vimperator alternatives?

cardinals_fan · 2008-11-19 04:10:26

I've become addicted to vimperator, the Firefox extension that adds keyboard control with vimish bindings. However, I still don't like Firefox. It's too slow and buggy. I've tried conkeror, which showed promise, but all the Control-based keybindings are slow for someone with small hands. I much prefer vim-style shortcuts, both for familiarity and easy access.

Has anyone found a good way to navigate another browser with just the keyboard?

thayer · 2008-11-19 05:21:53

Opera is highly configurable with the keyboard--so much so that someone has attempted to build a vimperator-like setup. A google search should bring up a blog or two about it.

cardinals_fan · 2008-11-19 05:31:39

thayer wrote:

Opera is highly configurable with the keyboard--so much so that someone has attempted to build a vimperator-like setup. A google search should bring up a blog or two about it.

Vimperopera (as described at http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=52695 and the linked blog) doesn't work for me. I download the file, select it in advanced preferences (in Opera 9.6x from the Arch repos), and nothing happens. I'd be happy to use Opera (an old favorite of mine), although the static? Qt version in the repos is pretty horrendous looking.

mentallaxative · 2008-11-19 05:35:52

I have altered Conkeror to use Vim-like shortcuts. It is lighter than Firefox but I have not been able to install Flashbook on it, and there is no obvious way I know of saving images from a page without going to its path. (I can't save wallpapers from customize.org.) Bookmark deletion also hasn't been implemented yet. Still, the Conkeror developers have added some neat touches, such as a special mode for xkcd where the tooltips are displayed below the comic, as Conkeror does not display tooltips itself.

The vim config for Opera is okay, but its implementation of hints mode is a bit hackish and doesn't highlight as many links as Vimperator does. My personal preference is Conkeror.

cardinals_fan · 2008-11-19 05:37:58

mentallaxative wrote:

I have altered Conkeror to use Vim-like shortcuts. It is lighter than Firefox but I have not been able to install Flashbook on it, and there is no obvious way I know of saving images from a page without going to its path. (I can't save wallpapers from customize.org.) Bookmark deletion also hasn't been implemented yet. Still, the Conkeror developers have added some neat touches, such as a special mode for xkcd where the tooltips are displayed below the comic, as Conkeror does not display tooltips itself.
The vim config for Opera is okay, but its implementation of hints mode is a bit hackish and doesn't highlight as many links as Vimperator does. My personal preference is Conkeror.

I read (and commented) on your blog post regarding Vimperator alternatives. If you wouldn't mind sharing, I'd love to test out your conkeror modifications. I tried something similar in .conkerorrc but ended up trashing things

Last edited by cardinals_fan (2008-11-19 05:38:11)

mentallaxative · 2008-11-19 06:36:41

cardinals_fan wrote:

I read (and commented) on your blog post regarding Vimperator alternatives. If you wouldn't mind sharing, I'd love to test out your conkeror modifications. I tried something similar in .conkerorrc but ended up trashing things

I am (highly) ashamed to say that I also was not able to get Conkeror to work properly with a local configuration at .conkerorrc and I simply backed up my installation of Conkeror and made my modifications directly to /usr/share/conkeror. Very bad practice, I know, but at least I have everything backed up.

I'll just tell you what I did anyway. The majority of customisations go to /modules.

modukes/hints.js -- colour of hints and auto-exit delays
modules/mime.js -- determines what default programs open what files
modules/webjump.js -- Conkeror's webjump; it's like a quick search function but I rarely use it. I added some functions to search Arch but I have never used it

modules/bindings/default/basic-commands.js -- defines your shortcuts for scrolling. Set j,k,h,l and C-f and C-b here. The second function bind_selection_keys has to do with copying and pasting from the clipboard, though honestly I don't understand it very well and have just left it alone and used the default Conkeror keys C-insert (copy) and S-insert (paste).

modules/bindings/default/global.js -- defines the shortcut for quitting, closing a window (called kill-current-buffer), moving to the next/previous window (buffer-previous and buffer-next), and searching (on the bottom, called i-search forward and i-search backward for searching backwards and forwards). There are other shortcuts you can modify, but I have just listed the ones I changed.

/modules/bindings/default/universal-argument.js -- defines the key for universal argument. My most common use of this key is to open another buffer by pressing p and then o. (o is my open-url-in-current-buffer key). It does a few other things as well but I can't remember or don't use them. Just remember what it is in case you need it.

/modules/bindings/default/content-buffer/normal.js -- has keys for back, forward, stop, reload, next/previous page (the ]] and [[ in Vimperator), and opening url in current buffer.

Other settings:

/components/application.js -- defines your home page
/content/hints.css -- defines the font, fontsize and padding of hints. The /content folder generally holds the css customisations for conkeror.

I am not using the latest version of Conkeror, so these may have changed. The settings should not be too hard to read or understand; if they are, just alter them a bit and open Conkeror to see what happens. I have to say though, hacking Conkeror's settings is less frustrating than modifying keyboard.ini for Opera.

If you want to start Conkeror up a bit faster, set your login script to execute conkeror --daemon. It loads some of Conkeror into your memory, I think.

Oh yes, C-h b displays all your shortcuts. Very handy. Remember the 'c' and 's' keys--'c' allows you to copy the addresses of links; type 'c 0' to copy the link of the current page. 's' allows you to save content--'s 0' saves your current page.

cardinals_fan · 2008-11-20 02:25:10

Thanks for the info. I'm considering my options and will post once I've made a decision.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-11-19 04:10:26

vimperator alternatives?

#2 2008-11-19 05:21:53

Re: vimperator alternatives?

#3 2008-11-19 05:31:39

Re: vimperator alternatives?

#4 2008-11-19 05:35:52

Re: vimperator alternatives?

#5 2008-11-19 05:37:58

Re: vimperator alternatives?

#6 2008-11-19 06:36:41

Re: vimperator alternatives?

#7 2008-11-20 02:25:10

Re: vimperator alternatives?

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