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Guide·04 of 10

A button

Letters on everything pressable, menus under search, and scrolling.

01·The first minute

  1. 01link

    Press a button

    lode;

    Every button, link, and field the app can name wears a letter at once. Press the letter and it is pressed. For anything unnamed, type a few characters of what you can read and it wears a letter too.

    Browser
    ASDFGHJ

    A window with things to press

02·When you are ready

  1. 02link

    Right-click it

    lode;⌃⇧A

    Control with the shifted letter opens the element's own context menu where the app knows it, or right-clicks the word where it does not.

    Hold lode, then ;, then control shift A

  2. 03Few know thislink

    Click through a form

    lode⇧;

    The chained lens re-reads the window after every press, so a click that opened a panel or revealed a menu gets fresh letters without leaving the mode.

    Hold lode, then shift ;

  3. 04link

    Run a menu command

    lode-

    Commands searches the app's whole menu bar. Type part of a command and run it. Each row wears the app's own shortcut, so the faster path teaches itself.

    Mail
    commands
    • Message › Archive⌃⌘A
    • Message › Reply⌘R
    • Message › Forward⇧⌘F
    Archive

    A menu item, somewhere in a submenu

  4. 05link

    Scroll from the keys

    lode`

    Scroll mode puts the pointer on the page's main pane and holds j, k, h, l at constant speed until you let go. d and u move half a page, gg and ⇧G go to the ends, ⇥ cycles between panes.

    Browser
    scrollj k · d u · gg ⇧G · ⇥ panes

    A long page, and no trackpad in reach

03·The fine print

What nobody finds by pressing keys

  • Lowercase always aims; a capital always fires. On a two-letter chip only the first letter needs shift.
  • Where your pick lands inside an element the app can name, the click is the app's own press rather than a synthetic one. Text fields take focus.
  • Any other lode gesture exits the mode and executes at once. lode M mid-scroll simply takes you to Mail.
  • Scroll polarity follows your natural-scrolling setting. Shift with a scroll key moves three times as fast.
  • The first lode ; may ask for Screen Recording. Until it is granted, the letters the app can name still answer.
  • Reading the window never waits on the app: a heavy page cannot stall the overlay, and Electron apps are woken automatically.

04·Why

Why it works this way

Clickability is not asked of the app. It is declared by your pick, because the sensor is the screen itself. That is what makes a terminal, a browser, and a chat the same to press in, and it is the mouse's first job moved to the keys.

05·Settings

The settings behind this page

Read from the schema Lodestar itself emits. The settings window shows the same rows, and each wears the path it writes.

gestures.hints
boolean

lode ; click hints, ⇧; sticky

$ lodestar config set gestures.hints true
gestures.commands
boolean

lode - the commands bar, the focused app's verbs

$ lodestar config set gestures.commands true
gestures.scroll
boolean

lode ` , keyboard scrolling

$ lodestar config set gestures.scroll true
scroll.smooth
boolean

Constant velocity while held; instant stop on release.

$ lodestar config set scroll.smooth true
scroll.speed
number

Smooth velocity, pixels per second.

$ lodestar config set scroll.speed …
scroll.step
number

Pixels per press when smooth is off.

$ lodestar config set scroll.step …