Proposal: Stealth mode (no UI)

[unoghost]

Hi! First of all, this is great! Kudos galore.

It would be neat with an optional stealth mode, i.e. no UI when operating normally. I personally found it a bit distracting with the square box popping up for a split second. A stealth mode option would acommodate easily distracted people like me 🙃

Thanks!

[mikker]

How would one know Leader Key is active?

I think I could be for something like this but I think it has to be "very, very little UI" still 😅

[unoghost]

I know Leader Key active because I just hit the leader key … ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I’ve only used the app for a couple of days, but I’m really only using muscle memory, not visual cues. The brief visual popup is more noise than anything, at least for me. All the UI I need (in case I need to add something) is in the menu bar icon. So for me, personally, no “noise” would be preferrable. 😌

[LennartEgb]

Another suggestion I think is subtle but effective by @AbhinavRobinson here #107 (comment)

Idle	Active

[mikker]

Great solution, I'll try it out

[arabshapt]

I think no indication is needed if we introduce a timeout(configurable). So e.g. after 1sec without key pressing leader key deactivates automatically without hitting esc or similar

#116

[LennartEgb]

Timeout and stealth mode are separate features. With timeout I think it is better to have the very little UI in the status bar to know if Leader Key is active or not after x seconds.

[LennartEgb]

Should "stealth mode" (hiding the main UI) + "Always show cheatsheet" (or toggleable) result in a centered cheatsheet (as suggested in #112)? Is a cheatsheet in stealth mode contradictory?

[mikker]

I made a short attempt at completely hidden mode today and I have to say, I didn't like it at all. I still think "very little UI" is the way to go. Perhaps the same dot window, just small, 30x30 px and in the bottom right corner of the screen instead.

Either way, I think the easiest way to implement no window at all is to actually have a window, just 0% opacity. Focus tracking is very tied to the window currently.

[dehlen]

First of all this is your project and your decision and I totally understand that. A new mode also has to be maintained and if this is something you don't see being valuable in your product thats totally fine.

For my part I really like the way Leader Key works but I dislike the brief flashing of UI when running my shortcuts. In my opinion having the menubar icon being toggled is enough visual information. I therefore went a build a stealth mode myself. Instead of showing a view I just create a transparent window of size 0,0 with Color.clear as its main view. Now in addition to that I set the cheatsheet view setting to toggle after x ms. This way the shortcut handling seems to work just fine and after my threshold if I am still in Leader Key it shows the cheatsheet centered on the screen. I archived the product on Xcode and created a private homebrew tap for me to install this. However I would love to have the option to use this mode with the official version. Just my two cents which might reconsider this decision. If not no worries, great application you created!

Kind regards,
David

[FediMakasu]

I use the 'mini' theme effectively hides any onscreen pop-up. The Leader Key square in the menu bar inverts colors when accessed too as a visual that is out of the way. YMMV

[mikker]

Fwiw, my new launcher Tuna has invisible Leader Key mode built in. https://tunaformac.com/