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Bring-to-Front Hotkey

I'm an nvALT refugee very glad to have found The Archive. I am a big fan of having certain applications always available without command-tab, mainly my note-taking and GTD apps. One of the most handy features of nvAlt was the eponymous Bring-to-Front Hotkey, which would show and hide nvALT regardless of the frontmost application in MacOS. I'm not sure whether this is a feature request or a misguided support attempt. Either way, if anyone has a method to accomplish either through 3rd party software or a missed (or not yet existing) feature in The Archive, I would greatly appreciate it.

Comments

  • edited March 2019

    I use Alfred. I have a keyboard command designated which makes The Archive launch. When it is in the background, the same command brings it to the front.

    macosxguru

  • @macosxguru said:
    I use Alfred.

    Thanks! I do too, and I did the same thing. The only downside—and I am admit, this is very nitpicky—is that it doesn't toggle show/hide. My process was to be working in one application, have a thought or copy some text, toggle show nvALT, start or edit a note, write or paste, then toggle hide and be right back where I was in a very short amount of time. I'll flit back and forth like this several times with minimal effort.

  • That's not nitpicky at all! ;)

    I, too, find it incredibly useful to toggle show/hide an app using a keyboard shortcut. Like so many other things, it's super easy to implement this behavior using Keyboard Maestro:

    I've set up macros like this one for the 12 apps that I most often use. Of course I am not contorting my fingers by hitting all four modifier keys by hand -- I have remapped CapsLock to "⌃⌥⇧⌘" using Karabiner-Elements. Since no programmer in their right mind would create shortcuts using all four modifier keys, shortcuts involving those four modifier keys are guaranteed to be available system-wide.

    If you like The Archive's "PrettyFunctional (Basic)" theme, consider upgrading to the "PrettyFunctional (Regular)" theme.

  • Thank you Basil. That is going to be useful.

    macosxguru

  • Thanks Basil, I downloaded Karabiner-Elements just to be able to remap CapsLock to "⌃⌥⇧⌘" and now I have a full keyboard of new and empty potential shortcuts at my fingertips.

  • @jgro said:

    @macosxguru said:
    I use Alfred.

    Thanks! I do too, and I did the same thing. The only downside—and I am admit, this is very nitpicky—is that it doesn't toggle show/hide. My process was to be working in one application, have a thought or copy some text, toggle show nvALT, start or edit a note, write or paste, then toggle hide and be right back where I was in a very short amount of time. I'll flit back and forth like this several times with minimal effort.

    I have implemented a Hotkey launch using Alfred Workflow. Within the Workflow setup there is a tick box (Toggle App). If you select this, then the same hotkey will hide the app - this should give the same toggle behaviour as we used to have in nvALT.

  • Thanks @jgro and @Basil, this is such a great forum!

  • Sorry everyone, I was away and missed all the fun! Thanks @Basil and @macosxguru especially for your feedback, and @nickmilo22 for the hyperkey-binding idea. @monions -- I could not locate that tick box in Alfred, can you send a screenshot? And what version of Alfred are you using?

    @Vinho - glad you're enjoying.

  • @jgro
    In the workflow, add the Actions > Launch Application/File. In that window you select the application to be opened and in the bottom right there is a tick box to toggle the app. I'm using Alfred v3.7.

  • Thank you so much @monions ! I totally missed that!

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