Vim Navigation Binding

[johnku]

Would be great there's an option to turn on vim navigation (h,j,k,l).

This would probably replace ctrl + n / ctrl + p.

[GodDamnItFrank]

I completely agree.  Vim controls would be wonderful.  Perhaps with cmd + j and cmd + k because j and k are already reserved to type the letters j and k.

[joshmedeski]

I would love this feature! I wonder if the Alfred team as seen this little thread

[thiagoaraujos]

I've got that working with Keyboard Maestro For the impatient (who also use KM), here's how it's done:

 

1. Create a new Macro group and choose "Alfred 2" from "Available in the following applications". 

2. Create a new macro called "Go up"

3. Choose the trigger ^k (ctrl + k) and change from "is pressed" to "is down"

4. Add a new action "Type a Keystroke" with ^p (ctrl + p)

 

 

Done. Do the analogue procedure for "Go down". You can even add a shortcut for the return key, like ^l (l corresponds to right in vim) or ^m (just like in the terminal) using a similar procedure.

 

Although that works pretty fine, a native feature is sure better.

[joshmedeski]

I got this working with Better Touch Tools, check out my settings.

[snoblenet]

Do you have those files @joshmedeski ? Your Dropbox link has expired, and the following is not working for me:

 

[xxyxxyxyx1]

@snoblenet I also cannot get it working with BTT.

 

Program-specific key bindings have previously worked well for me in BTT... I wonder if there's something about keyboard input to Alfred that's different from most applications?

 

Custom scrolling keys would be a really helpful feature since macbookpro arrow keys so tiny and difficult to use. 

[reviolito]

Could you please add this feature to change Ctrl + N/P to Ctrl +J/K. It doesn't work with Karabiner elements and BTT. Please!

Thanks!

[deanishe]

On 12/25/2017 at 3:13 PM, xxyxxyxyx1 said:

I wonder if there's something about keyboard input to Alfred that's different from most applications?

 

Alfred doesn’t take focus. So Alfred-specific configurations in BTT etc. that rely on detecting the active app aren’t going to work.

 

31 minutes ago, reviolito said:

Could you please add this feature to change Ctrl + N/P to Ctrl +J/K

 

Why change? No reason you can’t have both.

[reviolito]

I don't understand what you mean by "No reason you can't have both". I think it would be great to give the user an option to choose which shortcuts will take him/her to the next or previous search result. Right now it's Ctrl + N for next and Ctrl + P for the previous item in the Alfred search result. I want to go to next item using Ctrl + J and previous item using Ctrl + K. There is no convenient method to achieve it using BTT or karabiner elements. So I think this should be added to the app.

[deanishe]

9 hours ago, reviolito said:

I don't understand what you mean by "No reason you can't have both".

 

You asked for ^N and ^P to be changed to ^J and ^K. What's wrong with having ^J and ^K in addition to ^N and ^P?

 

[reviolito]

I don't see any problem with having multiple key combinations for the same action. As long as I can choose which keys to use to navigate in search results I would be happy.

[deanishe]

16 minutes ago, reviolito said:

As long as I can choose which keys to use to navigate in search results I would be happy.

 

Ah, right. I think I misunderstood your previous comment.

 

I thought you wanted the developer to remove ^N and ^P and replace them with ^J and ^K (as @johnku originally requested), not add an option to change the key bindings.

[reviolito]

 

On 2/18/2019 at 1:30 AM, deanishe said:

I thought you wanted the developer to remove ^N and ^P and replace them with ^J and ^K (as @johnku originally requested), not add an option to change the key bindings.

 

 

I see! Then maybe I shouldn't have posted it here and I should make a new post for this request?

[deanishe]

4 hours ago, reviolito said:

I see! Then maybe I shouldn't have posted it here and I should make a new post for this request?

 

I don't think that's necessary, tbh. The new posts in this thread will have bumped it back to the top of the forum, and the Alfred team are almost certainly following the discussion, even if they haven't weighed in yet.

 

If I had to guess, I don't think an option will be forthcoming, but I'd say there's a decent chance of getting ^J and ^K added as additional keyboard shortcuts.

 

Unless Andrew is an emacs guy, of course…

Edited February 20, 2019 by deanishe

[reviolito]

19 hours ago, deanishe said:

Unless Andrew is an emacs guy, of course… 

 

 

Maybe an emacs guy with evil mode ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°)!

[aktupon]

As an evil emacs user I would very much like to see  <cmd + j> <cmd +k> as an option to navigate the main list.

[aktupon]

Hey, are you planning to address this on the new version? I use the cmd+space (search - launch or focus) at least an order of magnitude more frequently then the rest of the features combined. Some flexibility/customization would make this so much better 🙂

Edited June 3, 2019 by aktupon

[manavortex]

Yes, please, it would be glorious

[bruhmyguy630]

If anyone wants to get similar functionality, I did this by using 2 Karabiner-Elements complex modifications. I found one that let me bind my caps lock to esc if pressed once and ctrl if pressed with other keys. Then I found another one that has left ctrl hjkl to arrow keys.

 

https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/complex_modifications/#caps_lock

 

^ Choose "Change caps_lock to control if pressed with other keys, to escape if pressed alone"

 

https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/complex_modifications/#ctrl_plus_hjkl_to_arrow_keys

[Mr Pennyworth]

As of v4.1 this works:

Edited December 15, 2020 by Mr Pennyworth

[Andrew]

@Mr Pennyworth ingenious solution!

 

Just to clarify for others if they haven't spotted, @Mr Pennyworth has added hotkeys which have been set to only be active when Alfred is active to do the remapping.

[JBrickley]

A picture is worth a thousand words. As I am totally new to Alfred it took me a few minutes to realize what @Mr Pennyworth explained and then take my first step in creating my first workflow.  This is intended to help other newbs grok how to do this within Alfred with no additional software required.

 

Workflow:

 

Effectively remaps ^N [Next] and ^P [Previous] to ViM keybindings.

• Trigger Hotkey [CTRL+J] -> Outputs -> Dispatch Key Combo [Ctrl+N]
• Trigger Hotkey [CTRL+K] -> Outputs -> Dispatch Key Combo [Ctrl+P]

[cands]

Thanks for these great tips, very handy. I tried to use the same method to also trigger going back and forth in query history using my preferred shortcuts Ctrl+O and Ctrl+I to dispatch key combos Ctrl+↑ and Ctrl+↓, respectively, but this does not work, any suggestions? I'm using Alfred 4.5.1 on macOS 11.5.

 

[JonathanBuchh]

@cands, you just need to dispatch Ctrl+P and Ctrl+N instead.

Edited October 1, 2021 by JonathanBuchh