Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

nyxt.atlas.engineer

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 262 posts

Re: Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

#121

Post by wkat4242 »

p-e-w wrote: post #111
can16358p wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This! I've been programmer for about 20 years now and I could never understand why Vi(m) or Emacs exists with those weird bindings which are completely different from pretty much everything else. I'm not that old, maybe they had their cake in 80s, but perhaps time to move on to something modern which would have modern defaults (if many need to customize there's something wrong with the defaults) that appeal to all ke…

> I could never understand why Vi(m) or Emacs exists with those weird bindings which are completely different from pretty much everything else. Inertia, traditionalism, elitism, insider culture, ignorance, "good enough" mentality, blind spots, cargo culting, ... There's really no mystery here. The reasons are the same as in every other part of society where outdated conventions are maintained despite massive, obvious…

I think there's more reasons that are not so negative.

First of all, vi predates all those others. That means it's always had an active userbase werken other tools were in fashion. Changing the bindings at any point in time would have hurt a lot of people's muscle memory. It would also be extremely annoying when one has older versions on some machines with the old bindings and some with the new. I deal with the Mac vs Windows/Linux copy paste problem every day.

Also, vim just has a ton of functions and there's always going to be some shortcuts that will be awkward on some or other keyboard layout.

Finally, you don't have to use it :) or you could distribute your custom config file with bindings to every machine you use.

Re: Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

#122

Post by europeanNyan »

linmob wrote: post #119
p-e-w wrote: post #70

Looks like Nyxt, a browser "inspired by Vim", inherits Vim's showstopper bug: Being unusable on many non-US keyboards, at least with the default bindings. The 'switch-buffer-previous' command is bound to C-[, which cannot be pressed e.g. on QWERTZ layouts because the [ character requires AltGr. This is like sending around text files encoded in Windows-1252 and expecting things to just work. Sorry folks, but it turns…

Honestly, as a fellow QWERTZ-native, QWERTZ is generally a terrible layout for doing any programming in languages that go beyond round brackets. Instead have all these umlauts you rarely need, even in normal writing, right there - just a bad tradeoff. One might even argue that it's terrible for some other keyboard shortcuts, as they stop making sense: E.g., when Ctrl+Z is undo and Ctrl+X is redo, that makes perfect s…

This sounds like a lot of gatekeeping. QWERTZ types need not apply for serious computer use. Even worse are those ones who would prefer to write a proper e-mail using umlauts.

Re: Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

#123

Post by microtonal »

z_open wrote: post #120
dirkg wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vim style keybindings and navigation is massively overhyped as is vim itself. Cue endless debates about how Vim is the best ever ...... I'm sick and tired of everyone telling me that their neovim setup with a tiling window manager with million customized rc files is somehow better than vscode with a mouse (which mind you still has plenty of keyboard shortcuts) with sane windows. /rant

Why do comments like this always ignore the obvious solution of using an IDE like code with a vim plugin. And yes that's more efficient.

I tried vi emulation VS Code for a while, but the emulation is often incomplete and breaks at times.

The only thing that emulates vi well enough is Evil in Emacs.

Re: Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

#124

Post by yosito »

I just want a WebKit-based browser where everything can be controlled by a prominent LLM prompt box. No more clicking through constantly changing menus or trying to remember rarely-used vim shortcuts, just tell it what you want to do. Bonus if it supports continuous voice input.

Re: Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

#125

Post by cschmatzler »

p-e-w wrote: post #111
can16358p wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This! I've been programmer for about 20 years now and I could never understand why Vi(m) or Emacs exists with those weird bindings which are completely different from pretty much everything else. I'm not that old, maybe they had their cake in 80s, but perhaps time to move on to something modern which would have modern defaults (if many need to customize there's something wrong with the defaults) that appeal to all ke…

> I could never understand why Vi(m) or Emacs exists with those weird bindings which are completely different from pretty much everything else. Inertia, traditionalism, elitism, insider culture, ignorance, "good enough" mentality, blind spots, cargo culting, ... There's really no mystery here. The reasons are the same as in every other part of society where outdated conventions are maintained despite massive, obvious…

… or also because it’s significantly more productive than any other editor. But hey, it’s much easier for you to assume everyone making a choice for themselves is part of some cult than giving them the ability to think and make good choices.

