alt-tab on navigation layer? How to not release alt-key while in the navigation layer (with held key)?

[rpnfan]

I assigned A-tab to a key on a layer (held space key). That works fine in principle but you can only switch to the former window and not keep pressing the key to cylce through the alt-tab windows. A workaround is using C-A-tab, which leaves all minimized windows visible, but then you have to press Enter or Space to choose the wanted tab, instead of just releasing all keys, in the way a normal alt-tab will work.

How can you just assign the press-alt key or have another solution to solve that?

[gerhard-h]

you can use a virtual-key

(defvirtualkeys
  alt lalt
)

then the tab-key only presses (multi (on-press press-virtualkey alt) tab) but never releases

the release you can multi to the space/layer-while-held key (on-release release-virtualkey alt)

[rpnfan]

Thanks a lot Gerhard. I think I have all commands correct, but still Alt does not seem to release, when I let go my layer switch (space key). Here is the relevant code. I think the error is in the hold-space-key definition, but I do not see what could be wrong. And that messed up my navigation layer not working any longer. So I must be doing something wrong.

(defvirtualkeys
  alt lalt
)

alttab (multi (on-press press-virtualkey alt) tab) 

;; Navigation and shorcut layer
spacefn (tap-hold 200 200 (multi (on-release release-virtualkey alt) spc) (layer-while-held navigation))

(deflayer navigation ;; for space-fn
  XX    f1    f2      f3    f4    f5    f6    f7          f8    f9    f10    f11   f12  XX
  XX    C-f    C-w    C-t    C-S-tab    C-tab              C-y   pgdn   return  ins   pgup   esc   XX    XX
  XX    M-S-f    C-a    @alttab      A-left    A-right            left   down   up   right    bspc  C-bspc   XX 
  XX    C-z   C-x    C-c    C-v    prnt       home  C-left  del    C-right    end   XX 
  XX    XX    XX                   esc               XX    XX    XX
  esc
)

[gerhard-h]

spacefn (tap-hold 200 200 spc (multi (on-release release-virtualkey alt) (layer-while-held navigation))) I think

[rpnfan]

Thanks, that change worked indeed. I then got the basics working, but there was a problem left. When the assigned key for alt-tab was pressed for the first time a real tab was fired (without alt being recognized). After some reading in the docs I figured out I need to change the alttab definition to a macro instead of multi and add a delay, that was the crucial bit.

So here the working solution (the relevant config snippets) for anybody else looking for it, where 'spacefn' is assigned to the space key in my main layer.

;; Virtual keys
(defvirtualkeys alt lalt )  ;; needed for alt-tab work on layer, realized with multi and macro definitions

(defalias
  ;; Navigation and shorcut layer
  spacefn (tap-hold 200 200 spc (multi (layer-while-held navigation) (on-release release-virtualkey alt) )) ;; multi needed for alt-tab on layer

alttab (macro (on-press press-virtualkey alt) 5 tab) ;; needs a short delay to not trigger tab on the first press - 1 is fine, 5 to be on the safe side
)

(deflayer navigation ;; for space-fn
  XX    f1    f2      f3    f4    f5    f6    f7          f8    f9    f10    f11   f12  XX
  XX    C-f    C-w    C-t    C-S-tab    C-tab              C-y   pgdn   return  ins   pgup   esc   XX    XX
  XX    M-S-f    C-a    @alttab      A-left    A-right            left   down   up   right    bspc  C-bspc   XX 
  XX    C-z   C-x    C-c    C-v    prnt       home  C-left  del    C-right    end   XX 
  XX    XX    XX                   esc               XX    XX    XX
  esc
)