Arch Philosophy/Structure Applied to a Browser

monovibe · 2009-03-19 20:10:26

Thou I am not proficient at vim, I am a happy user of vimperator on firefox here . But then I wouldn't mind lighter browser options could carry such an addon. I might learn a bit more about w3m but currently I am too addicted to the vimperator keybindings :] Guess the current awesome + 'vimperated' firefox would stay on my destop for a while.

Stefan Husmann · 2009-03-20 10:42:34

conkeror ise mainly keyboard driven (but more emacs-like than vi-like), extensible throug javascript.

ludovico · 2009-03-29 10:54:27

Not that I really have anything to add, but I just don't want this topic to die like that...

Any news on vi keybindings for Opera, for example? Myself I use vimperator, but I find firefox
way slower than opera

edit: I know there is an Opera config that provides similiar behaviour, but it is't nearly as good as Vimperator...

Last edited by ludovico (2009-03-29 10:59:01)

cmb · 2009-03-30 00:38:09

I use a text-mode web browser called edbrowse:
http://edbrowse.sourceforge.net/
It is a reimplementation of /bin/ed, containing an integrated browser and
mail client.
Form fields are rendered with angle brackets (< ... >), and hyperlinks
are rendered in curly braces.
I can post to forums like this one, edit the Arch wiki,
and do all sorts of other web activities without trouble.

ludovico · 2009-03-30 15:13:16

Wow, I had a look at edbrowse, and it looks painful to use... I will try it though, did it take you long to learn?

cmb · 2009-03-30 15:44:36

I started using it in 2001. I think I spent an hour or two learning the
basics. I was already proficient with /bin/ed.

Procyon · 2009-04-13 17:50:28

cmb wrote:

I started using it in 2001. I think I spent an hour or two learning the
basics. I was already proficient with /bin/ed.

Do you have scripts to share?

thisllub · 2009-04-14 21:27:24

finferflu wrote:

I think the problem lays in the page layout, and in the fact that we call web-pages, in fact, "pages".
The problem lays in the design, in the page paradigm. I think in computing it is wrong to try to reproduce what is there in the "material" world. And I think we should go back to "text" rather than "page" Dealing with text is much more flexible than dealing with a page. You could use such text to do all sorts of things, and it surely could be keyboard driven (a mouse for me is the paradigm for the human finger, or hand, so that's wrong too). This way one should not bother with page layout anymore, and a web-page would merely be a collection of information to be processed by whatever application. No more web browsers, no more "one-application-does-everything", and we could finally go back to the Unix spirit...
Now, how to put that into practice? That's the real question.

I know this post is a month old but it has come back to life.
I was watching a friend use an iPhone yesterday and I think portable devices are leading the UI paradigm now and larger systems will follow.

Tactile responses aside I think the ideal input device will be a modal touchpad that can take on the form of the screen display.

Highly configurable modes could allow switching between a keyboard representation and a positioning device.
Gestures like the 'pinch' used on the iphone could change the screen dynamically.

"Pages" are an expression of art just as a canvas is. I think there will always be a place for them.

Procyon · 2009-04-14 22:19:42

@thisllub: can you go into further detail?

jumzi · 2009-04-14 23:50:57

Please! Let's all migrate to plan 9, set up a network, then we develop a gui webrowser and something more good-looking/usable the rio! *druul*

thisllub · 2009-04-15 00:33:07

Procyon wrote:

@thisllub: can you go into further detail?

The iPhone has some clever gestures that make such a small screen quite usable. It also has a touch screen.
Imagine your keyboard was a touch screen that was modal like Vim.
With a gesture you could go from a pointer to a keyboard to a customised set of controls for a music player and so on.
In many ways the keyboard would be replaced with an interface that was specific to the task yet with a gesture the keyboard would be there.
The mouse would be completely redundant.
And not a moment too soon.

pauldonnelly · 2009-04-15 06:54:36

thisllub wrote:

Procyon wrote:
@thisllub: can you go into further detail?
The iPhone has some clever gestures that make such a small screen quite usable. It also has a touch screen.
Imagine your keyboard was a touch screen that was modal like Vim.
With a gesture you could go from a pointer to a keyboard to a customised set of controls for a music player and so on.
In many ways the keyboard would be replaced with an interface that was specific to the task yet with a gesture the keyboard would be there.
The mouse would be completely redundant.
And not a moment too soon.

Sounds good except for the part where I have to type on a touch screen. The mouse can go, but my keyboard stays.

thisperishedmin · 2009-04-15 12:31:36

I actually like the idea your suggesting...I had an iphone for a period and was always impressed by the way safari would interact. It was by no means as fast as a keyboard and mouse + firefox + vimperator....but it was incredibly effective. Much more so than opera mobile or anything else on the market.

With simple home "bumps" (like a keyboard has now...) and a bit of a "learning function" to accomodate hand size and reach, I would have NO problem transitioning to a "flat multitouch" keyboard. I could actually see that I would gain some speed as a typist. Believe it or not, I could text faster with an iphone than i can my hard keyboard on my ATT Fuze/HTC Touch Pro.