Re: Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

#126

Post by wkat4242 »

p-e-w wrote: post #84
RhodesianHunter wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Every single modern operating system So something completely unattainable by a small dev team on a startup budget. Great! These are the standards by which we prevent any good things from being created.

You don't have to "develop" anything, you just have to follow the binding conventions for the platform(s). In practice, this simply means using Ctrl/Cmd+[LETTER/NUMBER] for everything, and the problem is solved.

Even that won't work everywhere. French keyboards have the numbers under shift (yeah really...)

Re: Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

#127

Post by doctor_eval »

p-e-w wrote: post #70

Looks like Nyxt, a browser "inspired by Vim", inherits Vim's showstopper bug: Being unusable on many non-US keyboards, at least with the default bindings. The 'switch-buffer-previous' command is bound to C-[, which cannot be pressed e.g. on QWERTZ layouts because the [ character requires AltGr. This is like sending around text files encoded in Windows-1252 and expecting things to just work. Sorry folks, but it turns…

> Sorry folks, but it turns out that the creators of Vi(m) didn't actually invent the ultimate UI paradigm half a century ago

I have been thinking the same for years. Some guys at work used to add Vim bindings to their IDE and I just didn’t understand it.

I used VI back in the day when the choice was vi or ed. It worked well given the constraints of a Wyse60 or VT100. But I was happy to leave it behind for X windows, a mouse, and modeless editing.

So today, 25 years after I learned VI because I had no choice, the idea that having Vi bindings makes a tool for “hackers” is just not something that resonates with me. I’m happy to discover I’m not the only one.

Re: Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

#128

Post by wkat4242 »

linmob wrote: post #119
p-e-w wrote: post #70

Looks like Nyxt, a browser "inspired by Vim", inherits Vim's showstopper bug: Being unusable on many non-US keyboards, at least with the default bindings. The 'switch-buffer-previous' command is bound to C-[, which cannot be pressed e.g. on QWERTZ layouts because the [ character requires AltGr. This is like sending around text files encoded in Windows-1252 and expecting things to just work. Sorry folks, but it turns…

Honestly, as a fellow QWERTZ-native, QWERTZ is generally a terrible layout for doing any programming in languages that go beyond round brackets. Instead have all these umlauts you rarely need, even in normal writing, right there - just a bad tradeoff. One might even argue that it's terrible for some other keyboard shortcuts, as they stop making sense: E.g., when Ctrl+Z is undo and Ctrl+X is redo, that makes perfect s…

Spanish keyboards, while QWERTY, are terrible for this too. All the special characters are in a weird place and many require modifiers.

While I live in Spain now I still use the US layout I'm used to from the Netherlands. It means I can't type the Spanish accents which are kinda important but anyway...

Re: Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

#129

Post by SanderNL »

p-e-w wrote: post #70

Looks like Nyxt, a browser "inspired by Vim", inherits Vim's showstopper bug: Being unusable on many non-US keyboards, at least with the default bindings. The 'switch-buffer-previous' command is bound to C-[, which cannot be pressed e.g. on QWERTZ layouts because the [ character requires AltGr. This is like sending around text files encoded in Windows-1252 and expecting things to just work. Sorry folks, but it turns…

Yes and calculators have the same issue. I mean, what about Indian numerals, Ethiopian and how does one perform a proper Coptic calculation using these awful devices with showstopping UX flaws?

It’s time we pander to each and every culture’s random conception of symbol manipulation and end this era of universal, gate-keeping, commonality. The time of personalized input devices is upon us.

Vim and thus this browser is unusable on my custom 20% HIQPK layout numpad.

Re: Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

#130

Post by chjj »

p-e-w wrote: post #70

Looks like Nyxt, a browser "inspired by Vim", inherits Vim's showstopper bug: Being unusable on many non-US keyboards, at least with the default bindings. The 'switch-buffer-previous' command is bound to C-[, which cannot be pressed e.g. on QWERTZ layouts because the [ character requires AltGr. This is like sending around text files encoded in Windows-1252 and expecting things to just work. Sorry folks, but it turns…

The road to hell is paved with UX research.
Post reply on HN