Is there a way to define a hotkey via karabiner-elements for Emacs Anywhere instead of using the shortcut from Apple's System Preferences?

[pdelfino]

I really like a software program called Emacs Anywhere!

Currently, I am following the instructions on the README file. Hence, I have defined a hotkey via macOS' GUI on SystemPreferences/keyboard/shortcut/services/general.

However, I am managing all my hotkeys with Karabiner-elements. I like the text-driven approach via JSON file. This is my config file. It is way more reproducible.

If I re-store this machine (or buy a new one) or share my config with a friend, it is just necessary to paste the text content.

Thus, I would like to ask, is it possible to configure this with a shell command?

For instance, this is how I can open the Brave browser:

{
    "description": "left_command + b -> Brave",
    "manipulators": [
        {
            "from": {
                "key_code": "b",
                "modifiers": {
                    "mandatory": [
                        "left_command"
                    ]
                }
            },
            "to": [
                {
                    "shell_command": "open '/Applications/Brave Browser.app'"
                }
            ],
            "type": "basic"
        }
    ]
}

What would be the terminal shell command to invoke Emacs-anywhere on macOS? What command is triggered when I execute the shortcut defined on Apple's GUI System Preferences?

Thanks

[MuhammedZakir]

What would be the terminal shell command to invoke Emacs-anywhere on macOS? What command is triggered when I execute the shortcut defined on Apple's GUI System Preferences?

Wouldn't you get a better answer if you asked this there? :-)

[pdelfino]

I opened 6 issues there in the last 20 days there and I got absolutely no replies. One of the questions was what I have posted here.

Is this question annoying for you in some way?

I can close the issue if so.

[MuhammedZakir]

It has a workflow saved as a service in ~/Library/Services. That's the one being run when you press assigned shortcut. The relevant part of that workflow is this shell script [1], which executes another script at the end [2].

[1] https://github.com/zachcurry/emacs-anywhere/blob/a3567288a14e1f1ceebfb0f3d134bbb72f676e73/Emacs%20Anywhere.workflow/Contents/document.wflow#L63-L70 [2] https://github.com/zachcurry/emacs-anywhere/blob/master/bin/run

[pdelfino]

Thank you for the explanation.

But, I am still lost here. I have this:

  /Users/pedro/Library/Services/Emacs Anywhere.workflow/Contents:
  total used in directory 24 available 114.4 GiB
  drwxr-xr-x  5 pedro  staff   160 Aug  4 11:42 .
  drwxr-xr-x@ 3 pedro  staff    96 Aug  4 11:42 ..
  -rw-r--r--  1 pedro  staff   419 Aug  4 11:42 Info.plist
  drwxr-xr-x  3 pedro  staff    96 Aug  4 11:42 QuickLook
  -rw-r--r--  1 pedro  staff  5259 Aug  4 11:42 document.wflow

How can I transform this content into a karabiner-element configuration in JSON?

[MuhammedZakir]

You should be able to see what it does by opening that workflow using Automator. I looked into the content of document.wflow, and it contained this shell script (1st link in my previous post):

if [ -x /usr/libexec/path_helper ]; then
    eval `/usr/libexec/path_helper -s`
fi
if  [ -f "$HOME"/.bash_profile ]; then
    source "$HOME"/.bash_profile
fi

source ~/.emacs_anywhere/bin/run

Try executing this; if it works, use this in to.shell_command. You can move this into a seperate file, and execute that file in shell_command if it makes the config cleaner.