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Comment by eddyg

4 hours ago

Have you looked at Karabiner Elements⁽¹⁾? It’s extremely capable; see a config like this⁽²⁾ for inspiration.

⁽¹⁾ https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/

⁽²⁾ https://github.com/pdelfino/karabiner-config

Yes I'm using it because I don't use a standard Apple keyboard with my Mac.

The issue is mostly the user interface design is mouse first, not keyboard first. Windows was more than a little better on that front.

  • With Hammerspoon⁽³⁾ and the Accessibility API, I’ve found there’s not really much I can’t do.

    For example, I use the Claude desktop app, but when I copy something from it, the Clipboard gets multiple content types, including RTF and Markdown, but I usually want the latter. So I wrote a quick snippet in Hammerspoon so that when Claude.app is the active app and the Clipboard changes, strip all the parts from the Clipboard except the “UTF8” part so I get just the Markdown (unless the Shift key is held down, which leaves it as-is). No more “formatted text” when I want to paste the Markdown.

    My biggest problem now is that when I help somebody else on their Mac, I’m so used to “my controls” that I have to stop and think how to do things the normal way.

    ⁽³⁾ https://www.hammerspoon.org/

I have it, regularly updated, from my efforts 10-15Y ago to try to get a Compose key working on OS X.

I failed.

I just haven't bothered to remove and clean up again.