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    browsers + colemak-vim shortcuts

    • Started by lalop
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    In the quest to apply colemak-vim's ergonomicness everywhere, I started using Vimium, a so-far pretty powerful chrome extension.

    Of course, being vimlike is only half the battle; to create a custom shortcut config, go to Advanced Options.  My own configuration ended up looking like this:

    s08tLjg.png

    A lot of emphasis was put on one-handed navigation.  The rest is an amalgamation of chrome and vimlike positions.  z "undos" tabs closing, while c enacts copy-related commands.

    One notable lack is of navigation to the nth tab, but that's less necessary considering the fast left/right navigation and the tab search (v).





    Characters used for link hints: hdvkwuyarstneiof

    [Note: Beforehand, try "Use the link's name and numbers for link hint filtering".  It's nice, and enjoyable in that it allows you to start typing right away, but its effectiveness is dependent on the quality of the link titles.  Using it with "numbers" NEIOKHLUY (i.e. the capital letters opposite shift) allows you to finish your selection more easily than using actual numbers.]

    First, this is the fewest number of letters to ensure that links are represented as digraphs, rather than trigraphs, in the pages I visit.  YMMV.

    As for the ordering, it's a little weird, since I don't really understand their algorithm yet, but from my experimentation:

    • The first and last letters are used the least to start off a digraph.

    • Otherwise, the latter letters are used more




    Edit: Added a few commands, changed the "follow link" to reflect its overwhelming usage.

    Due to the lack of use of left/right, made them into shift commands, replacing with the much more common pgup/pgdown, and allowing for back/forward to be reined in.

    After trying it out for a while, I'd say the "follow link" commands can be good practice, since it involves recognizing and typing digraphs very quickly.

    Last edited by lalop (03-Jul-2013 11:00:24)
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    Pentadactyl is much more powerful than any chrome extension, but also much harder.  I've barely scratched the surface yet.

    Known issues:

    1. Find is case-sensitive Just me being stupid I think

    2. Ugly noises when navigating tab, or back/forward when you're at one end of your list

    3. No apparent way to get into visual mode Go into caret mode first

    4. Save does not go to previously saved folder, or save by file name, by default

    5. Weird pageup/pagedown behavior


    Edit: added vimperator config as well.  Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have as many features, and part of the config seems to have been broken.

    https://github.com/lalopmak/lalopmak-ma … er/firefox

    Last edited by lalop (03-Jul-2013 11:01:35)
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    • From: Viken, Norway
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    For the 'sf' bigram, make sure you type it with the ring finger on 'f' or other alternative fingering. To me that comes quite naturally by now but it's taken years to get used to.

    *** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
    *** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***

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    Alternate ordering replacing l with f: kvhdwuyarstneiof hdvkwuyarstneiof

    The first letter, though not commonly used, gets predominant status in some occasions where you know it's coming.  So it's best to put a comfy, but still preferably rare letter there.  The best candidate for thes are one of the index-letters, since the index finger must hit three separate letters.  Since, with the current config, t often precedes the bigram, that narrows it down to h or k.  h was chosen in this case since its curve seems harder for quick bigrams, which this would help avoid.

    I'm not sure the alternate fingering advice necessarily works; the reason is that you don't really know before hand after pressing s (open url in new tab) which letter you'd have to press next.  But I seem to have minimized the number of times f gets used.

    Last edited by lalop (25-May-2013 00:34:00)
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    • From: Malmö, Sweden
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    1. Vimium is horrible, don't use it. It works only when it feels like it and you would be lucky have a session in which it does't magically stop responding.

    2. Why the hell would you use letter combinations to click a link, when you can hit f and start typing "download" before your eyes have picked the download link out. Not to speak that you become very good and fast at typing with the number row if you use pentadactyl the correct way.

    Btw, the visual mode in pentadactyl is called caret mode and it is activated using the 'i' button.

    Last edited by vaskozl (26-May-2013 17:29:18)

    Posted without the aid of a rodent.

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    vaskozl said:

    1. Vimium is horrible, don't use it. It works only when it feels like it and you would be lucky have a session in which it does't magically stop responding.

