hydra VS vim-submode

You can also use Hydra for Emacs.[1] Once I discovered how to configure Hydra, I made it a habit to make one for every new major mode I need to use.

[1] https://github.com/abo-abo/hydra

Have you considered a hydra?

An Emacs specific example: I'm working on a few go projects at the moment and go requires recompilation after changes. Step one was finding auto-recompilers for my projects (I'm using both air and reflex in various projects). Step two was realizing that I spent a lot of time switching to the buffer where the output is printed, so I wrote a little hydra menu to make that easier. Then I found myself having to restart those processes each time I restarted Emacs, so I went digging and found detached to manage the processes. Then I got tired of having to hunt for where the detached output was displayed in my frame so dug into sidebars to manage the windows more effectively.

I think the goal of the hydra package is to provide such functionality.

I would I also encourage anyone who does not want to use modal editing to look into repeat-mode, hydras, and key-chord.

The C-c prefix is designed for you, the user, to use for your nefarious deeds. Some things that may help with both binding and knowing what key does what would be a menu such as hydras or transient menus (which apparently are part of Emacs now so that's new).

For the very same reason, I started to use hydras: https://github.com/abo-abo/hydra - see my config at https://github.com/novoid/dot-emacs/blob/master/config.org

Hydra lets you define mini-modes with limited scope.

general.el also works well with hydra.el. Here's my hydra for window operations - it activates when I press ,w:

I used kana/vim-submode for a little while but it broke all the time so I gave up on it. How's your experience with hydra.nvim so far? Do you find that the mode doesn't "stick" properly or will for a bit but then it breaks out if you add a custom command that does too much? That was my experience with vim-submode

Also I should note this type of mappings can be achieved with https://github.com/kana/vim-submode. I've been using it for a while now, maybe I will replace it with hydra.

There are plugins that do this vim-submode nvim-libmodal for example . So it's possible at least to some extent.

vim-submode does exactly what you need. Here's how I use it to create a "resize" submode.

There is a fairly old plugin called submode that does something similar to this.