I'm trying to get used to a macOS development environment after years of being an i3 junkie and I want to be able to use keyboard shortcuts to launch applications. I learned that you can do this by writing simple Automator services and then making keyboard shortcuts to those services (under System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> Services). I followed the instructions here and I now have the Automator service I need in place and I can also tell it to use a shortcut like ⌥+⌘+T to open it.
However, I don't want to use ⌥+⌘+T to open a terminal. I would like to use ⌘+return instead. When I try to do that, System Preferences acts as though I haven't specified any shortcut at all; I think it doesn't like to set up shortcuts involving the return key. It lets you use most other keys though, as far as I can tell. (aside: I played around and it looks like the only keys you aren't allowed to use in this menu are return, delete, caps lock and fn.)
Does anyone know a way to work around that?
- An ideal workaround would let me set it up directly in the System Preferences Menu. (that feels impossible to me so far but I have no idea why)
- Second place would be doing it using config files somewhere on the filesystem. (akin something like an
~/.xbindkeys
file under X11). - Least desirable to me are solutions involving installing third-party keyboard automation tools. (I think I can figure out how to do that on my own, I'd just like to avoid it.)
I'm using macOS Catalina.