Mod-Hold on [Nav]

[fabi1cazenave]

Modifier + Navigation combos can be tricky, especially with the EZ and TT flavors. Shift+Arrows is one of these common pitfalls for newcomers.

The Idea

We have tried various approches where a modifier would be kept by the Navigation layer. The idea is simple:

• press a modifier key: Mod
• press the Nav key (thumb)
• Mod key can be released: the active layer is now Mod-Nav as long as the Nav key is held.

Tests

This has been tested with two optional flags on Ækeynox-ZMK:

• ENABLE_MOD_HOLD_NAVIGATION, to do single-handed Alt-Tab and Alt-Shift-Tab in the HRM-Vim flavor
• PINKY_MOD_HOLD, for single-handed home row mods

These two options have been proposed for specific use cases. They ignore certain modifiers.

With the QMx2040 we’ve been further: this behavior is always active with all modifiers. Surprisingly, it seems to be working just fine. Here’s how text is selected on this keyboard:

• press Shift
• press Nav: we’re in “selection mode” as long as Nav is held
• extend the selection with Arrows or Ctrl+Arrows

We’ve tested it with newbies, and it seems to be very intuitive.

Proposal

1. Add a MOD_HOLD option to the Selenium spec.
2. Make sure it can be implemented in both ZMK and QMK.
3. Unless a significant gotcha is found, enable it by default.