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Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

nyxt.atlas.engineer

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Re: Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

#201

Post by usrbinbash »

p-e-w wrote: post #77
muti wrote: 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…

> Besides, the whole point of Vim bindings is supposed to be that they are the same everywhere (muscle memory yadda yadda yadda).

No, the whole point of ViM bindings is that MY bindings are the same everywhere. That's why it's main config is a simple textfile that I can just `git clone` or `sftp` onto whatever machine I intend to spend more than a few seconds writing code on.

Which, incidentially, is something that is an absolute PITA, if it's possible at all with the more "modern" editors, or on the off chance it isn't a PITA, usually depends on some specific platforms offerings.

> Plus, you get the additional benefit that the software fits in with the rest of the system, rather than sticking out like a sore thumb.

Well, from my PoV, what with i3 desktop, vim in the terminal, and the browser being the only GUI application that I use regularly, vim seems to fit in pretty well with everything else.

Re: Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

#202

Post by usrbinbash »

dexterdog wrote: post #90
RhodesianHunter wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>When a product is unusable without changing configuration, it absolutely is a bug I don't think that adage applies when the target user is the average VIM user

But the average vim user is jumping to new instances often, so if he has to reconfigure it everywhere he might as well install a different editor with a config.

Lets see, how many commands does it take me to port my entire vim config to a new machine? Ah, right...one.

    git clone https://github.com/MY_USERNAME/vim.git
Not exactly what I'd call a difficult or time consuming method.

Re: Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

#203

Post by doctor_eval »

wander_homer wrote: post #196
doctor_eval wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Navigating back a word while in insert mode is just unnecessary. Speak for yourself! I do it all the time. Navigating by word is my primary means of moving through a line. Maybe that’s why I’m happy to be free of vi. It was my primary editor for at least 10 years. And I’m happy to see the back of it.

Can you provide a concrete example, like a piece of text with the current cursor position, the outcome you want to achieve and the sequence of shortcuts you're using to achieve that with your favorite text editor? > Navigating by word is my primary means of moving through a line. So how does your new editor do that more efficiently than pressing once, followed by pressing or once for each word?

Navigating by word is a matter of holding the Option key and pressing left or right arrow. Same number of keys, but works pretty much everywhere. The box used to enter this comment, for example.

Just to be super clear, I don’t care what other people do. Go nuts with vi bindings. I was just agreeing with what someone else said, that vi bindings aren’t peak UI and that “hacker” != “vi”

Re: Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

#204

Post by zamnos »

usrbinbash wrote: post #202
dexterdog wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the average vim user is jumping to new instances often, so if he has to reconfigure it everywhere he might as well install a different editor with a config.

Lets see, how many commands does it take me to port my entire vim config to a new machine? Ah, right...one. git clone https://github.com/MY_USERNAME/vim.git Not exactly what I'd call a difficult or time consuming method.

you missed the ~/.vim at the end

Re: Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

#205

Post by crabbone »

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…

As a long-time Emacs user who also occasionally uses Vi and very rarely Vim... but also knows a bunch of people who are in the later camp: nobody in that camp buys / uses "non-US" keyboards. Even on "US" keyboards, the amount of remapping a typical user does to their keys is significant.

In other words: you are complaining about a problem that doesn't exist. Users who want Vim / Emacs experience don't want keyboards that don't work well with their editor of choice. They will not be in a situation where they have to adjust their editor to the keyboard layout. If there's a mismatch, then the keyboard will be adjusted, not the editor.

Now, I'm not sure how Vi(m) users handle other written languages, but since I every now and then have to write in two non-Latin languages, in Emacs, I keep buffers for those languages with input method set accordingly. However, say, I need to write in Cyrillic, I still use the en_US modified QUERTY layout that I use for everything else + phonetic transliteration into Cyrillic. This is both easier for touch-typing, as I don't have to memorize several different layouts, and this method makes more letters easily available than there would've been on a physical keyboard.

So... no. don't stop incorporating Emacs / Vi key usage into new products. It works great.

Also:

> ignores the past few decades of UX research

Except there was none. Unless you mean it in the same way how for some reason people who make HTML pages call themselves "UX developers". What happened is that big companies wanted to sell products that looked "impressive", but offered worse user experience overall. This is how MSVS, Eclipse, and similar happened. There's literally no UX research on how people deal with typing text into computers. Whereas in practice, what I see is that people who use "visual" tools just suck at writing text. And, myself, having worked with both "visual" editors and Emacs / Vi, I would literally refuse a job position if I had to work with VSCode / IntelliJ products.

