One-shot, single-keystroke 'mode' bindings / default bindings for unbound keys in a given mode.

[ELLIOTTCABLE]

A continuous frustration I've got with my AeroSpace config right now, is that there's a few setting modes (basically the ones from the default config, slightly tweaked) that are intended to perform a single action, then return to default mode. For instance, "service mode" from the default config: I may invoke it to get a second 'layer' of rarer commands (reload config; set window to floating; etc.), but I never want to stay in it, even when it's correctly invoked.

Worse, it's (apparently) easy to accidentally invoke - the regularity with which I find myself in a "huh, my AeroSpace bindings aren't responding" state, reflexively try them a few times in a row, then finally look up at the menubar and see that I'm in the "service" binding and thus it's waiting for one of the, like, five bindings that actually exist in that mode (and ignoring everything else), is somewhat embarrassing.

I'd love to fix this so that every key that isn't an explicit service-mode binding is just a no-op that returns to the main mode … but that'd balloon my config in a ridiculous way, adding a binding for every single possible chord that's simply 'mode main'. Ew.

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It'd be nice to either have a "setting" for binding modes, that causes them to capture every keystroke (and then issue <configured default binding>) ...

[mode.service.binding]
default = 'mode main'

... or, perhaps, a flag for the mode command, that makes it one-shot:

[mode.main.binding]
alt-shift-o = 'mode --oneshot service'

... i.e. the mode only stays active until the next chord is received, and if it's not bound to anything in that mode, you're immediately returned to the current (active-when-invoking) mode.

[iandol]

Why not just add the 'mode main' to those bindings that need to return, e.g.: r = ['flatten-workspace-tree', 'mode main'] # reset layout?

[ELLIOTTCABLE]

Because, again, the point here is unbound keys. I have 'mode main' in all the bound keys; but what if you hit Shift⌥O, and then hit a bunch of other keys? You stay in service-mode until you remember to hit R to reload, or something similar. (=

[nikitabobko]

I am not sure that I like --oneshot config option, cause the difference between appending 'mode main' at the end and --oneshot is very subtle

Currently, I lean towards:

[mode.service]
  unbound-key-binding = 'mode main'

[mode.service.binding]
  f = 'layout floating tiling'
  # ...

But anyway, this is not possible to implement with the Carbon API that we are currently using. AFAIK, the input monitoring API is more powerful and it allows doing that #1012 #1714 But we have to migrate to this API first