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Warpd: A modal keyboard-driven virtual pointer

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Re: Warpd: A modal keyboard-driven virtual pointer

#101

Post by _chendo_ »

discodachshund wrote: post #22
_chendo_ wrote: post #9

I've built an app that has the same goals (not operate a mouse) but approach it completely different. Rather than try to simulate the moving the mouse itself, Shortcat [ https://shortcat.app/ ] indexes the user interface (buttons, text fields, links, menus, etc) and enables fast fuzzy search of the interface. Type a word, abbreviations, or hints and hit Enter to click or action the element. Works almost everywhere on…

Excited to try this out! Is it planned to open source? I would love to try integrating this into Raycast

It won't be open source, but I will be adding an API so it can be integrated with other apps and scripted

Re: Warpd: A modal keyboard-driven virtual pointer

#102

Post by _chendo_ »

fcoury wrote: post #82
_chendo_ wrote: post #9

I've built an app that has the same goals (not operate a mouse) but approach it completely different. Rather than try to simulate the moving the mouse itself, Shortcat [ https://shortcat.app/ ] indexes the user interface (buttons, text fields, links, menus, etc) and enables fast fuzzy search of the interface. Type a word, abbreviations, or hints and hit Enter to click or action the element. Works almost everywhere on…

Oh my! I came to the comment section to ask about a Mac app that I've seen a long time ago that did this. Lo and behold, you, the author, have written the first comment. :-) Thank you for Shortcat, I used it a long time ago and loved it. Excited to giv it another go!

No worries! Glad you love Shortcat :D

Re: Warpd: A modal keyboard-driven virtual pointer

#103

Post by _chendo_ »

justusw wrote: post #50
_chendo_ wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha, thanks :) I did charge for it a couple of years ago, however I rebuilt the whole thing from scratch after a long hiatus and hadn't had bothered to reimplement licensing because the existing options all kinda suck, and figured I'd focus the time on features and usability first. I think with the modal mode in the next release will bring it much closer to a 1.0 release.

If you bundle it and release a paid for application on the App Store, I would totally buy it and even roll it out to my staff. The magic of the App Store allows you to do company wide roll-outs quite easily.

I'm not sure if an app like Shortcat can be released on the App Store given it uses the Accessibility APIs (sandboxing etc), also the 15-30% cut they take is a bit ooooof, but I do have plans to support company/teams licensing!

Re: Warpd: A modal keyboard-driven virtual pointer

#104

Post by philonoist »

EsportToys wrote: post #91
prasoon503 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how to activate it? I cant seem to figure out. The script is running but how to activate the grid mode?

Ctrl+Win+G to activate, then uijk to move quadrants and m,. for left/middle/right clicks

please upload full documentation. I am testing this right now.

Re: Warpd: A modal keyboard-driven virtual pointer

#105

Post by ancienthope »

hawski wrote: post #21
_chendo_ wrote: post #9

I've built an app that has the same goals (not operate a mouse) but approach it completely different. Rather than try to simulate the moving the mouse itself, Shortcat [ https://shortcat.app/ ] indexes the user interface (buttons, text fields, links, menus, etc) and enables fast fuzzy search of the interface. Type a word, abbreviations, or hints and hit Enter to click or action the element. Works almost everywhere on…

Very interesting thing. I wonder if the gap of apps not supporting a11y could be reduced by using Tesseract to OCR the text.

That's what https://superkey.app/ does.

Re: Warpd: A modal keyboard-driven virtual pointer

#106

Post by forgotmypw17 »

Daynil wrote: post #58
_chendo_ wrote: post #9

I've built an app that has the same goals (not operate a mouse) but approach it completely different. Rather than try to simulate the moving the mouse itself, Shortcat [ https://shortcat.app/ ] indexes the user interface (buttons, text fields, links, menus, etc) and enables fast fuzzy search of the interface. Type a word, abbreviations, or hints and hit Enter to click or action the element. Works almost everywhere on…

I love this new wave of tools coming out for mouseless computer use. Chronic mouse use has destroyed my wrist so I have to avoid using it as much as possible. I love Shortcat's approach in general, indexing the UI. However, the reliance on the Accessibility API is actually a significant downside in the real world in my experience since so many apps don't properly implement it. I feel like Warpd is a good complement t…

If you're already using Vimium, I suggest trying qutebrowser, which takes keyboard accessibility to a whole new level, by making it a first-class feature for the entire browser.

