I absolutely love vimium. Such a great tool.<p>[Vimium + i3 + vim + vscode/vmplugin] Means that I rarely have to reach for the mouse, have a tonne of desktop real estate that's easy to navigate and is way more comfortable.<p>Just having search, simple navigation and the 'f-feature' in vimium is enough for like 99% of my use cases.<p>It's such a pleasant and seamless experience to code in the editor, hop on over to the terminal to do w/e, skip on over to the browser to look something up, and go back to code. The muscle memory just takes over. Not to mention all the other benefits like having to track down small icons, sometimes changing window state (e.g. unmaximize, moving things around), and how much more effort using a mouse is over 2-3 keystrokes.
Too sad the switch to WebExtensions in Firefox totally screwed up these addons.<p>I was a religious VimFX user and I can tell you that i mourn having lost that. It's like an era of powerful browsing ended. I use the mentioned Vimium addon, but it's not even close to what we had with VimFX.<p>Does the keyboard shortcuts in Vimium work when the page is loading? No. How nice is it to have keyboard shortcuts that work sometimes? Extremely frustrating.<p>How about using "o" to get to the address bar (CMD/CTRL+L)? It opens some overlay on the page where I can't access my bookmarks.<p>I could go on. VimFX is still somewhat maintained, but you have to run an unsecure browser to use it (like WaterFox).
I've been using vi-like shortcut plugins (vimperator, pentadactyl, vimium, vim vixen and many others, currently using tridactyl) for quite a few years now, and its never been quite the smooth experience I hoped for.<p>Not even talking about interfaces where you'd expect to need to use mouse (javascript components and others), but there is always the page in which the shortcuts will fail, or some input which will be blocked because the plugin is fighting the webpage for focus. Its pretty much what the article says at the conclusion, it helps reducing, but I still view it as a hassle.<p>Browsers developed with vi-like modes built-in (vimprobable, vimb, qutebrowser) fared better for me, but then there's other issues like incompatibility or lack of plugins which keeps me from fully using them.
Either browsers have locked things down too tight, or for some other reasons these Vim like plugins are skeletons of their past. And websites are also keen to grab key strokes, e.g. "/" on Github.<p>Some nice people have kept one alive for Safari as well <a href="https://github.com/televator-apps/vimari" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/televator-apps/vimari</a> but there's only so much they can do. It's almost useless.<p>I tried Vimium-FF (<a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/vimium-ff" rel="nofollow">https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/vimium-ff</a>) and many other Vim like add-ons in last 2-3 months (after I decided to give Firefox another try after Pocket; and the possibility of ditching MacOS in my personal usage), but no, these plugins are nearly nowhere as useable as they used to be. Page reloads, redirects, weird behaviours at anything I try to do.<p>Maybe I can spend hours (over days) and have a perfect config file and maybe, just maybe, it will work as intended but then again it might break with next version or next browser update/upgrade.<p>My most used features were "/" followed by "n" and "shift+n", "t" -> open and "w" -> close tab, "f", "o" -> getting focus in address bar. I think I will rather give up.<p>Somehow I don't like to tinker anymore in the personal computer usage scenarios and maybe it's people like me who have caused/convinced companies like Apple to close things down and try to make apps and machines simpler (at which they have failed specularly).
I'm glad this was posted. I really liked how they introduced only one feature; that was enough to push me to install and get past "I don't know vim, why would I like this". I can press 'f' and type letters to follow links. No vim-ness. Just a nice feature. (You can press "?" to see more features.)<p>(I used an XUL-based web browser with Emacs keybindings many years ago and loved it. But I had to switch to Chrome, and XUL went away, so I kind of gave up.)
