[KeyMove] Control_L+hjkl to Left/Down/Up/Right

[ryoikarashi]

Is there any way to use Control_L+hjkl to Left/Down/Up/Right to move cursor?
If it's not possible with Karabiner-Elements yet, do you know any alternatives to achieve the above?

[ebzlo]

See #16 :)

[ryoikarashi]

@ebzlo Thanks for the reply!
Now I know it's not supported yet because it's limited to swapping two keys for now.
I've just donated for this awesome app :)

Do you know any alternatives to achieve this?

[seangaffney]

@ryoikarashi I'm eagerly awaiting the same functionality, it's hardcoded into the way I type and navigate now... I've found a temporary solution by using Keyboard Maestro (they have a trial, although its length seems to be unspecified) with the following macros set up:

Of note: Make sure that the hotkey is set for "is down" and not "is pressed" if you want key-repeat to function normally.

Actually, here's a gist of the plist. You can just download the raw and drag it into Keyboard Maestro.

[ryoikarashi]

Thanks for the quick reply @seangaffney and an awesome workaround!
Here is exactly what I want! 😄

However it seems impossible in keyboard maestro to achieve Control_L+Shift+hjkl to Left/Down/Up/Right for text selection. Do you know any way to get this work?

I'm sorry for asking you guys many questions 🙇

[seangaffney]

Ha, yeah, I guess that's one of the benefits of actually remapping (what Karabiner does) vs. macros (what Keyboard Maestro does). I use vim for editing, so highlighting in this way isn't as big of a deal for me. 😄

[EvanLovely]

Thanks for this idea @seangaffney ! I needed what @ryoikarashi needed, so I just hashed it out further (though I use Diamond Keys instead of Vim keys). I've got my macros up in this gist and I'll try to keep it up to date with any bugs I come across in my uses. My keyboard muscle memory is ruined without this!!

[seangaffney]

@EvanLovely Nice!

My keyboard muscle memory is ruined without this!!

Haha, same.

[ryoikarashi]

Thanks for your great ideas @EvanLovely !
I also came up with the same solution and made a gist which may be the same with @EvanLovely 's one :)

[mariuslucamarius]

Do you guys know a way to distinguish between the left and the right CMD keys in the trigger?

[cicloid]

I'm also missing this functionality, but for know, I reimplemented the functionality temporally (I hope) in Hammerspoon

local function keyCode(key)
  return function() hs.eventtap.keyStroke({}, key) end
end

hs.hotkey.bind({"cmd", "alt"}, 'h', keyCode('left') ,  nil,   keyCode('left'))
hs.hotkey.bind({"cmd", "alt"}, 'j', keyCode('down') ,  nil,   keyCode('down') )
hs.hotkey.bind({"cmd", "alt"}, 'k', keyCode('up')   ,  nil,   keyCode('up') )
hs.hotkey.bind({"cmd", "alt"}, 'l', keyCode('right'),  nil,   keyCode('right') )

[greneholt]

I also just donated for this feature. I've been using Karabiner for years to turn JKIL into arrow keys when semicolon is held down, and I find computers practically unusable when they don't have this setup.

[watsoncj]

I've hard-coded the arrows as fn+hjkl here: watsoncj@5531032

Not quite the same, but you can probably tweak it to match your preferences.

cc: @greneholt @cicloid @ryoikarashi @seangaffney @mariuslucamarius @EvanLovely @ebzlo

[kkamdooong]

I found another solution by using Hammerspoon.(I inspired from @cicloid)
Here is hammerspoon configuration. It just remmaping contrl + hjkl to arrow keys

[raulchen]

@cicloid @kkamdooong: Thanks for your suggestions about hammerspoon, I tried it, but key repeat is super slow (compared with just holding arrow keys), do you have the same problem?

[kkamdooong]

@raulchen
release note on hammerspoon v0.9.49

Changed: hs.eventtap.keyStroke() and .keyStrokes() now wait 200ms between the keydown and keyup events, to improve reliability

One of Hammerspoon team member comment this issue Hammerspoon/hammerspoon#1011 (comment)
So I edited my code this way

[raulchen]

@kkamdooong thanks, it works great

[cperryk]

Thank you, @watsoncj! The solution you shared worked like a charm. Made your code changes and built manually.

Also tried Hammerspoon first like @kkamdooong and @raulchen but noticed that the key repeat would often suddenly halt after holding the key down for a couple seconds.

[xhyhh0]

hard-coded the arrows as ctrl+hjkl here:
ctrl-hjkl-arrows

[cray0000]

You can use ⌘英かな for it and for other simple multikey remaps.

[briansoule]

I also made a quick branch implementing left_option+hjkl
opt-hjkl-arrows

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.