Karabiner-elements: modifier flags in karabiner.json

[ryantuck]

Hi, just made the mistake of upgrading to macOS sierra! Happy you're at work on this and would love to help.

I'm wondering how to add modifier flags to karabiner.json like I had in my private.xml file for mapping escape to shift + command:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
    <item>
        <name>esc to command+shift</name>
        <identifier>private.esc_to_cmd_shift</identifier>
        <autogen>
            __KeyToKey__
            KeyCode::ESCAPE,
            KeyCode::SHIFT_L, ModifierFlag::COMMAND_L
        </autogen>
    </item>
</root>

I'm assuming it won't be under simple_modifications, but I can't find anywhere in the code for adding a more complex modification. Do you know when I might be able to use this functionality?

[niieani]

HI @ryantuck. I believe multi-key support hasn't yet been implemented. See the file: https://github.com/tekezo/Karabiner-Elements/blob/6f4cb0936bfd7e08042a0ebca2f797f037f3893c/src/share/configuration_core.hpp

[szkrd]

I think modifier key support is very important, it would be wonderful to have a roadmap (probably in the wiki), plus per feature donation would be really nice - unfortunately I never worked with cpp, so I'm not that much of a help in terms of actual contributions :(

[ofer987]

I feel the same way @ryantuck -- I upgraded to macOS Sierra this morning. I regret it because now my multikey bindings no longer work. Just like @szkrd I have not programmed in C++ in a long time, but hey, this is such an important thing for me then maybe I should contribute anyway.

[specious]

I also upgraded to Sierra and have no way back.

My ] key doesn't work, so I had it remapped in private.xml as Option + [:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
    <name>opt + [ = ]</name>
    <identifier>private.option_plus_lbracket_to_rbracket</identifier>
    <autogen>
        __KeyToKey__ KeyCode::BRACKET_LEFT, ModifierFlag::OPTION_R, KeyCode::BRACKET_RIGHT
    </autogen>
  </item>
</root>

For now, I decided to sacrifice my F12 key.

[szkrd]

I don't know if it helps, but I ended up using ukelele with karabiner for now. It's not the best solution, but the custom keymap helps a lot.

[domq]

+1 on the idea of delivering a working, QWERTY-agnostic MultiKey feature through customizable modifiers.

For context: we used to do this with "old" Karabiner by mapping a key to Ctrl-Shift-F13 and applying this DefaultKeyBinding.dict; see e.g. this article on Think Different.

I am using Mac OS X Sierra on an actual MacBook, with French (AZERTY) keyboard. The aforementioned setup worked well for me on the same hardware and Mac OS X Yosemite. Additionally I tried the following:

• "Plain" F13 (along with a suitably de-^$-ified "\UF710" in DefaultKeyBinding.dict) works fine in e.g. Chrome, but not in Terminal: it spits ^[[25~ to the console instead, and I am at a loss on how to disable that in its Preferences. I figure the Ctrl+Shift part was supposed to prevent Terminal from interpreting the surrogate key (and it still does work, in the sense that I do have a working MultiKey right now with a Ctrl+Shift+say, RightCmd combo, with RightCmd being remapped to F13 with Karabiner Elements and an unmodified DefaultKeyBinding.dict)
• The osx-compose-key approach / workaround seems specific to the US keyboard; at least it doesn't work for me, as I do have a physical non_us_backslash key (it's my @ / # key on top left) that I don't want to sacrifice.

Thus, the ability to add modifiers to F13 is the only thing standing between me and a working, Terminal-friendly, fully customizable, and RSI-free Compose key.

[jackcouch]

Looking forward to the return of modifier keys as well - my whole setup depends on them. I'm offering a $50 bounty on this one (sent via bitcoin). If there is a better way to do this let me know :)

[cray0000]

You can use this app in addition to Karabiner-Elements for the simple multikeys setup: ⌘英かな. It's in japanese but pretty easy to figure out.

[jsalvatier]

Also rely heavily on multi-key support. I would pay money to have this. Is there a bounty system?

[stale[bot]]

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