After having discovered the extremely powerful Hammerspoon app, and finally landing on a configuration that I am very happy with, I thought I should share it with others to enjoy. I've tried to comment init.lua to make it easier to understand.
I use this config together with some Karabiner remapping to achieve a fast and usable config with a short learning curve.
- Reload on Save
- Hyper Key
- Additional hotkeys to switch spaces
- Window Switcher menu
- Quick per-application window switcher (Across spaces!)
- Rounded screen corners
- MiroWindowManager with reduced animation times
- Universal Mic muter with hotkey
- Drag to resize and move windows
- App launcher
- ... Some additional Spoons that are currently disabled
Hyper is what people like to call a special shortcut comprised of multiple modifier keys. In this case the hyper key is the following:
Hyper = ctrl+alt+cmd
I've used Karabiner and the default mac hotkey settings to remap the useless capslock key into something extremely powerful. If you tap capslock, it triggers "non_us_backslash" (what even is that?) which I have remapped to open spotlight or Alfred. Hold it and it acts like the hyper modifier. Perfect.
I use Hyper + <key> to either launch or switch to certain applications. This is easily configured in the init.lua file so feel free to modify it for your own use.
examples:
- Hyper+V = Launch or switch to Vivaldi
- Hyper+S = Launch or switch to Slack
- Hyper+C = Launch or switch to Calendar
- Hyper+E = Launch or switch to Excel ... you get the idea
Many other configs online have similar features, but what is unique about this config is that if the app is already focused and you hit the key combination again, focus will cycle through the open windows of the current application. This works across spaces, and is really great when you have a bunch of windows open at the same time.
I've also remapped right ctrl+right/left to switch spaces left and right.
Thanks to the help of dmgerman who's code allowed me to implement my app switcher, I've also maintained his app switcher menu.
- alt+b opens a switcher dialogue for all open windows
- alt+shift+b opens a switcher dialogue for all open windows for the current app
- hyper+tab switches to the last focused window
MiroWindowsManager is a great spoon to maneuver windows in a convenient fashion. Maybe one day I will graduate to a tiling window manger, but for now dragging a window to the sides will make it take up that half of the screen. Dragging to the top makes it take up the whole screen.
MiroWindowsManager also has some hotkeys mapped to it. I use the following:
- Hyper+up = Resize the window to take up the top half of the screen
- Hyper+down = Resize the window to take up the bottom half of the screen
- Hyper+right = Resize the window to take up the right half of the screen
- Hyper+left = Resize the window to take up the left half of the screen
- Hyper+f = Resize the window to take up the whole screen
Tapping the respective keys again does extra things, best to head to MiroWindowsManager page to learn more.
The Skyrocket Spoon allows to resize and move windows conveniently without having to grab a window by the corner of window decoration.
In my config:
- ctrl+shift allows you to move a window with the mouse
- alt+shift allows you to resize a window with the mouse.
Here, I used the Micmute Spoon and mapped it to Pagedown. I never use the key and it sits on the corner of my keyboard, so it is a convenient way for me to toggle the microphone on and off when on Zoom calls. A menubar icon will display the status, but you might have to hit it a few times for it to sync up with the current state.
Just the RoundedCorners Spoon. I think it looks nice. feel free to disable to get those pixels back. Might cause burn in if you have an OLED panel, so be careful.
I have some extra Spoons in my repo, but I am not actively using them so they are disabled in the init.lua. Feel free to delete them.
- Install Hammerspoon
- copy the contents of this repo into you
~/.hammerspoonfolder - Reload the config
To get capslock to work as described above I followed the following guide with some modifications.
Insert the following into your '~/.config/karabiner/karabiner.json' file. Watch out for closing brackets and comments! Reload the config to activate.
"complex_modifications": {
"parameters": {
"basic.simultaneous_threshold_milliseconds": 50,
"basic.to_delayed_action_delay_milliseconds": 500,
"basic.to_if_alone_timeout_milliseconds": 1000,
"basic.to_if_held_down_threshold_milliseconds": 500,
"mouse_motion_to_scroll.speed": 100
},
"rules": [
{
"manipulators": [
{
"description": "Change caps_lock to command+control+option.",
"from": {
"key_code": "caps_lock",
"modifiers": {
"optional": [
"any"
]
}
},
"to": [
{
"key_code": "left_control",
"modifiers": [
"left_command",
"left_option"
]
}
],
"to_if_alone": [
{
"key_code": "non_us_backslash"
}
],
"type": "basic"
}
]
},
},
Next, open up the settings app > keyboard > Shortcuts, and then remap spotlight by clicking the current shortcut and tapping capslock. If you prefer Alfred, remap that in the app settings instead.