Re: Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

#206

Post by crabbone »

trinix912 wrote: post #142
SanderNL wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Remember that most European keyboards don't have [ and ] accessible on the first/second level. That's already half of the western civilization, not some random's custom layout.

I live in Europe and buy my Chinese-made keyboards from Amazon, US. In the company I work for, I have not seen a single keyboard with "European" layout. People who buy those keyboards aren't people who need to be good at using their editor, while on the other hand, people who want to be good at using their editor will buy a keyboard that works well with it.

Keyboard is a one-time investment of 20-200 Euro, but learning to use your editor efficiently is an investment of years of your life... amplified by the fact that there aren't that many good editors. So, any person who needs to work with the editor on a daily basis will have to make a choice between buying a keyboard that works well with that editor or a keyboard that allows them to type Euro / Pound sign more easily... And nobody in this situation is going to choose the keyboard that doesn't work well with the editor.

Re: Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

#207

Post by crabbone »

p-e-w wrote: post #86
TheRoque wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious about what "decades of UX research" improvements you are talking about, to me everything about the UI for text editors or browsers hasn't improved much in decades. If you have a laptop with just a touchpad, chances are you'll never get better than vim keybindings. Moreover, the keyboard layouts themselves are centuries old.

> I'm curious about what "decades of UX research" improvements you are talking about Here's the most important one of them: Don't surprise me. Blend in. Look and behave like other programs. There are 50 applications on my system. Yours is one of them. If all other applications use 'Ctrl+C' for copying text, but your application uses 'y', then your application is the problem.

> Don't surprise me.

How's this a "research"? It's just about you, your attitude, your lack of experience with computers...

Why should anyone take seriously claims coming from someone who didn't even bother to learn to use the thing they claim to have bad user experience?

Re: Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

#208

Post by wander_homer »

doctor_eval wrote: post #203
wander_homer wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide a concrete example, like a piece of text with the current cursor position, the outcome you want to achieve and the sequence of shortcuts you're using to achieve that with your favorite text editor? > Navigating by word is my primary means of moving through a line. So how does your new editor do that more efficiently than pressing once, followed by pressing or once for each word?

Navigating by word is a matter of holding the Option key and pressing left or right arrow. Same number of keys, but works pretty much everywhere. The box used to enter this comment, for example. Just to be super clear, I don’t care what other people do. Go nuts with vi bindings. I was just agreeing with what someone else said, that vi bindings aren’t peak UI and that “hacker” != “vi”

No, you suggested that leaving insert mode to navigate by words is somehow less efficient (since navigating by word is your primary way to navigate in lines) and that maybe that's why you're happy you stopped using vi.

Now we found out that leaving insert mode to navigate by words requires the "same number of keys", so @gsinclair was right and it is unnecessary to stay in insert mode for navigation.

> Same number of keys, but works pretty much everywhere. The box used to enter this comment, for example.

If efficient word navigation was the only thing vim key bindings had to offer I wouldn't be using them. But they do offer many things the current text box does not offer and since (as a programmer) I'm spending 95% of my time in an IDE and not some browser text box, I'll gladly accept some inconsistencies if that means editing and navigating in my IDE becomes more pleasant.

Re: Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

#209

Post by crabbone »

can16358p wrote: post #103
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…

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've been programmer for about 20 years now and I could never understand

I doubt there's any hope for you... but from other thing you said:

> are completely different from pretty much everything else.

I can conclude that you were programming something that's not a typical modern computer. I.e. you never used things like terminal (with readline), never red a manpage, never used pagers like more / less, which would mean that you also never used the most popular operating system in the world, where, for instance, if you need to get access to its service logs, they'd open in a pager...

I mean... was it like 20 years of Scratch programming on a game console or something? Or maybe COBOL on a MF? Like, what were you doing all these 20 years that kept you so far away from the most popular thing in the world?

Re: Nyxt: The Hacker's Browser

#210

Post by n8henrie »

mikrl wrote: post #53
n8henrie wrote: post #52

Wasn't this just posted last week? And recently before that as well? I remember checking it out, being disappointed about its not-great availability for MacOS, and thinking that I should learn lisp.

> thinking that I should learn lisp There was a programming language taxonomy thread posted a few weeks ago and I seriously think if you want to ‘git gud’ you should dabble in all of the families. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35813496 When you see how to implement a REPL in Lisp, it will blow your mind.

Thanks, I'll check it out!
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