tap-hold for chords while preserving typed key order on tap activation

[max-fatouros]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

With my setup, I use the spacebar and letter keys to type everything, and this means that a lot of the keys I use for typing are also used to shift between layers using the tap-hold-* commands.

This ends up working fairly well, but I do find myself having to type slower or at least more carefully to avoid shifting layers by accident.

Describe the solution you'd like.

To avoid unintended key-presses, I think it could be nice to have the ability to use chords instead of keys to toggle between layers. But to do so while writing quicky, chords would need to have a similar functionality to the tap-action in

(tap-hold $tap-timeout $hold-timeout $tap-action $hold-action)

I imagine it might make more sense to add this functionality to chordsv2, but just to give to give an idea of what I mean, I think it would be nice to have something with similar functionality to

(tap-hold $tap-timeout $hold-timeout (w e) $symbol-layer)

(where, in this pseudo-code example, (w e) is both the tap-action and something like the participating-keys in the defchordsv2 notation)

In this example, holding "w" and "e" would switch to another layer, but typing "w" and "e" faster than the $hold-timeout would just type "w" and "e" in the order they were originally typed.

Now, I am aware that I could just define something like

(defchordsv2
  (w e) $symbol-layer 200 first-released ()
)

but this doesn't work well for this use case as it's missing the $hold-timeout parameter that the tap-hold action has: if I quickly roll over "w" and "e" in a word like "well", I would still like it to type out the "we" even though it might momentarily be registered as a chord.

Maybe adding an optional $hold-timout parameter to each defchordsv2 line could achieve this? With a default value of 0 making it essentially as it is now.

Describe alternatives you've considered.

I have found a workaround, but I don't think it will scale too well.
In the example below I have "a" and "s" acting as an (a s) chord which will shift from the default to the shifted layer. I ensure that both keys must be pressed to shift between layers by activating a transparent middle layer when only one of the two is pressed.

(defsrc
  a s d f
)

(deflayer default
    @a_mid @s_mid d f
)


(deflayer midlayer
    @a_shft @s_shft _ _
)


(deflayer shifted
    _ _ 3 4
)

(defalias

  mid (layer-toggle midlayer)
  shft (layer-toggle shifted)

  a_mid (tap-hold 200 200 a @mid)
  s_mid (tap-hold 200 200 s @mid)

  a_shft (tap-hold-release 200 200 a @shft)
  s_shft (tap-hold-release 200 200 s @shft)
)

Additional context

No response

[max-fatouros]

Or maybe something like

(defchordsv2
  ((tap-hold $tap-timeout $hold-timeout (participating-keys1) $hold-action)
    timeout1
    release-behaviour1
    (disabled-layers1))

  (participating-keys2) action2 timeout2 release-behaviour2 (disabled-layers1)

  ...

  ((tap-hold-release $tap-timeout $hold-timeout (participating-keysN) $hold-action)
    timeoutN
    release-behaviourN
    (disabled-layersN))
)

could be read by defchordsv2 to stay consistent with both it and the tap-hold-* notation.

[gerhard-h]

another workaround is to use cords-v1 and put the cord aktivation in the hold part of tap-hold

[jtroo]

If it's just two keys you can put tap-hold as the chord action and use switch to output the correct key order.

[jtroo]

Simulator link

(defcfg concurrent-tap-hold yes)
(defsrc)(deflayer base)
(defchordsv2
 (w e) (tap-hold 200 200 (switch
  ((input-history real w 1)) (multi e w) break
  ((input-history real e 1)) (multi w e) break
 ) lctl) 50 first-release ())

[max-fatouros]

another workaround is to use cords-v1 and put the cord aktivation in the hold part of tap-hold

This does work, although it only seems to switch layers momentarily even if I continue holding down the chord.

[max-fatouros]

Simulator link

(defcfg concurrent-tap-hold yes)
(defsrc)(deflayer base)
(defchordsv2
 (w e) (tap-hold 200 200 (switch
  ((input-history real w 1)) (multi e w) break
  ((input-history real e 1)) (multi w e) break
 ) lctl) 50 first-release ())

Thanks @jtroo, this works well. I don't think I'll be using more than two keys per chord so this should be all I need.