Kaleidoscope-ShapeShifter

ShapeShifter is a plugin that makes it considerably easier to change what symbol is input when a key is pressed together with Shift. If one wants to rearrange the symbols on the number row for example, without modifying the layout on the operating system side, this plugin is where one can turn to.

What it does, is very simple: if any key in its dictionary is found pressed while Shift is held, it will press another key instead of the one triggering the event. For example, if it sees Shift + 1 pressed together, which normally results in a !, it will press 4 instead of 1, inputting $.

Using the plugin

To use the plugin, one needs to include the header, create a dictionary, and configure the provided ShapeShifter object to use the dictionary:

#include <Kaleidoscope.h>
#include <Kaleidoscope-ShapeShifter.h>


// define layer mapping for ShapeShifter
// SHSH_LAYER(base, shift) is used, where base is the layer which should have different shift'ed keys
// and shift is the layer index which contains the replacement keys
SHSH_LAYERS(
            // SHSH_LAYER(DVORAK, DVORAK_SHIFT),
            SHSH_LAYER(0, 1)
);

KALEIDOSCOPE_INIT_PLUGINS(ShapeShifter);

void setup() {
  Kaleidoscope.setup();

  // Register / use defined layer mapping
  SHSH_USE_LAYERS();
}

The SHSH_LAYERS, SHSH_LAYER, and SHSH_USE_LAYERS are helper macros for easier usage.

Any key can be unshifted with the SHSH_UNSHIFT or by using the LSHIFT modifier. Unfortunately it works only for single keypresses, repeated may be sent with the SHIFT modifier,

Plugin methods

The plugin provides the ShapeShifter object, with the following methods and properties:

.layers

Set this property to the dictionary ShapeShifter should use. The layers is an array of kaleidoscope::ShapeShifter::layer_t elements, which is just a very verbose way of saying that its a pair of layer indices. The first one is the layer that may have replacement keys defined in a layer having index stored in the second layer index.

Be aware that the replacement key will be pressed with Shift held, so do keep that in mind!

Further reading

Starting from the example is the recommended way of getting started with the plugin.