best way to swap key shift behaviour

[mbway]

I would like to use kanata to switch the shifted and non-shifted version of some keys. For example swapping _ and - or swapping : and ;
I also potentially want to configure left shift and right shift differently. Below is a minimal example I came up with. I have seen this recommendation in other discussions such as #932

(defsrc)

(deflayermap (default)
  lsft (multi lsft (layer-while-held default-left-shifted))
  rsft (multi rsft (layer-while-held default-right-shifted))
  - S--
  ; S-;
)
(deflayermap (default-right-shifted)
  -  (unshift -)
  ;  (unshift ;)
)
(deflayermap (default-left-shifted)
  -  (unshift -)
  ;  (unshift ;)
)

This mostly works except the unshift sometimes affects the next pressed key if pressed soon after the first. For example when attempting to type -> by: (left shift):down + (-_):down + (.>):down the result is often -. instead.
Is there a better way to achieve the configuration I'm looking for?
I am migrating from Xmodmap where I used keycode 20 = underscore minus underscore minus which did not have this problem.

[gerhard-h]

https://github.com/jtroo/kanata/blob/main/docs/config.adoc#global-overrides

[mbway]

this isn't working for me

(defcfg process-unmapped-keys true)

(defsrc)

(defoverrides
  (-) (lsft -)
  (lsft -) (-)
  (;) (lsft ;)
  (lsft ;) (;)
)

(deflayermap (default))

does not work, I still get -. when -> is expected.

[jtroo]

You can try putting it inside macro, which will mean key repeat stops working but also will end the unshift behaviour immediately.

[jtroo]

You rely on key repeat to get triple-dashes for the dividing line ---? How do you make that consistent; seems likely to cause overshoot?

Well in any case you can try:

(macro-release-cancel (unshift -) 200 (unshift -) (unshift -))

to get exactly 3 dashes. Or you can use something like tap-dance to make a double-tap be the key held down, not as a macro.

[mbway]

shouldn't have specified markdown. I just mean creating a visually dividing line (say ~50 dashes). Of course there are workarounds but I would rather not have key repeat disabled for just these keys as that might get annoying

[jtroo]

Maybe something like this then: (multi (macro (unshift -)) (tap-hold 0 200 XX (unshift -)))

[mbway]

what I'm saying is that I would like to switch shift and non shifted keys without any unwanted side-effects. Thanks for the workarounds but isn't it a bug that unshift may affect keys after the one that you want to unshift? I didn't post as a bug initially incase I was just misunderstanding how to properly configure what I want.

[jtroo]

The effect of what you are stating is to re-press the shift key in case a new action is performed by the user. This may be desirable, but I would consider it a breaking change to do this; I wouldn't be surprised if there are some use cases that currently rely on the existing behaviour. I do not currently see the breaking change as worth doing when there are workarounds that exist.

Still, feel free to file an issue for awareness, though I won't be working on it anytime soon.