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Mouseless firefox11/8/2022 In addition to the goodness that Vimium gives you, I encourage you to learn the key combinations built into Chrome, many of which are shared with Firefox and Safari. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll only be using the mouse for interacting with Flash embeds. Vimium will change your web browsing forever. With Vimium, I can use the Twitter website more efficiently than any of the desktop Twitter apps. To get back to Navigation (or Normal) mode from the search box, I’d hit the Esc key. Hitting “jj” would put me in Insert mode and I’d type as usual. If I wanted to do a search, I’d hit “jj” and then just start typing my query, pressing Enter to submit. Lowercase “f” will open the link on the same page, while capital “F” will open it in a new tab. So if I were to type “f”, then “js”, I’d visit my page of Mentions. It looks overwhelming at first, but your eye is trained on one spot, so in practice it works out. Hit it, and all links in the browser get their own key combination: The most important keystroke for going mouseless is the “f”. So when you’re using Chrome, and you’re not currently focused on a form field, you’re in navigation mode (also called normal mode in Vim-speak).Īfter installing Vimium, type a question mark, and a help menu pops up: The key concept behind Vimium is that it adds a keyboard navigation mode to Chrome. As its name implies, Vimium is modeled off the text editor Vim, and the extension itself was greatly inspired by Vimperator for Firefox. Vimium is an extension for Google Chrome that makes the point and click nature of web browsing nearly obsolete. But how about the web browser? Websites are filled with links, and to get to those links, they need to be clicked on. When you work in applications that were designed with text entry in mind, like text editors or word processors, they’re usually filled with keyboard-friendly features. If your job primarily consists of entering text – you’re a programmer, systems administrator, or writer – I think you should join me. So over the next few months, on Mondays, I’m going to consciously try not to use any pointing device unless it’s absolutely necessary. True, the MacBook trackpad, with its multi-touch gestures, can be quite efficient, but the second or two it takes to move my hand down and back up is time wasted, and is almost always unnecessary, as a keyboard analog exists for nearly every action. I no longer work with a mouse, but I do find myself reaching down for the trackpad too often. Touch screens may be the new hotness, but keyboards win when it comes to effectiveness. Learning key combinations and navigating around in modes does require significant practice, but it’s no more difficult than learning to touch type. Those buttons are there we should be using them as much as possible. Why? With a keyboard, we have about a hundred buttons at our disposal, giving us incredible power and opportunity for efficiency. Over the last few months, I’ve made a concerted effort to wean myself off of the mouse (and my MacBook’s trackpad). Mouseless Monday #1 - Vimium on Google Chrome
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