Editing & Navigating Layer
Last updated
Last updated
The Editing & Navigation layer is one of the most important layer that I use. I was using a much different version of this layer even before I had an ergonomic keyboard. The layer is broken up into a few different sections.
Starting with right-hand-side, the arrow keys are put in a comfortable j, i, k, l position in cyan. In red are ways to delete text with the Macro delete line on p. The ctrl+A and ctrl+e means go to the start line or end line even if the line is wrapped which is very useful in an editor or terminal. The thumb Hyper keys in white are actually VS code related because I am often in this layer when I context switch to a different terminal, file, or command.
On the left-hand-side, the light blue macros are select all, line and word. The orange macros are new line above and below. On the bottom light purple is the usual undo, cut, copy, paste. There is also a paste 2nd oldest history macro on the "b" key which comes in handy all the time.
The section above in purple are modifiers. They are used in combination of keys on the right hand side. With the left thumb on a layer key and different modifiers held down an action on the right can be done such as an arrow key, delete key or page move key. A full chart of all the combinations are in the table below. I structured the modifier order as ctrl, option, command shift because it seemed the most comfortable because shift is the most situational key and can easily be lifted up and down.
Another cool feature is that additional commands can be made using modifier combinations. For example, if I want to move left by 3 words or up by 3 lines, I can create a macro using karabiner-elements by mapping an unused combination, like cmd+option+letter to the macro.
This layer has gone through many iterations and actually used to be 2 layers. I was using this layer before I had an ergonomic keyboard because it was that useful and is what really got me into creating layers and macros. Typically, I do 4-5 actions in this layer and then go back to the default layer. I prefer having a press and hold functionality that is based on positional keys instead of modes with mnemonic like in vim.
left arrow
left_arrow
j
right arrow
right_arrow
l
up arrow
up_arrow
i
down arrow
down_arrow
k
page up
page_up
y
page down
page_down
n
back space
back_space
u
delete
del
o
escape
esc
q
undo
cmd+z
z
cut
cmd+x
x
copy
cmd+c
c
paste
cmd+v
v
start of line
cmd+left_arrow
cmd+j
end of line
cmd+right_arrow
cmd+j
top of line
cmd+up_arrow
cmd+i
bottom of line
cmd+down_arrow
cmd+k
move left one word
option+left_arrow
option+j
move right one word
option+right_arrow
option+l
backspace left one word
option+backspace
option+u
delete right one word
option+del
option+o
backspace to start of line
cmd+backspace
cmd+u
delete to end of line
karabiner-elements(ctrl+k)
cmd+o
select letter left
shift+left_arrow
shift+j
select letter right
shift+right_arrow
shift+l
select line above to cursor
shift+up_arrow
shift+i
select line below to cursor
shift+down_arrow
shift+k
select left one word
option+shift+left_arrow
option+shift+j
select right one word
option+shift+right_arrow
option+shift+l
select to start of line
cmd+shift+left_arrow
cmd+shift+j
select to end of line
cmd+shift+right_arrow
cmd+shift+l,
select to page up
shift+page_up
shift+y
select to page down
shift+page_down
shift+n
move line up
vs code(option+up_arrow)
option+i
move line down
vs code(option+right_arrow)
option+j
copy line up
vs code
(option+shift+up_arrow)
option+shift+i
copy line down
vs code (option+shift+down_arrow)
option+shift+k
left arrow x3
karabiner-elements
cmd+option+j
right arrow x3
karabiner-elements
cmd+option+l
up arrow x3
karabiner-elements
cmd+option+i
down arrow x3
karabiner-elements
cmd+option+k
left selection x3
karabiner-elements
cmd+option+shift+j
right selection x3
karabiner-elements
cmd+option+shift+l
go to start of line w/ word wrap
ctrl+a
m
go to end of line w/word wrap
ctrl+e
.
select word
macro
r
select line
macro
e
select all
cmd+a
w
delete line
macro
p
new line above cursor
macro
t
new line below cursor
macro
g
paste 2nd last item
macro
b
go to file
vs code(cmd+p)
F1
show all commands
vs code(cmd+shift+p)
F4
terminal focus/unfocus
vs code(custom)
F2
A macro is a series of key strokes. Most keyboard software has a dedicated section for creating macros. Here are the macros I used in the editing / navigating layer.
select word
option left_arrow, shift+option+right_arrow
select line
cmd left_arrow, shift+cmd+right_arrow
delete line
1, ctrl+a, shift+cmd+right_arrow, backspace, backspace
I add a 1 as an arbitrary value so that if the line is blank then the expected output is still produced and not deleting the last character on the above line.
new line above
ctrl+a, enter
new line below
ctrl+e, enter
To shift between the terminal and editor quickly, I use this script. hyper f4 can be changed to another variable, but I used it to avoid conflicts and to indicate its a thumb key on my keyboard. This can be added to your configuration by going to code -> preferences -> keyboard shortcuts -> select the open keyboard shortcuts (JSON) icon of a folder. Then paste the below code in.