Karabiner Elements is an often recommended app for changing hotkeys on macOS, and has been for me multiple times, but everytime I do its jarring. While it is a powerful app if you know how to use it, I've come to realize that there are a bunch of issues with the way the app works.
To make simple modifications, you have to find the individual key you want to remap through a series of dropdown menus, why not just press the keys you want to remap?! And complex modifications is where it becomes difficult. It consists of JSON files you write,. All of which are stored in one file, which while you can edit with an external text or code editor, is very tedious, provides no error messages, and doesn't seem to be officially supported. The app's JSON editor is also very tedious, telling you there's an error on a specific line and area, but doesn't show you and some the error messages aren't too helpful. Multiple times I would make complex modifications based off of ones I would find online. While those would load fine for me, my changes wouldn't and it would be a pain to troubleshoot.
To make simple modifications, you have to find the individual key you want to remap through a series of dropdown menus, why not just press the keys you want to remap?! And complex modifications is where it becomes difficult. It consists of JSON files you write,. All of which are stored in one file, which while you can edit with an external text or code editor, is very tedious, provides no error messages, and doesn't seem to be officially supported. The app's JSON editor is also very tedious, telling you there's an error on a specific line and area, but doesn't show you and some the error messages aren't too helpful. Multiple times I would make complex modifications based off of ones I would find online. While those would load fine for me, my changes wouldn't and it would be a pain to troubleshoot.