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Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

nyxt.atlas.engineer

131–140 of 262 posts

Re: Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

#131
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,…

What's key about vi is modal editing. Modal editing is very powerful. It also means not having to use the mouse for everything and also not having to type too many modifier key sequences. For some of us that's absolutely essential to avoid deviations that lead to injury.

Re: Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

#132
post #119
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…

If you’re using QWERTY as a QWERTZ-native, chances are you have a curious mind that won’t settle for the status quo.

Re: Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

#133
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…

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…

Modal editing exists because the mouse didn't exist then, and it continues to exist because modal editing is very powerful because you get to be in a mode where you type commands for cursor movements, textual transformations, etc., which allows power users to be very productive.

Re: Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

#134
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…

It's a pity that your negative, flame-baity comment is the top comment on this post.

Re: Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

#135
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Try the EN intl layout. Most of the accents are accessible using AltGr. Also the ¡ and ¿

Re: Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

#136
post #119
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…

Do you know how often I need umlauts if I want a proper variable name?

Re: Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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,…

What's key about vi is modal editing. Modal editing is very powerful. It also means not having to use the mouse for everything and also not having to type too many modifier key sequences. For some of us that's absolutely essential to avoid deviations that lead to injury.

I don’t really understand. Many of the common bindings in Vim use modifiers. How do you navigate back a word without a modifier? Do you just exit editing mode like in the old days? Do you just forgo this and arrow back?

In case it’s not clear from my tone, I’m totally sympathetic to relieving injury, and whatever works, works. I just don’t understand how Vim bindings help, and am genuinely curious.

Re: Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

#138
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Now, you can complain about gatekeeping, or you can set up more than one keyboard layout (I have yet to run into a reasonable OS or DE that does not allow for this), and switch around when it's appropriate.

Other ways to accomplish this would be coming up with macros or custom shortcuts (e.g., with one or more modifiers), to type the characters you don't have on an UK layout.

All of this is way easier to do than to fix all the 'bugs' in well established programs that have shortcuts that don't work or don't make sense on QWERTZ (or, to take it further, in the native language attached to that language - :wq should be :sb in German. ;-) )

My intention here was not to gatekeep, but to make the case/share my experience that when I first forced myself to use a different (UK [1]) keyboard layout and set my computer to English, many things that previously were cumbersome and hard to remember and did not really make sense, suddenly were easy to memorize and made perfect sense. It was almost life-changing!

Now: Should (1) it be this way, or should (2) internationalization/translation be way better? Certainly (2), but I just don't see it happen, neither in commercial (cost), nor in free (lack of contributors) software.

[1]: Don't do this, US international ISO is better: https://www.farah.cl/Keyboardery/A-Visual-Comparison-of-Diff...

Re: Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

#139
post #77
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardly sounds like either a bug or a showstopper when you can rebind any command

When a product is unusable without changing configuration, it absolutely is a bug. Being customizable is great, but being broken by default is not. Besides, the whole point of Vim bindings is supposed to be that they are the same everywhere (muscle memory yadda yadda yadda). When you have to change core bindings to something random to make them work, that whole idea falls apart, and you're probably better off using t…

> the whole point of Vim bindings is supposed to be that they are the same everywhere

No, the point is customizability to tweak it to your personal needs. Vim has the most flexible keybinding system I've seen in a program so far. If you want "same everywhere" any editor will do. I have never in my life seen anyone make this argument that one of the most customizeable editors is meant to be used without configuration.

> you're probably better off using the platform standard bindings for everything

Or maybe I use Vim exactly because it fits my workflow better than the standard that was designed for the average user as a series of historical accidents?

> When a product is unusable without changing configuration, it absolutely is a bug

It's not a bug, it's a design based on how 99% of input devices in the region it was created in work. Just like US electrical appliances that you can't just plug into European power sockets. And honestly you're blowing this way out of proportion, very few Vim keybindings are incompatible with QWERTZ keyboards. I know because I used Vim for years with a QWERTZ keyboard and never felt limited by that.

Re: Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

#140
post #5

You know what would be cool, if you could use unix cli tools in the browser. Press control+ , a small console box shows up and run: |grep ...|awk ... And the text of the document gets processed. But if you want to mess with the dom you could: Html.Body | sed ... | jq ...

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