I just got an Atreus and have been experimenting with layer switching options. I’ve been using A/; as a “hold for layer shift”, “press for character” but I am discovering that at my typing speed I don’t always release A/; before I hit the next key. I’d like to experiment with chorded layer switching–is there any way with Chrysalis to configure invoking the layer shift by holding both A and S?
With Qukeys (“hold for layer shift/press for character”) you don’t need to release the key before the next key is pressed to get the character value; what matters most is which key is released first. The default configuration for Qukeys requires 80% of the subsequent keypress time to overlap with the qukey’s press to cause the qukey to become a modifier. It is possible to change this value (and perhaps the default is not ideal) to require a higher percentage, but that can’t be done in Chrysalis alone.
There are other parameters you can adjust to make it less likely to get unintended modifiers from Qukeys, including a minimum hold time to make a qukey eligible to become a modifier. Again, to do those adjustments, you would need to build your own firmware sketch.
If you’re set on the idea of requiring both keys to do the layer switch, there is a way to do it. You could define a layer of transparent keys, except those two. On the primary layer, you would define the two keys as qukeys that shift to that intermediate layer on hold, where both keys are qukeys that shift to the real target layer on hold. This doesn’t completely solve the problem, however, because you’d still lose the initial character that you wanted.
My advice is to try out the configuration options that Qukeys already offers to address the problem before resorting to other tricks.
[Also, there’s probably another update to Qukeys that will further address this problem coming soon.]