Copy-paste layers

[Totoro83]

First of all, I'm putting 2 different suggestions in the same issue, because in my use case they are connected. If you think this should be split in two issues just let me know, I'll split them.

And second, I understand that my use case is not typical. But I also think that both suggestions could be useful to others, that's why I decided to propose these two things.

Basically, I've an heavily modified keyboard layou. I have so many layers that I needed to create an additional keymap, as I already used all the normal layers (base, mod, mouse, and Fn from 1 to 5.) It works great most of the times for my use case, but I still am tweaking the maps here and there for things I use less, moving functionalities and opening Agent from time to time to check what I changed recently. It's not something I do often, but still it's something I need to do sometimes.

But here is where things get a bit difficult. My layers are not ordered in a logical way, and I always struggle to find the right one. And their names don't help. Reading Fn1 instead of Fn3, for example, does not give me any clue. Of course I already know some of the layers very well and I'm able to figure out what their content is, but for some of them I have to browse among them for a bit, even half a minute sometimes, to figure out which layer I'm looking for. I know where these layers are in my keyboard and which keys I have to press to trigger them, but on Agent they are unlogically positioned and difficult to find. The first problem would be easy to solve in theory, it's enough to move the layers in the right place, but to copy an entire layer is very time consuming, especially when the layers can change while I work on them.

My proposals are the following:

• Add the possibility to copy and paste layers. If you copy a layer, you can paste the content in another layer on the same layout or in another one.
• Add the possibility to change names to the layers. It does not have to be necessarily a deep change, the names can be the same on macros (even if I'm not against a similar change). It would be enough to show both names when a layer is selected, and possibly the renamed name (or a short version of it) in the tabs on top. This way, the name would act as a suggestion.

[mondalaci]

Copy-pasting layers should be useful for many. A copy and paste button in a button group to the right of the top layer bar would expose this feature nicely.

I don't want to make layer names customizable because it'd make layer behavior less straightforward. Now the semantics is crystal clear because keys with the same names as the layers activate the respective layers. I'd keep it this way.

[Totoro83]

Yeah, it's perfectly understandable that you don't want to change the layer names to keep things simple. I still think that even just a very short description of the layer besides the name written on the tabs (like for example Fn (Desc), where "Desc" can be just a few characters long) would be very useful, but I imagine that it could clutter the UI too much.

But even just having the copy-paste functionality would improve the situation drammatically.

And anyway thanks for the consideration 😁

[mondalaci]

As for the UI, in the layers button group, leftward of the dropdown arrow:

• Add a copy button (containing the font awesome copy icon) to copy the current layer to the clipboard. Tooltip: Copy this layer to the clipboard so that it can be pasted into other layers.
• Also, place a paste button rightward of the copy button if the clipboard has a valid layer to paste.