How to create a macro to press two modifiers

General
1

I am currently trying my hand at homerow mods. Previous attempts never worked for me due to too many misfires, so I am working around this by using multiple keys. Basically the idea is something like this:

S+D = Ctrl
D+F = Shift
S+D+F = Ctrl + Shift

It’s the third part that I’m having trouble with. I tried binding this to S:

ifShortcut d f final {
  holdKey rightCtrl
  holdKey rightShift
}

The hold works as expected if there’s only one “final holdKey” in the command. However, when putting together 2 like this what seems to happen instead is that my key presses are put in a queue and then run without modifiers when I let go. I tried various workarounds, but always fail at the 2 simultaneous modifiers part.

Is it possible to achieve this kind of setup?

2

Yes. See MODMASK in the grammar.

E.g., holdKey LSC stands for left shift and left control.

Another way would be to use pressKey and delayUntilRelease.

3

Thanks, MODMASK is exactly what I was looking for.

As a final step, can I change the behavior based on tap vs hold? It’s easy for single keys, but all the methods that I was able to come up with run into the same key queuing issue. For example I’d like to be able to tap JK for escape and hold it for Shift.

4

Well, you can give a try to ifHold and ifNotHold, or to ifPrimary or ifSecondary, or to use ifInterrupted. Search the firmware/doc-dev/user-guide.md at master · UltimateHackingKeyboard/firmware · GitHub for them.

I am not sure what queuing issue you are talking about. What have you tried?

5

Here are versions with both ifSecondary and ifHold that I have tried:

ifShortcut timeoutIn $HRM_TIMEOUT j {
  ifHold final holdKey leftShift
  final tapKey escape
}
holdKey k

ifShortcut timeoutIn $HRM_TIMEOUT j {
  ifSecondary advancedStrategy final holdKey leftShift
  final tapKey escape
}
holdKey k

Tapping K as normal input and KJ as escape both work. Only holding KJ as shift has a problem. When I hold KJ and press a the expected behavior is for A to be written because the hold works as shift. What happens instead is that nothing is written. Only when I let go of KJ a lowercase a does get written.

This is what I mean with the queue. As long as KJ is held every other input is queued up and written only after I let go.

6

That sounds like a bug. Will look into it…

1 Like
7

There may be some bugs still lurking, @kareltucek. I have been having some weird behaviours with my HRM macros lately, which use a very similar combination of ifShortcut followed by ifSecondary. Unfortunately, I have not been able to create a consistent, small example showcase for the problem. It seems to come and go.

8

Indeed a bug! Nice catch! Thanks for report!

Please give a try to the firmware from Fix freeze when ifShortcut or ifPrimary was used with braces. · UltimateHackingKeyboard/firmware@7c4e84d · GitHub , should be fixed there.

2 Likes
9

Tried the firmware and can confirm the bug has been fixed.

For reference, this is what I have built (no idea if and how much I’ll keep, but it does work now):

ifShortcut timeoutIn $HRM_TIMEOUT anyOrder j l final holdKey LSC
ifShortcut timeoutIn $HRM_TIMEOUT anyOrder semicolonAndColon l final holdKey LAC

ifShortcut timeoutIn $HRM_TIMEOUT l final holdKey leftControl
ifShortcut timeoutIn $HRM_TIMEOUT j {
  ifSecondary advancedStrategy final holdKey leftShift
  final tapKey escape
}

holdKey k
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