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openton

Member

Registered: 2024-07-09

Posts: 3

Enable window switching in open box using arrow/vim keys

Actions such as "NextWindow" and "PreviousWindow" in open box can be mapped to alt+tab and alt+shift+tab respectively to switch windows.

The thing is once the window switcher is launched, no other keys can interact with it except the ones binded to the  "NextWindow" or "PreviousWindow" actions.
Thus in order to make the arrow keys or vim keys interact with these actions one should bind alt+up/down/k/j to them.
However this causes that pressing alt+up/down/k/j to start the window switcher too, and of course this is undesirable because these keybindings are being used in other applications.

So is it possible to make what starts the window switcher is alt+tab and alt+shift+tab while alt+up/down/k/j only interact with the window switcher when it is started and otherwise ignore them so that they can be used with other applications?

I tried to achieve so by editing the config file but couldn't really get it done. Maybe the solution is a bash script or something that launches the window switcher then waits for key presses, not sure if that's possible though.

Any help is much appreciated.
Thanks a lot in advance!

Last edited by openton (2024-08-29 23:20:13)

mesaprotector

Member

Registered: 2024-03-03

Posts: 198

Re: Enable window switching in open box using arrow/vim keys

It would be easier to specifically map Alt+Tab+j and Alt+Tab+k to switch windows. I don't really use the window switcher myself, but I don't know of any way to launch it from a script. Other than the obvious way where the script just emulates the keyboard shortcut.

You could probably write a udev rule or similar to listen for Alt+Tab and temporarily intercept the j/k keys, ending when the Alt key is released (key-up event).