Live data from Hacker News

Look ma, no mouse: Vimium

codefaster.substack.com

81–90 of 111 posts

Re: Look ma, no mouse: Vimium

#81

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. Some nice people have kept one alive for Safari as well https://github.com/televator-apps/vimari but there's only so much they can do. It's almost useless. I tried Vimium-FF ( https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/…

Browsers need a plugin API to allow user interface modifications without allowing user data and network access - somehow. Could be useful for many cases, including accessibility, I imagine.

Re: Look ma, no mouse: Vimium

#82
post #70

Does anyone know of a program for mac which allows you to type using Vim input? 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.

https://github.com/dbalatero/VimMode.spoon

I think it uses an invisible neovim in the background when it can.

Re: Look ma, no mouse: Vimium

#83
post #4

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. 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 blo…

> 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.

I've had this issue too with qutebrowser. I'm not very familiar with how these things work, but I wonder why plugins written for a given engine (say webkit) wouldn't work on all browsers using that engine. In the case of qutebrowser it uses chromium under the hood, so I would expect extensions that work on chromium to work on qutebrowser, just as most chromium limitations also apply to qutebrowser.

Re: Look ma, no mouse: Vimium

#84
post #38

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.

The article is about a browser plugin, it doesn't state anywhere that Vim is more efficient at writing code.

The very title of the page is „Code faster“. The there IS this sentence: To stay fast and healthy, keep your hands on your keyboard.

Together this says that you code faster by (or when?) avoiding the mouse.

Re: Look ma, no mouse: Vimium

#85

Too sad the switch to WebExtensions in Firefox totally screwed up these addons. 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. Does the keyboard shortcuts in Vimium work when the page is loading? No. How nice is it to have keyboard shortcuts that work someti…

I have to agree. Vimium is better than nothing but most of the time it feels like a subpar GUI editor with bolted-on vim binds that sometimes work.

Re: Look ma, no mouse: Vimium

#88

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. 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 keyboa…

Basically all of these "limitations" are valid for touch typing in general. If you eat while browsing it's ok to use mouse wheel :)

Re: Look ma, no mouse: Vimium

#89

Too sad the switch to WebExtensions in Firefox totally screwed up these addons. 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. Does the keyboard shortcuts in Vimium work when the page is loading? No. How nice is it to have keyboard shortcuts that work someti…

So true. It's so easy to accidentally "escape" context in which Vimium works. I still use mouse and standard shortcuts like ctrl+l a lot after each such use one has to deliberately click inside a web page to return to proper context.

A lot of actions like tab switching can be done in vimium but sometimes it's a chore.

Bookmarks CAN be accessed via "o" in Vimium :)You can also use "b" to browse just the bookmarks.

Post reply on HN