Part of why I've come to love vimperator on firefox is that it takes you out of the traditional paradigms of usage / web browsing. arguably, it takes away modern traditions and replaces it with even older traditions...but i dont mind - its just more efficient as a user.

It would be nice to see a browser built up around those kinds of concepts - but sadly - I havent the skills or time to begin. If anyone ever does I'd be a happy alpha and beta tester though haha

peets · 2009-04-15 12:59:10

pauldonnelly wrote:

Sounds good except for the part where I have to type on a touch screen. The mouse can go, but my keyboard stays.

Search the web for "haptic touchscreen" or some such. "Textured" displays are on their way.

Dieter@be · 2009-04-15 18:04:16

well, nothing beats the "feedback" your fingers get from a real keyboard. also I don't see why doing a gesture to change modes would be any better then using the many (modifier) keys a keyboard has.
A real hardware keyboard may be old and not fancy, but until we have computers that can read your mind, it's imho the fastest way to get a variety of "commands"/information out of your body, into the computer.

mienensuchkind · 2009-04-15 19:28:05

Dieter@be wrote:

A real hardware keyboard may be old and not fancy, but until we have computers that can read your mind, it's imho the fastest way to get a variety of "commands"/information out of your body, into the computer.

True words man! I always get scared when i hear some peoples proficys about new input-devices and keyboards dying out. Or that the internet transforms into a bloody 3d-World.
I swear, this is not gonna happen as long as i live.

thisllub · 2009-04-15 21:10:54

Dieter@be wrote:

well, nothing beats the "feedback" your fingers get from a real keyboard. also I don't see why doing a gesture to change modes would be any better then using the many (modifier) keys a keyboard has.
A real hardware keyboard may be old and not fancy, but until we have computers that can read your mind, it's imho the fastest way to get a variety of "commands"/information out of your body, into the computer.

A keyboard is certainly the fastest way to get a lot of information into a computer but speed and accuracy aren't the same thing.
I doubt that anybody but hard core users would ever use Vimperator even though I think it is the greatest invention since the browser.
I design software and spend a lot of time sitting with users watching how they interact with systems and I think the mouse is hard wired into their brains.
It is confounding to watch a 100wpm typist use a mouse to move from field to field even though she has been taught that Enter or Tab is more efficient.

An input device like the one I have described would allow software to display an input device that for example, restricted input to numbers or alpha, spread list items all over it for a one touch choice, showed a previous / next field button or allowed 2 handed mouse techniques like resizing objects and the pinch style zoom gestures on the iPhone as well as a straight touch screen interface.

In my first post I questioned the difference in tactile response with a conventional keyboard but this wouldn't be a replacement for a keyboard for those that need a keyboard.
Computer based devices are converging in capability but packaging constraints have changed the way that a UI is designed.

I think there is still a long way to go.

Last edited by thisllub (2009-04-15 21:11:27)

thisperishedmin · 2009-04-17 13:19:16

thisllub wrote:

It is confounding to watch a 100wpm typist use a mouse to move from field to field even though she has been taught that Enter or Tab is more efficient.

watching this always leads me to weeping and gnashing of teeth haha. its mind boggling how many people do just that...

Your suggestion for a device is intriguing, and I think that provides the leg up on touchscreen only that may make it acceptable to a greater crowd.

I still maintain that I could happily exist with a "modal" touchscreen unit, approximately keyboard in size...unfortunately, I dont see it ever existing. haha

cmb · 2009-04-18 03:18:55

Procyon wrote:

Do you have scripts to share?

Most of the scripts I have written for it tend to be rather
ephemeral. Programmatically scraping info from web pages isn't always
rewarding, because page layouts change regularly.
OTOH, http://aur.archlinux.org/ is a very good candidate for some edbrowse
scripts, because the layout is really stable.

leo2501 · 2009-04-19 12:16:49

well, i started using vimperator, but i feel i have other idea in mind, first i dont like the extra 2 lines at the bottom, one for the address and the other for commands, because i'm used to use fullscreen (F11) in firefox when im looking at a page (msi wind - 10 inch screen) so the two lines at the bottom did make a difference, so im dreaming this... firefox like links -g

- in firefox i can CTRL+T to open a new tab, and CTRL+w to close it
- in links i press "s" and i access a little popup with the bookmark manager
- in links i press "g" and i have the address bar, not ":open URL" like vimperator
- in links i can "go back" and follow a link with the left/right arrow keys, not ":1ba" or something like that

So, all i want is firefox with
- no buttons
- no address bar
- no bookmarks toolbar
- my little tabs at the top, clickeable
- all my bookmarks pressing "s"
- an address bar pressing "g"
- max screen usage for the web page

maybe you vimperator users point me in configuring vimperator this way cause i cant find any .vimperatorrc config file, or how to create one

&#32 Greg · 2009-04-19 16:39:34

Leo, that sounds like conkeror... give it a download.

