custom global shortcuts, for example choosing something like Ctrl + Alt + N for Next Track.

I think this is a perfectly reasonable feature request, a lot of music players offer something similar, and it makes sense for WaveFlow too. The drawbacks above are manageable, so I’m going to look into how well it can be implemented across the platforms WaveFlow supports.

I can’t promise a timeline yet, but I’m definitely not ruling it out.

And if your normal media keys don’t work while WaveFlow is in the background, let me know your OS, that would be a bug worth fixing separately.