Just wondering since I know a lot of people quietly use a screen-area-select -> tesseract OCR -> clipboard shortcut.
- I separate subjects of interest into different Firefox windows, in different workspaces – so I have an extension title them and a startup script parse text to ask the compositor to put them in the correct workspace (lets me restart more conveniently).
- I have automatically-set different-orientation wallpapers for using my 2-in-1 depending on whether I use it in portrait or landscape (kind of just for looks, but I don’t think if anyone else adds a wallpaper change to their screen rotation keybind).
- I have bash scripts
lightanddarkthat make dbus calls to set my global theme to light or dark mode. I switch between them regularly, and opening system settings and pressing a button is too inconvenient.
Your first one sounds similar to me though - I use activity-aware Firefox to separate my personal and work accounts on my personal and work plasma activities.
- I have bash scripts
I use compose key sequences to save time writing out long email addresses. For example, I have something like this in my ~/.XCompose:
<Multi_key> <b> <o> <s> <at>: "myangryboss@company.com" # Email of my very angry bossSo I can just type Compose (right alt on my system), bos@ and get his email address. Less error prone than typing out emails manually.
I’m probably not the only one to use compose strings as a replacement to a text expander, but I don’t know anyone else who does this.
I suspect my habit of having an
alias userctl="systemctl --user"is slightly unusual, as is running Firefox, Steam, and some other graphical programs as systemd units is somewhat unusual (e.g.mod4-enterrunssystemd-run --user alacritty)But what I’m actually pretty sure is unique is my keyboard layout. I taught myself dvorak a summer some decades ago, but the norwegian dvorak layout has some annoyances, so I’ve made some tweaks. Used to be a
Xmodmapfile, but with the switch to wayland I turned it into a file in/usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/.Part of what I did to teach myself dvorak and touch-typing at the same time was randomize the placement of the keycaps too. It has a side effect of being a kind of security by obscurity layer: I type quickly and confidently, but others who want to use my machines have an “uhh …” reaction.
CTRL+SHIFT+L to sync my room lights to the screen using huenicorn. Plan on hooking up openrgb as well when I can be bothered to write a script.
I’m one of at most a handful people in the world with a full disk encrypted Steam Deck and unlocking using the touchscreen.
Until someone implements https://github.com/ublue-os/bazzite/issues/464 in Bazzite.
I have a custom script, which changes the fan profile (in my case between two thinkfan config files) depending whether the dock is connected or not. That one gets triggered whenever it switches the power source (
ACorBAT0). (AC gets plugged in -> script starts -> check if dock is connected -> if connected run different profile)It’s janky but very helpful when it works :D
I boot on a custom EFI app to control my dualboot (instead of systemd-boot or grub) that asks a service on my proxmox server which OS I’m supposed to boot.
Overkill, but it allows me to control my dual-boot without a keyboard in my computer (because it’s a Bluetooth keyboard so I can’t really use it in grub anyway)
A custom EFI app? Is that like a handrolled Unified Kernel Image with some Proxmox-specific addons in it? How’d you make it?
No, it’s a EFI app I developed in Rust that does a query over multicast UDP and uses the result to select which EFI app (Windows bootloaded (yeah I know…) Or systemd-boot to start Arch)
There’s nothing related to proxmox itself, it’s just there that I host my LXC with the service that responds to the quey.
I have a zellij snd micro config for journaling and writing that makes a completely borderless full screen terminal with no decoration whatsoever and narrows the terminal for micro to the upper half of the middle 1/3 of my screen.
It helps me focus and limiting to the upper half and middle 1/3 makes it easier for my eyes. I get distracted easily and this helps keep my editor from being the source of that.
Mine is probably more of a combo of things to streamline my workflow than anything else.
I use Sways multiple workspaces to segregate my apps into different workspaces for different tasks on startup of that app using the assign function in my Sway config. For example VS Code and one particular Firefox window always goes to Workspace 3.
I use the Layman Sway scripts to force all my normal workspaces to different layouts that is appropriate for that function. So workspace 3 with VS Code and a Firefox window is set in a 75/25 split with VS Code set to always take the bigger share. I can switch the two sides from largest on the left to largest on the right, or swap the apps between the two splits, or make a window full-screen with simple keyboard shortcuts.
Odd workspaces are on my left monitor, even ones on the right. This coupled with per workspace wall paper (all my windows are translucent, not for everybody I know) and particular tasks locked to predefined workspaces means I am never hunting around for something. Even if I did lose something I can use rofi to switch to it. If its an essential app I can use my keyboard shortcut that I use to launch the app, switch to it using swayr by activating the shortcut again.
I have used QMK for my keyboard to reduce the number of keys I must use to activate most of my shortcuts, and move them to my number row and home row using layers, double taps, and holds. I try to layer up the same family of functions on the same key but on different layers, so for example, the VI arrow keys move between windows, resize windows, move windows, depending on which layer I have chosen.
I’m pretty sure no one else has my shell script that takes a picture, uses imagemagick to copy a scaled down version of it to a special folder, and then build a string that allows me to just middle click paste the image into Rednotebook so it appears correctly.
ooh I should do that for Obsidian instead of having an enormous directory of Pasted Image 202302050124300845012.pngs. =◡=
I use https://github.com/trganda/obsidian-attachment-management to automatically rename and move screenshots, in conjunction with https://github.com/Mara-Li/obsidian-explorer-hider to hide them. It makes pasting screenshots organized, yet completely transparent.
