Desktop Whichkey

This is a menu that provides different options for your desktop shortcuts, as whichkey does in Neovim (although not as cool and customizable).

This is originally designed for my i3wm deskop, that works very well using modes, allowing users to have a wider range of key bind options.

The issue with key binds is that sometimes there's many and we can forget what key bind we assigned to some especific rofi menu that we did 3 months ago or when we have many keybinds. Of course we can have a Rofi menu with our shortcuts, but this way is faster.

Instructions

This script reads a keybinds.json with your keybinds (I left mine as an example, you can automate this if you want). To use it you just need to python desktop-whichkey.py mode to activate this; but works better if you integrate it with your desktop:

For i3wm: when executing a program with modes, we need to first, activate the mode (let's say mod+a for applications mode), then press the keybind associated with the program we want (f for Firefox). To include the menu in between, we need to call it when opening the mode (in this case applications mode), and once we know what we want, kill the menu and exectute the program (in this example, Firefox).

# Whichkey for i3 using python (desktop-whichkey.py mode)
set $wkd python ~/.config/i3/scripts/desktop-whichkey.py
set $kme exec killall python ~/.config/i3/scripts/desktop-whichkey.py, exec
set $km exec killall python ~/.config/i3/scripts/desktop-whichkey.py,

# This is an example of how could it be used with an app launcher in i3:
set $mode_apps  Applications
bindsym $mod+a mode "$mode_apps", exec $wkd apps &
mode "$mode_apps" {
    bindsym k exec $kme kate, mode "default"
    bindsym t exec $kme thunderbird, mode "default"
    bindsym u exec $kme thunar, mode "default"
    # […]

    bindsym Escape exec $km mode "default"
    bindsym Return exec $km mode "default"
}

Remember that you don't need to add all your modes to the keybinds.json, just the ones you are going to use. For example, I have a mode to move between the workspaces using the home row of my split keyboard because is more comfortable for me to use, but I don't need a menu to show me what key to press, so I don't need to include this mode into the json file. I do have one for not so much used layouts though.

I don't consider myself a developer, this is just a script that I made for myself and that I wanted to share, so don't expect many improvements.