right, so as the title suggests…
i like linux based OSes because you can pretty much mould your operating system to the shape of your brain. i call it cognitive ergonomy. and i’d like it to catch on. even on a relatively play-it-safe distro like the one i’m currently using, the repos are full of handy little applications to make life immeasurably easier for you, if they aren’t installed already. thanks to xdotool, xdo, wmctrl, and sxhkd, pretty much any action can easily be bound to a shortcut key. for eg, i have xdotool search --name vimnote windowactivate || kitty --title=vimnote nvim -c "norm 13j" ~/notes/index.md bound to mod+n. it’s so simple, and i was so proud of myself when i got it to work (i’m not really a scripty person). i just wanted to make something easy. then i wanted to make it a bit easier. then i was feeling like “idk this is still way too many key presses” so i found a way of making it even easier.
i’ve got a bunch of little hacks like this. before i found qmmp, i set up global keys for mpv so i could listen to podcasts on another workspace. i have ranger set up to give specific info from mediainfo as a preview for audio and video files. (which windows does easily in gui file browser but THAT’S NOT THE POINT OK)
anyway, the ubuntu forums and arch wiki are full of tricks that a lot of people want to set up, i’m curious as to the ones you had to set up for yourself.
this is something i come across sometimes - an application can be designed to do one thing i need, and do it well, but another application, which was designed to do something completely different, actually does the thing i need more conveniently, and does it well enough to work.