    I've been using it for a few days and have no idea what you're talking about.  In either case, I'd welcome alternatives (I originally used Shortcut Manager but it wasn't as powerful).

    vaskozl said:

    2. Why the hell would you use letter combinations to click a link, when you can hit f and start typing "download" before your eyes have picked the download link out. Not to speak that you become very good and fast at typing with the number row if you use pentadactyl the correct way.

    Btw, the visual mode in pentadactyl is called caret mode and it is activated using the 'i' button.

    I've remapped many of the shortcuts (in the style of colemak-vim) and, as such, it's a little confusing to just hear "why not just type [something] then [something else]."

    Thanks for your advice on hint-mode; did not know that worked.

    I confess; I'm a little confused as to the point of caret mode.  Is it only used for selecting text?

    Also, a couple comparison questions.  Do your find-next and find-previous key causing "dings" (the error sound) whenever used?  Similarly for your back/forward keys when they're at the last/first website in the list.  It doesn't do that when I just use the command, so I have to assume it has to do with the remapping:

    " Go back in the browser history
    map -b l :back<CR>      
    map -b L :back
    
    " Go forward in the browser history
    map -b y :forward<CR>   
    map -b Y :forward   

    Also, if you know the answer to saving via gui dialog, that would be cool!

    Last edited by lalop (27-May-2013 00:27:14)
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    lalop said:

    I've been using it for a few days and have no idea what you're talking about.  In either case, I'd welcome alternatives (I originally used Shortcut Manager but it wasn't as powerful).

    It doesn't work on a blank page, settings page, addons pages, etc. It would also often lose focus, forcing you to click around with the mouse to get it to work.

    lalop said:

    I confess; I'm a little confused as to the point of caret mode.  Is it only used for selecting text?

    Why else would you want a cursor on the screen? I really can't think of any other purpose it could be given. To use it, search for first word of what you want to paste (/ by default) hit enter to select it. Then when you enter caret mode (i by default) your cursor gets placed in the beginning of the selected word. Now you can move around the cursor. When you want to start selecting text, just enter visual mode within caret mode (v by default). This makes the cursor start marking text, which you can then yank (y by default).

    lalop said:

    Also, a couple comparison questions.  Do your find-next and find-previous key causing "dings" (the error sound) whenever used?  Similarly for your back/forward keys when they're at the last/first website in the list.

    My find next/previous button never ding, even if there is no match, however the back/forward button ding when there is no following page to go to, just like when you scroll to the bottom/top of the page and you keep pressing the scroll key.

    Edit: Just found out that my search button (/) dings and does nothing when used in vi-textbox mode (C-t).

    lalop said:

    Also, if you know the answer to saving via gui dialog, that would be cool!

    Whats preventing you from opening the page in a new tab and then saving it from there?

    Last edited by vaskozl (27-May-2013 18:49:40)

    Posted without the aid of a rodent.

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    I've discovered that the dings (as well as who knows how many other problems) were due to trailing whitespaces.  After getting rid of them, the dings are gone and a lot more starts working as expected.

    vaskozl said:

    It doesn't work on a blank page, settings page, addons pages, etc.

    I think this is a limitation of chrome extensions in general, since Shortcut Manager similarly doesn't work.

    I don't know about the lose focus thing.

    vaskozl said:

    Whats preventing you from opening the page in a new tab and then saving it from there?

    If I'm trying to save an image on the current page, hint-mode does not generally open a link to that.  (Plus, that's an additional step.)

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    lalop said:

    I've discovered that the dings (as well as who knows how many other problems) were due to trailing whitespaces.  After getting rid of them, the dings are gone and a lot more starts working as expected.

    Ah good one there, I will keep it in mind if I am to rebind anything.

    lalop said:

    I think this is a limitation of chrome extensions in general, since Shortcut Manager similarly doesn't work.

    Yes, indeed it is. I think it's ridiculous not to be able to change the settings without using the mouse.


    lalop said:

    If I'm trying to save an image on the current page, hint-mode does not generally open a link to that.  (Plus, that's an additional step.)

    You are right, they should have implemented some kind of right click hint mode where you can click on images and stuff.

    Posted without the aid of a rodent.

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