It does basically cut out the mouse, and had a several-days learning curve for me, but after that it's pretty great. Here are some cool features, off the top of my head:

* Python-scriptable, though I haven't figured out how to use this yet.

* Bind javascript bookmarklets to a keyboard shortcut (use :bind with the jseval command)

* Toggle not only javascript, but image loading and a whole slew of other features, with a keyboard macro.

* Vertical tabs.

* All config is adjustable via commands.

* Keyboard macros like "pop tab into a new window", "clone tab", "close all other tabs", etc.

* Text selection using the keyboard.

* Quite similar keyboard dynamics to vim.

It has a built-in ad blocker, and you should run :adblock-update when you first use it.

Another browser which is similar, but which I haven't gotten into as much, is Luakit.

Re: Warpd: A modal keyboard-driven virtual pointer

#107

Post by forgotmypw17 »

hunogo wrote: post #34
pomatic wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people need tools like this, as an assistive technology - think RSI, Parkinsons and other issues that affect dexterity or elbow movement. Not so weird.

Thank you for explaining - as a consequence of illness and disability, I can understand the need. But why someone would intentionally make things more difficult for themselves as a preference, I don't get. It would be like walking around in crutches when you have two perfectly healthy legs.

Because once you learn how to use it, the keyboard is much faster and more capable than a pointing device.

So it's less like crutches and more like rollerblades.

Re: Warpd: A modal keyboard-driven virtual pointer

#108

Post by _chendo_ »

tfsh wrote: post #75
_chendo_ wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha, thanks :) I did charge for it a couple of years ago, however I rebuilt the whole thing from scratch after a long hiatus and hadn't had bothered to reimplement licensing because the existing options all kinda suck, and figured I'd focus the time on features and usability first. I think with the modal mode in the next release will bring it much closer to a 1.0 release.

+1 this is awesome! I'd like to donate if I can :) edit: nvm me, found the option in settings (on activation show shortcuts immediately). Quick question, I've been playing around with Shortcat for a while. When I press the activation hot-key it takes about 4 seconds for the yellow two-letter denoated highlights to show up, despite the app's text stating "found n elements in ~0.20s". Is there a config option to instan…

Thanks! I don't have a way to take tips yet, but you can support by pushing for developers to improve their accessibility implementations when you run into issues!

I see you found the setting for that. It was a deliberate default initially as the intended way to use Shortcat is to activate Shortcat and type what you want without waiting to see hints, as this is generally faster and less mental overhead IMO, especially for fast typists and well-structured interfaces.

However, some people prefer minimal keystrokes and I get that. I'm trying to figure out the right set of defaults to make it friendly to new users while nudging people to how Shortcat is designed to be used and will be tweaking it as I go.

Re: Warpd: A modal keyboard-driven virtual pointer

#109

Post by EsportToys »

philonoist wrote: post #104
EsportToys wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ctrl+Win+G to activate, then uijk to move quadrants and m,. for left/middle/right clicks

please upload full documentation. I am testing this right now.

Added rudimentary README to the repo

Re: Warpd: A modal keyboard-driven virtual pointer

#110

Post by Multicomp »

On Windows speech recognition or dragon naturally speaking, there is the mouse grid functionality. It divides the screen into a grid of nine tiles, then you type a number to select one of the tiles, then the tile gets divided into nine tiles, which recurses on down until you have a single coordinate selected.

I just wish I had an easy way to do that from the numpad. That way, to move the mouse to an arbitrary location I need it to be, I could type 19432 enter and know that corresponded to the coordinates to refresh the page I am reading, that way I could use the mouse less and less as I started to memorize the 80% case of where I need the mouse to go and just bang it out on the keyboard.

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