Facilitate implementation of <Alt>, <Meta> etc. keyboard triggers

[smeech]

We have many requests to extend Espanso triggers to keyboard combinations including <Alt> and <Meta> etc. keys.

Operating systems have their own keybinding facilities which could be linked to commands such as espanso match exec -t <trigger>, but Espanso attempts to delete the trigger phrase, which doesn't exist when called in this manner, and therefore deletes the preceding text instead.

Currently, the best workaround I have found is to bind a key combination to a command using an external utility, e.g. xdotool sleep 0.2 type <trigger>, which invokes Espanso indirectly.

An additional parameter to espanso match exec -t which suppresses the trigger deletion, would enable anyone to link such a command to a keybinding and invoke it directly with that key-combination.

#1259, #1188, #1932,

[DoctorSubtilis]

Interesting. I have Linux and xdotool, but I don't understand how to do. Maybe you are speaking of a modification of espanso code? And not about something we can do?

[smeech]

Yes, my idea requires modification of the codebase, but I'm hoping it's simple enough to implement.

In the meantime, you can use the xdotool command I mentioned above. Happy to help if you need it.

[percit]

Yeah, would be lovely to have this instead of having one tool for alt shortcuts and another for other text application