Circulate through spaces on macOS 11

One possibility is to use Hammerspoon with the following configuration:

hs.hotkey.bind({ "cmd" }, "Right", function()
    local NextSpace = 1
    for k, v in pairs(hs.spaces.allSpaces()[hs.screen.mainScreen():getUUID()]) do
        if v == hs.spaces.focusedSpace() then
            NextSpace = k
        end
    end
    NextSpace = NextSpace+1
    if (NextSpace == (#hs.spaces.allSpaces()[hs.screen.mainScreen():getUUID()]+1)) then
        NextSpace = 1
    end
    hs.eventtap.keyStroke({ "control" }, string.format("%d", NextSpace))
end)

hs.hotkey.bind({ "cmd" }, "Left", function()
    local PrevSpace = 1
    for k, v in pairs(hs.spaces.allSpaces()[hs.screen.mainScreen():getUUID()]) do
        if v == hs.spaces.focusedSpace() then
            PrevSpace = k
        end
    end
    PrevSpace = PrevSpace - 1
    if (PrevSpace == 0) then
        PrevSpace = #hs.spaces.allSpaces()[hs.screen.mainScreen():getUUID()]
    end
    hs.eventtap.keyStroke({ "control" }, string.format("%d", PrevSpace))
end)

In case one would also like to use mouse/trackpad gestures to circulate through spaces, one can use this newly defined Hammerspoon shortcut in Jitouch

Caveats:

• this answer assumes that cmd+number is the shortcut to go to the space of a specific number. If you use another shortcut, you'll need to adjust the code accordingly

• the animation when cycling between last/first might look counter intuitive. Switching off all animation with the "reduced motion" option from system preferences might be a solution

posted almost 2 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

2y ago

samcarter‭

1506 reputation 35 41 215 136

Another approach is to use Karabiner-Elements.

As a first step, I created to executable shell scripts, which will switch to the previous/next space using the handy tool SpaceInfo

Space_prev:

#!/bin/zsh
export CurrentSpace=$(/Applications/SpaceInfo/SpaceInfo --active-space)
export AllSpaces=$(/Applications/SpaceInfo/SpaceInfo --total-spaces) 
export NextSpace=$(($CurrentSpace-1))
if [[ $NextSpace = 0 ]] then
  export NextSpace=$AllSpaces
fi
osascript -ss - $NextSpace <<EOF
    on run argv
      tell application "System Events" to key code 17 + (item 1 of argv) using control down
    end run
EOF

Space_next:

#!/bin/zsh
export CurrentSpace=$(/Applications/SpaceInfo/SpaceInfo --active-space) 
export AllSpaces=$(/Applications/SpaceInfo/SpaceInfo --total-spaces) 
export NextSpace=$(($CurrentSpace+1))
if [[ $NextSpace = $(($AllSpaces+1)) ]] then
  export NextSpace=1
fi
osascript -ss - $NextSpace <<EOF
    on run argv
      tell application "System Events" to key code 17 + (item 1 of argv) using control down
    end run
EOF

Then I'm using Karabiner-Elements to set up keyboard shortcuts which will execute these two scripts:

{
    "description": "Next space",
    "manipulators": [
        {
            "from": {
                "key_code": "right_arrow",
                "modifiers": {
                    "mandatory": [
                        "command"
                    ]
                }
            },
            "to": [
                {
                    "shell_command": "/bin/zsh Space_next"
                }
            ],
            "type": "basic"
        }
    ]
},
{
    "description": "Prev space",
    "manipulators": [
        {
            "from": {
                "key_code": "left_arrow",
                "modifiers": {
                    "mandatory": [
                        "command"
                    ]
                }
            },
            "to": [
                {
                    "shell_command": "/bin/zsh Space_prev"
                }
            ],
            "type": "basic"
        }
    ]
}

Caveats:

• this answer assumes that cmd+number is the shortcut to go to the space of a specific number. If you use another shortcut, you'll need to adjust the code accordingly

• the animation when cycling between last/first might look counter intuitive. Switching off all animation with the "reduced motion" option from system preferences might be a solution

posted almost 2 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

2y ago

samcarter‭

1506 reputation 35 41 215 136