Rofi vs Kanata

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Anand S

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Mar 1, 2026, 7:02:21 AMMar 1
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Kanata might be the most useful tool I can't find a use for.

It's a cross-platform keyboard mapper. Some cool features:

  • Make any key a modifier. Ctrl, Shift, Alt, etc. are modifiers. But we can make it so that pressing Space + I/J/K/L maps to Up/Left/Down/Right.
  • Chords. You can map any sequence of keys to anything else. For example, Alt + G, then C can type git commit -m"Experimenting" [ENTER]. Ctrl + M, then Down, can reduce the music volume by 10%.
  • Toggles. Double-clicking Caps Lock activates capitalization for the current word, and once you type a non-letter, it turns off. Or double-clicking Ctrl can turn on "gaming mode" where WASD becomes arrow keys, and double-clicking again turns it off.
  • Tap Dance. Double-clicking left-shift can turn on Caps Lock. Triple-clicking turns it off. Quadruple-clicking ...

... and there's lots more.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a single use in practice. My main bottleneck is that I don't remember the shortcuts. So, instead, I use rofi.

Rofi is a programmable menu launcher. The great thing is that I don't need to remember stuff. When I map it to keyboard shortcuts, it pops up a menu and I pick what I need.

I use it to:

#1: Open any file or browser tab with Ctrl + Alt + F.
This is my most used shortcut. It replaces Everything for files, and Chrome Search Tab with a single shortcut.

#2: Paste any prompt fragment with Ctrl + Alt + P.

This is especially useful when adding a prompt fragment, like Expert Lens in the middle of a prompt, or analyzing call recordings a dozen times a day.

#3: Edit the clipboard with Ctrl + Alt + M (for Markdown).

This is a killer feature. I often use it to:

  • Copy from email/chat and paste it in ChatGPT as Markdown
  • Copy from ChatGPT and remove the em-dashes and non-ASCII characters
  • Convert Markdown to Unicode for LinkedIn
  • Convert Markdown to rich test for pasting in emails or chat
  • Creating a ChatGPT / Claude / Google AI mode link from a piece of text
  • ...

I'm still keen to find a use for Kanata, but for now, my use of Rofi will continue to grow.

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