I settled with Surfingkeys after I tried Vimium, Vimium C, Pentadactyl and Vimperator.<p>Here's my Surfingkeys configuration as an ex-Vimium user:<p><pre><code> map('F', 'gf');
Hints.characters = "asdgqwertzxcvb";
</code></pre>
It makes <i>open in new tab</i> behave like Vimium and <i>f</i> work like a toggle.<p>Hope this helps someone looking for a better option migrating from Vimium.<p>[0] <a href="https://github.com/brookhong/Surfingkeys" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/brookhong/Surfingkeys</a>
Vimium is actually quiet a stable project since it's creation in 2009.<p>Side note: going back on the git history of the project is a great way to see the code evolve. [1] Originally it started with 2 files, but now has blossomed into a project with 100's of files<p>[1] <a href="https://github.com/philc/vimium/commit/aff9db2640db9aa02858d0a98a75919b67cfc61d" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/philc/vimium/commit/aff9db2640db9aa02858d...</a>
Pro tip: Set your hint characters to keys you can hit with your off-mouse hand. (e.g., being a right-handed qwerty user, mine are asdqwerzxcvtgb) Now you can keep one hand on the keyboard, the other on your mouse (or coffee, or whatever).
Without a plugin on firefox: hit ' to open a search field that only searches for links, then start typing and hit enter when the correct link is highlighted.
I love the idea of Vim shortcuts in the browser, but I'm becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the permissions these extensions require. I get why it's necessary for them to work, but giving access to all history/tabs/browser data feels a bit intense.
I showed this once to a non-techie friend, and they were excited to use it. My little demo covered the difference between F and Shift+F to show how it is case sensitive, and I navigated through multiple pages without using a mouse. I assured them that they don't need to learn all of its commands, and they can open a cheat sheet on any page just by typing a question mark.<p>This non-disruptive introduction into Vimium made me think about my old Firefox setup. Back in the XUL days, I was hoarding dozens of add-ons that altered the Firefox UI to the extent that others could not use my browser anymore. They would click on a link and wonder why it is not working while my browser would amass many new tabs at a customized, designated place. The browser worked as I intended, but the extent of my customizations made it unusable for regular Firefox users.<p>Therefore I think that these new, more limited extension APIs offer an overall better experience for end-users. Maintaining usability for "regular users" should be the upper bound for the amount of customization an extension API provides. If it goes beyond that, it seems to get out of control.
I used vimium before switching to Surfingkeys for its editor. Turning any text input into a vim box is one of these features that you can't do without once you're used to their convenience.<p>Note that these extensions have access to all your data on the sites you visit, and while you may trust their developers, a dependency might go rogue without anyone noticing.
I love vimum, use it myself, but my biggest gripe with it (also half-addressed in the article) is that sites with good power-user focused keyboard shortcuts built-in are almost always going to beat a generic plugin like vimium. So you're left with choosing one of two compromise options:<p>1) Ignore the nice app-native keyboard shortcuts and just use vimium everywhere (Frustrating when single-key shortcuts in the app are multiple drop-down menu clicks with vimium)<p>2) Disable Vimium on shortcut-rich apps, but deal with the inconsistencies. (Eg clicking on the link in the body of an e-mail in gmail now needs a mouse again)<p>I really wish vimium had some kind of modifier for "send next key to website", so I could have my cake and eat it too.
I eventually switched away from these extensions because of conflicts with webapps that have their own keyboard shortcuts. The keyboard shortcuts that webapps give you are much more expressive and usable (i.e. in Gmail), but they're never <i>quite</i> able to save you completely from needing a mouse. So you keep switching between vim mode to app shortcuts and back and it's not clear enough which mode you're in.<p>Really makes me wish that it was easier for developers to choose native desktop development instead of webapp development. Web browsers are compromises all the way down.
We've come full circle.<p>The first time I accessed the web it was with telnet info.cern.ch which was line mode browser that worked like this plugin, a key per link.
For the second time this week on here, I feel compelled to recommend <a href="https://krabby.netlify.app/" rel="nofollow">https://krabby.netlify.app/</a><p>Ever want to copy all the links in a column of a table to the clipboard? <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJXCnRBkHDY" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJXCnRBkHDY</a>
Does anyone know of a way to do this OS-wide, so I don’t have to use my mouse to navigate at all? Either macOS or Ubuntu/pop_os. I know most OSes have built in keyboard shortcuts, but Linux distros are often inconsistent from app to app, and besides I’m looking for something that will let me “click” anywhere in an OS without a mouse
anyone know how vimium compares to tridactyl on firefox?<p>[0] <a href="https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl</a>
I wrote a Chrome extension with a similar purpose.<p><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ctrl-access/glmoehiilkjpgcimmfodllkkhpeikomb?hl=en" rel="nofollow">https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ctrl-access/glmoeh...</a><p>The idea was copied from Konqueror.
