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by powersnail 1267 days ago
Is there a keyboard-oriented window manager that doesn't require memorizing what keys do what?

What I envision is having one master key combination to pull up a panel or overlay of some sort, which displays which key I press next to go to a certain place, or do a certain action. So there's just one thing to memorize.

Sort of like how vimium works in browser, where you press 'f', and each clickable gets a little label. (But preferably not randomly assigned)

The memorizing-most-commonly-used-50-keyboard-combination thing really doesn't work for me, whether it's home row or function keys. I mean, I still have to look at the little pictures for stove knobs after years of using the same stove, and that's just four knobs.

3 comments

On Mac I just use CMD+space to pull up spotlight which very quickly opens anything matching what you type from there. Usually within a single keystroke after CMD+space pulls up the desired app and typically takes under a second. It does a lot of other neat things as well but I use that feature daily.

Windows is similar in just pressing the windows key allows you to type the name of an app or file but in my experience is much slower and inaccurate compared to OSX.

It's easier for me to remember the name of the app I want than that+the key binding with muscle memory I've then had to set.

IIRC Manjaro with i3 displays a list of common key chords on the desktop:

https://www.google.com/search?q=manjaro+i3&source=lnms&tbm=i...

You could certainly write a short Rofi script to display them in a popup window and browse/select/execute them (via i3-msg).

i think stumpwm has some kind of "which-key" mode.... which is i think what you are looking for, and of course there is always exwm that can do *anything*