arbitrary key chords as hotkeys

[JimmyTheSaint]

In workflows, the hotkey feature requires hotkeys to use special characters (ctrl, opt, shift, cmd). As a touch-typist, it's greatly preferable to keep your fingers on the home row, and special characters require moving your hands away, slowing operating my keyboard down. I would like to be able to use simultaneous key presses to launch workflows. For example, simultaneously press the 'g' and 'n' keys to launch a bookmark to Google News. Because the key presses have to be simultaneous, the 'g' and 'n' keys would continue to function normally for typing text. The addition of non-special character 2-key chords would enable a lot of hotkey combos to sit comfortably under your fingers while your hands remain in the home position.

 

I currently use Karabiner-Elements to map two-key chords to workflow external triggers, but if I could do these chords entirely within Alfred, I could streamline my computer configuration. From my experience with Karabiner, I've found that 3-chords and greater are less ergonomic, but that I type 2-key chords with 100% accuracy. I set up my most frequently used chords so that they're compact enough to actuate one-handed. I can then make the computer do stuff from arm's length, without actually sitting down at it.

[vitor]

As far as I’m aware, macOS provides no user-facing way to make those types of shortcuts. Karabiner-Elements needs to rely on System Extensions and the like to do what it does. Adding its feature set to Alfred is bound to be too much work for too little demand.