2.0 KiB
Leader Key
The leader key acts as a prefix to a key sequence. These can be used to trigger macros quickly without dedicated keys set to each function. For those of you who dislike key combos, such as Ctrl+Shift+Esc, then this feature is for you. This is very much inspired from vim.
Leader key sequences can be as long or short as you like. The action must be a macro, so it can be things like unicode macros, or generic macros. The example below shows how you would trigger task manager in Windows with a leader sequence. By default Leader Mode is ENTER, which means that after your sequence you will hit ENTER to trigger the sequence completion, or ESC to cancel the sequence.
- Assign a key to KC.LEAD
- Above your keymap, include a LEADER_DICTIONARY.
from kmk.macros.simple import simple_key_sequence
# ...
keyboard.leader_dictionary = {
(KC.T, KC.A, KC.S, KC.K): simple_key_sequence([Modifiers.KC_LCTRL(Modifiers.KC_LSHIFT(Common.KC_ESC))])
}
keymap = [...KC.LEAD,...]
# ...
If defining tuples of keycodes is too obtuse for you, we have a convenience function available for that, too!
from kmk.keycodes import generate_leader_dictionary_seq as glds
# ...
keyboard.leader_dictionary = {
glds('task'): simple_key_sequence([Modifiers.KC_LCTRL(Modifiers.KC_LSHIFT(Common.KC_ESC))])
}
# ...
Modes
- LeaderMode.TIMEOUT (the default)
- LeaderMode.ENTER
Timeout Mode
Will expire after a timer and trigger the sequence that matches if any. This can be enabled with
from kmk.consts import LeaderMode
keyboard.leader_mode = LeaderMode.TIMEOUT
The timeout can be set like this
keyboard.leader_timeout = 2000 # in milliseconds-ish
The timeout defaults to 1000, which is roughly a second.
Enter Mode
Has no timeout. To end sequence press the enter key, or cancel and do nothing, press escape. This can be enabled with
from kmk.consts import LeaderMode
keyboard.leader_mode = LeaderMode.ENTER