If I can rant a bit…
I used to do my daily journal as plaintext in Vim. I wanted something that was a little more capable and in RedNotebook I almost got it. It stores plaintext markup (I think yaml?), the thing is it has an edit and a display mode, and you can’t edit it in display mode. Inserting a picture is pasting a file path to where that picture is stored. If I linked to where the pictures are stored in my ~/Pictures directory, if I ever migrated from Rednotebook or Linux or anything like that, the links to those pictures would break. So I store teh pictures I link in my journal in a subdirectory alongside the journal itself, so the pics should go with it and it should survive a transfer easier.
This is, of course, extremely user unfriendly to do, because it would mean copying pictures, reducing their resolution so they don’t take up the entire damn journal window, and then working through RedNotebook’s interface to navigate to where I just stored that picture to generate the link.
Or, I wrote a couple lines of Bash that did most of that for me and put the file path link in the primary buffer so I could open my file browser, right click, select Add To Journal, and then middle click in my journal. Felt kind of clever coming up with that one, and I kind of wish A) it was a bit easier and B) we lived more in a world where we did that kind of thing where things interoperated more than trying to silo things.
When I press Super + PrtSc, a bash script performs the following:
Takes a screenshot of the entire desktop (import -window root) and saves it as ~/screenshot.png…
Analyzes the screenshot to calculate the “mean brightness” value of the image. It converts the image to grayscale and determines the average pixel brightness (a value between 0 and 1, where 0 is black and 1 is white).
Checks if the image is dark by comparing the mean brightness to a threshold of 0.2. If the mean brightness is less than 0.2 (i.e., the image is very dark), it applies a negative filter to the image (convert -negate), effectively inverting the colors (black becomes white and vice versa).
Sends the image to a printer (lp command) named MF741C-743C for printing.
an actual print screen, finally
A kind of ‘super’ print screen, in fact.
ChatGPT wrote a Python program that does select->Tesseract OCR for me, but it doesn’t always work right with two monitors. I’m too stupid to correct it. How have you done yours, what are you using for selecting the area?
pasting from my keybind config
# snippet based on end4 dotfiles -- FIXME edge case where a # preexisting tmp.png might be overwritten # English bind = Super+Shift,T,exec,grim -g "$(slurp $SLURP_ARGS)" "tmp.png" && tesseract -l eng "tmp.png" - | wl-copy && rm "tmp.png" # Korean bind = Super+Shift,K,exec,grim -g "$(slurp $SLURP_ARGS)" "tmp.png" && tesseract -l kor "tmp.png" - | wl-copy && rm "tmp.png" # Japanese bind = Super+Shift,J,exec,grim -g "$(slurp $SLURP_ARGS)" "tmp.png" && tesseract -l jpn "tmp.png" - | wl-copy && rm "tmp.png"edit: syntax highlight
On my desktop, I wrote a Python script that pulls a random Star Trek: The Next Generation or Deep Space Nine script from a folder and prints it in STDOUT. I use this in the XScreenSaver
Text Manipulation > Programoption to turn Star Trek into a screen saver.Currently, I use it with the Apple II screensaver, but in its original incarnation, I used the Star Wars intro screensaver. 😈
I also seperate Firefox on different workspaces, but only manually. How is the extension called? Having it automated would save me some seconds every reboot.
Sway (and i3) you can assign windows to workspaces based on any property that is available in the swaymsg tree. It can do parital matches, so for example if you wanted your Lemmy firefox window to always start on workspace 3 you could use:
assign [title=“lemmy” app_id=“firefox”] workspace number $ws3
Title can use regex so you can do some pretty neat matching if you need it.
edit: based on the other commenter I think I might be missing a simpler declarative way to do this. The following will be kept for posterity though
The main idea is:
- Use Window Titler to add a title. For me, if I want it on workspace 7, I title the window “7”. (NOTE: The title will probably appear like [title], see below)
- Make a script that queries the window manager, and then dispatches a movement to the appropriate workspace. In Hyprland that might be
hyprctl -jwhich gives
... json blahblah "title": "[7] What's a unique customization on your Linux machine you think no one else has? - tchncs — Mozilla Firefox" ... json blahblahbut in Sway it might be something similar to using swaymsg. Only titled windows will have the bracket number thing so just regex that part
- Put it in autostart. Because Firefox takes a while to load on my junk machine I
sleepfor like 30 seconds to a minute before all the titles register.
Definitely not nobody but statistically VERY FEW people will have this combination:
- pop!os (fight me!)
- script that limits accumulator charge to 80% on asus laptop
- script that turns on vpn if out of home and kicks off a backup if at home (through wifi ssid)
Edit: nice try to fingerprint me, big tech. You succeeded! /j
Triangulating your location. Are you… in the
Milky Way Galaxy?(Thanks for reminding me to limit accumulator charge)
Yeah, I have a script that toggles my Dell XPS between full charge and 80%, as I’m usually on mains and only need full charge occasionally.
