I read the interview with Andreas Antoniadis on Krita website (https://krita.org/item/interview-with-a ... ntoniadis/) and it was suggested there for 'pie menus' which I think will be an absolutely amazing feature if implemented. Blender recently implemented the 'pie menus' (https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... Pie+Menus+)
which is fully customizable and as Andreas Antoniadis pointed out it will allow one to stay in fullscreen/canvas only mode longer.

Currently I only use four shortcuts (4 keys on bamboo) and for everything else I use the file/tools menu – I leave my large keyboard on top of my desktop tower and my wacom bamboo in place of the keyboard.

The most commonly used operations for me are:
new layer
merge with layer below
brush tool
selection tools
scale/move tool
mirror image
… and I would say that I use these operations more often than I change my brush, so a shortcut palette (pie menu) that can be called using a single key-press is quite essential.

So like the palette pop-up except with commands instead of brushes? That's actually very interesting; one for free painting and another for more technical stuff. New features probably won't be introduced until after the Qt5 port though. As an alternative, try this. I'm not sure if it will show up in canvas mode but it's worth a try anyway.

edit: this is windows only. I'll try to find a similar program for linux. no promises though

That is exactly what i was talking about, unfortunately i'm on linux and cant use that program but great find though!