Windows

prowl is the tiling room. Windows arrange themselves into a tree instead of piling up, and the keyboard moves them around it: launch, focus, resize, throw one to another workspace, without reaching for the mouse. It feels like a tiling Linux rig; underneath it is still native macOS windows, driven by AeroSpace.

Two keys carry almost all of it:

• ⇪ Caps-Lock is the leader. Tap it and the bar turns into letter hints; press an app's letter to launch or focus it. It is also the door to moving focus, resizing, and jumping workspaces.
• ⌥ Option is the everyday modifier, for layouts and workspace moves.

Focus-by-arrow deliberately sits behind the leader rather than on a bare ⌥ chord: ⌥, ⌘ and ⌃ with the arrow keys are all macOS text navigation, and a window manager that took them would break typing everywhere. ⌥H/J/K/L is there too, for hands that want Vim keys.

Enable it

haus.prowl.enable = true;
haus.keys.leader = "caps";     # or "none" to keep Caps Lock as Caps Lock
haus.keys.windowNav = "alt";

Tap ⇪, then

The ⇧ row is the one worth learning: going somewhere and taking the window with you is the same motion one ⇧ apart. To send a window away and stay, throw it and ⌘Tab back.

Without the leader

⌥Tab is deliberately unbound: pounce's ⌘Tab answers the same question better, with a most-recently-used list of windows that goes as far back as you like and gathers its rows by workspace.

Not fond of these keys?

None of it is baked in. Three options move the whole vocabulary at once:

haus.keys.leader    = "caps";       # caps | alt-space | none
haus.keys.windowNav = "alt";        # alt | ctrl-alt | cmd-alt | none
haus.keys.palette   = "cmd-space";  # cmd-space | alt-space | ctrl-space | none

The three reasons people change them:

• Keep Caps-Lock as Caps-Lock. leader = "alt-space" gives you the launcher without remapping the key.
• A non-US layout. On many layouts ⌥+letter is how you type an accented character, so a window manager owning ⌥ makes the keyboard unusable. windowNav = "ctrl-alt" moves every chord in one go, and the cheatsheet moves with it, because both are generated from the same table.
• Mouse-first. leader = "none" with windowNav = "none" leaves the keyboard entirely alone: prowl still tiles, but claims no chords.

palette = "none" stops haus taking ⌘Space from Spotlight; it's the only value that takes it. On a machine that already ran with it, re-enable Spotlight's shortcut yourself in System Settings ▸ Keyboard ▸ Keyboard Shortcuts; nothing in haus gives it back.

Whatever you pick, the in-system cheatsheet (tap the leader, then /) describes the keys you actually have, not the defaults above.

Workspaces, and what lives on them

A workspace is a named place with apps that belong to it. Declare one, and its apps' windows move there by themselves:

haus.workspaces.comms = {
  key = "c";                       # ⇪ ⇧C throws the focused window here
  icon = ":slack:";                # the bar pill's glyph
  apps = [ "slack" "discord" ];    # roster ids
};

The attribute name is the workspace id: a letter like T, or a word like comms. Three fields:

• apps: roster ids that live here. Launching any of them from the leader lands you here. An app belongs to at most one workspace, and naming an id that isn't in the roster warns rather than failing quietly.
• key: the ⇪ ⇧-throw key. There is no bare-key binding for a workspace: that namespace belongs to the launcher letters, one of which usually doubles as "open something here". null means the workspace is reachable only by launching an app that belongs to it.
• icon: a SketchyBar app-font ligature like :slack: for the bar's pill; any other string is drawn in the bar's own font.

Workspaces 1–4 always exist, whatever any app claims.

The launcher letters themselves come from haus.roster, the one list that also says where each app is installed from; that's the Apps room. Out of the box the only letters taken are T for the terminal and B for the browser.

Turning it off

haus.prowl.enable = false;

The Caps-Lock remap, the launcher and AeroSpace all stay out of the way. Nothing else in haus depends on it; Leaving does the same for the other rooms.

Works with

• Bar: the workspace pills, and the letter hints the leader draws, are this room's contribution to the bar. No bar, no hints; the tiling itself is unaffected.
• Apps: a roster entry's key is what the leader launches, and its workspace is where its windows land.
• Launcher: its opt-in ⌘Tab window switcher answers the same question from the other side.

Options

Every setting, with types and defaults: Windows.