Feature request: Keyboard shortcut support for bounded “Keep Screen On” sessions with visible feedback

[HemalR]

First, thanks for the excellent “Keep Screen On” shortcut — it’s already very useful as a quick, open‑ended toggle.

This issue proposes a follow‑up feature that builds on the discussion in #1332: enabling bounded “Keep Screen On” sessions from the keyboard, but with explicit on‑screen feedback rather than a hidden timing window.

Current behavior

• The global shortcut has a single, clear contract:
  • First press: start “Keep Screen On” as an open‑ended session.
  • Second press: release it.
• The shortcut ignores the last duration chosen in the menu and does not write one back.
• Bounded durations (1h, 2h, 4h, etc.) live solely in the menu bar UI, which is the only surface that currently shows what you picked.

This is a good, simple model, but it means bounded sessions can’t be chosen directly from the keyboard.

Problem

Users who often want a bounded session (e.g. “stay awake for 1 hour, then stop”) need to:

• Either use the menu bar each time to pick a duration, or
• Use the global shortcut and remember to manually release it, which is easy to forget.

The earlier proposal in #1332 suggested a timing‑based “armed” window (e.g. hit the shortcut again within 2 seconds to cycle durations). While elegant from a keyboard‑only perspective, the failure mode runs in the wrong direction: a slightly slow second press can accidentally leave the Mac awake much longer than intended, with no feedback that this happened.

Proposed behavior

Introduce a visible, short‑lived on‑screen indicator for the “Keep Screen On” state and duration, and use repeated presses of the existing global shortcut to cycle durations only while the indicator is visible.

Rough sketch:

1. First shortcut press

   • Starts “Keep Screen On”.
   • Shows a small, unobtrusive indicator overlay (or HUD-style UI) with:
     • Current mode (e.g. “Keep Screen On: Infinite” or “Keep Screen On: 1 hour”).
   • This indicator stays on screen for a short period (e.g. 2–3 seconds) or until dismissed.

2. Subsequent presses while indicator is visible

   • Each press cycles through the available durations, for example:
     • Infinite → 1 hour → 2 hours → 4 hours → Infinite → …
   • The indicator text updates on each press so the user always sees what they ended up with.
   • No hidden timing window: the “armed” state is defined by “indicator is visible”, not by counting seconds silently.

3. Indicator timeout

   • After the timeout, the indicator disappears.
   • The global shortcut returns to its current, simple contract:
     • Press: if off, start a new session and show indicator; if on, release.

4. Menu bar behavior

   • The menu bar remains the authoritative surface for configuring and displaying durations.
   • The keyboard‑driven duration choice can either:
     • Respect and update the same duration model as the menu, or
     • Maintain its own last‑used duration if you’d prefer to keep menu and keyboard behavior decoupled.
   • In either case, the on‑screen indicator is the feedback mechanism for keyboard‑initiated changes.

Why this fits Mole’s design

• Single shortcut, more power: Keeps the global shortcut model intact — no extra keybindings, no extra settings screen.
• Visible feedback, safer failure modes: Users never have to guess which state or duration they landed in, and the “failure case” becomes benign: if you walk away mid‑cycle, the indicator disappears and the shortcut goes back to its simple toggle behavior.
• Menu remains the source of truth: Durations still “live” in a place that can show them, consistent with the current design philosophy, while the keyboard becomes a first‑class way to choose a bounded session when desired.

Optional implementation notes

• The indicator could reuse Mole’s existing visual language (e.g. a minimal floating panel) to avoid adding conceptual weight.
• To preserve clarity, the indicator might also show:
  • Whether the session is “screen only” vs “system” (depending on the current keep‑awake mode).
  • A subtle icon or color difference between infinite and bounded sessions.

---

If this direction makes sense, I’m happy to help refine the UX details (copy, durations to cycle through, indicator timeout, etc.) to match Mole’s overall design.

[tw93]

@HemalR Thank you for writing this up properly, the hidden timing window especially, since that is exactly why the shortcut only does the open-ended toggle today.

I am not building it right now, and I would rather say so than leave the thread silent. The one-press contract is the part I want to keep: it works without you having to remember what the menu last had selected. Every version of bounded-from-the-keyboard I can see either adds a mode the keyboard cannot show you, or writes a duration back that the menu then disagrees with. Your on-screen feedback is the honest way around that, and it is also a new visual surface on a path that has none today, which is a bigger change than it looks.

Bounded sessions stay in the menu for now, where you can see the duration as you pick it. If more people ask, I will start from your proposal rather than from scratch, since it is the most complete version of the idea written down anywhere.