Along the same vein, I made a vi-like editor for editing webpages - not to minimize mouse usage, but to increase productivity with tons of shortcut keys and commands. <a href="https://vivpage.com/" rel="nofollow">https://vivpage.com/</a>
Vimium is great! From a usability stand-point, hints are a very useful way to navigate web-pages without requiring a lot of dexterity to select small elements. Once skilled at typing the hint labels, it's almost like having eye-tracking.<p>One practical limitation is that it requires two hands to browse, so not great when eating, writing in a notebook, holding a drink, etc. Also if you float your hands above the keyboard instead of using a wrist rest, it's not very practical for extended casual browsing. In that scenario I find having a nice ergonomic mouse hard to beat.
Tip to open links on Firefox without the mouse. There's a setting that allow you to start search when you type text.<p>For instance on this page if you type "look ma" it searches the text, and selects the first occurence, which is the link. You can then press enter and it will open the link. Or ctrl+enter to open in a new tab.<p>I use it everyday, it's easy and convenient, you don't need to think much ; you simply start typing the some letters of the link you want to open.
Does anyone know of a program for mac which allows you to type using Vim input?<p>Of course it's probably too hard to make it compatible with all the different types of text boxes, so I'm envisioning a shortcut that you can press, which brings up a small editing window, where you can use vim commands, and then you can copy and paste into whatever text field you want.
I'm in love. I was able to navigate to hacker news, use F to click into the comments. Use J to read a bit, then jumped back to the top of the page and used F to highlight the text box to start typing this comment. Pair Programming is about to get a whole lot more interesting.
I love the Vimium extension on Firefox. My main frustration comes from the Omnibar. It works well but I would just prefer to use the native bar. I know the Vimium devs can't do anything about it, it's in Firefox's hands but still frustrating though.
I am a big advocate for Vimium. For me, moving to the mouse is almost a context switch and I just find them cumbersome. I have played mouse based games my whole life so dexterity is no issue. It's mouse focused UIs are just inefficient in my opinion.
I use Saka Key <a href="https://github.com/lusakasa/saka-key" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/lusakasa/saka-key</a><p>Usable in Chrome and Firefox. Configuration can be exported to JSON and reused on other machines.
I use a lot of shortcuts when browsing and when I have to switch from MacOS to Linux is always a pain in the ass because they change and is not easy to remap all of them.<p>Maybe trying something like this would alleviate this issue for me.
Thanks for the tip. The 'f' tip is quite nice--much nicer than I have previously experienced with Vimperator and the like. For you Firefox users out there, there is a Vimium fork for Firefox called Vimium-FF.
I remain skeptical that keyboard only approaches are better than a well designed interaction with mouse and keyboard.<p>At least with Acme on Plan 9 I’ve found mousing to be fast, efficient, and comfortable.
It’s the best extension I’ve installed. I only wish it would permit single hand navigation as a setting (e.g. left hand only with right on mouse all the time)
How does one get vimium working on GSuite tools? I think this is a huge limitation. If anybody has figured it out I would love to hear how they did it. Thx
Wow, knocked that one out of the park! Love the idea.<p>Once change I'd make: Make pressing f again hide the links. So don't use f or f* as a link anywhere.
Unusable because the vi-mode keybindings aren't available until the page finishes loading.<p>Qutebrowser is far superior.<p>Mozilla <i>STILL</i> refuse to produce a "libfirefox" like Chromium does with the CEF (Chromium Embedded Framework). This is incredibly selfish of Mozilla, they insist on being the only ones who can produce a browser using their browser engine, forcing Tor Browser to devote massive resources to maintaining a long-lived fork instead of just building on libfirefox.
This is a good reminder that even engineers who think they are analytical and evidence based are subject to dogma. There has never been any study showing that not using your mouse improves coding speed. Use Vim if you want, I do, but don't state it's more efficient at writing code.