finferflu · 2009-04-19 17:22:04

leo2501 wrote:

well, i started using vimperator, but i feel i have other idea in mind, first i dont like the extra 2 lines at the bottom, one for the address and the other for commands, because i'm used to use fullscreen (F11) in firefox when im looking at a page (msi wind - 10 inch screen) so the two lines at the bottom did make a difference, so im dreaming this... firefox like links -g
- in firefox i can CTRL+T to open a new tab, and CTRL+w to close it
- in links i press "s" and i access a little popup with the bookmark manager
- in links i press "g" and i have the address bar, not ":open URL" like vimperator
- in links i can "go back" and follow a link with the left/right arrow keys, not ":1ba" or something like that
So, all i want is firefox with
- no buttons
- no address bar
- no bookmarks toolbar
- my little tabs at the top, clickeable
- all my bookmarks pressing "s"
- an address bar pressing "g"
- max screen usage for the web page
maybe you vimperator users point me in configuring vimperator this way cause i cant find any .vimperatorrc config file, or how to create one

Use the "map" command (from Vimperator just type :help map). For example, to bind the "s" key to show your bookmarks, you just do:

:map s :bmarks<CR>

You can put this in your .vimperatorrc to make it persistent

EDIT:
Apart from custom keybindings, Vimperator pretty much statisfies all you listed. By default you don't even get the scrollbars, in order to maximise screen estate.
In order to access the "location bar" (in quotes because everything is managed from the commands bar), you just press "o". You can even get Awesome Bar style suggestions by adding the following in your .vimperatorrc:

set wildoptions=auto
set cpt=l

leo2501 · 2009-04-19 17:41:55

Well for now im very happy with my newly configured vimperator

to get rid of the bottom code bar and show when i tipe ":" i download maine_coon.js and _libly.js plugins into ~/.vimperator/plugin folder, from here http://coderepos.org/share/browser/lang … ne_coon.js

my ~/.vimperatorrc

"2.0 (created: 2009/03/28 23:48:07)
set runtimepath=/home/aleyscha/.vimperator

source! ~/.vimperatorrc.local

" vim: set ft=vimperator:

set showstatuslinks=2
set history=0

set! browser.tabs.closeButtons=2
set! browser.tabs.loadBookmarksInBackground=true
set! browser.tabs.loadDivertedInBackground=true
set wildoptions=auto
set cpt=l

noremap s :bmarks<CR>
noremap <C-Left> <C-p>
noremap <C-Right> <C-n>
noremap <Left> <C-o>
noremap <Right> <C-i>

thankyou guys!

Last edited by leo2501 (2009-04-19 17:44:38)

Dieter@be · 2009-04-19 18:09:44

I really like the unix philosophy, and I like simple storage backends which you can easily version/merge/synchronize. (eg plaintext)
I was thinking about a browser we could write with these principles. Let's call it foo for now

- each instance of foo renders 1 page (eg it's a small wrapper around webkit), no tabbing, tab previews, or speed dial things. we have window managers for that.
- 1 control application (lets call it fooctrl). use this to modify the behavior of a foo instance (change url, refresh). use xdotool to get the window with focus. eg fooctrl -win <id> -url <http://>. obviously the foo instances listen to basic signals too so you can use sigterm, sighup, sigusr1, sigusr2 ,... for common operations. (maybe refresh and back for usr1 and usr2)
- no keyboard shortcuts builtin.. use xbindkeys to bind keys to call fooctrl.
- no bookmark management builtin. make your own solution. for pulling a bookmark a plaintxt-based program using dmenu would work great here. combine with footcrl and xbindkeys. fooctrl should support an option to query the current page so you can script something to add to your bookmarks. use zenity or something to add tags.
- similarl story for history.
- no ad blocking built in. use the power of /etc/hosts. though fooctrl should support an option to list all images on a page, so you can easily pick the links to ads to add them to your /etc/hosts. (dmenu can again be great here to automate this)
- no download manager. allow user to pick wget/curl/a custom script/...

- etc...

ludovico · 2009-04-19 23:59:59

Dieter@be: Are you planning to write that program? I am no programmer, but
I would love to see that program realized, it sounds fantastic!

Arch Linux

#26 2009-03-19 20:10:26

Re: Arch Philosophy/Structure Applied to a Browser

#27 2009-03-20 10:42:34

Re: Arch Philosophy/Structure Applied to a Browser

#28 2009-03-29 10:54:27

Re: Arch Philosophy/Structure Applied to a Browser

#29 2009-03-30 00:38:09

Re: Arch Philosophy/Structure Applied to a Browser

#30 2009-03-30 15:13:16

Re: Arch Philosophy/Structure Applied to a Browser

#31 2009-03-30 15:44:36

Re: Arch Philosophy/Structure Applied to a Browser

#32 2009-04-13 17:50:28

Re: Arch Philosophy/Structure Applied to a Browser

#33 2009-04-14 21:27:24

Re: Arch Philosophy/Structure Applied to a Browser

#34 2009-04-14 22:19:42

Re: Arch Philosophy/Structure Applied to a Browser

#35 2009-04-14 23:50:57

Re: Arch Philosophy/Structure Applied to a Browser

#36 2009-04-15 00:33:07

Re: Arch Philosophy/Structure Applied to a Browser

#37 2009-04-15 06:54:36

Re: Arch Philosophy/Structure Applied to a Browser

#38 2009-04-15 12:31:36

Re: Arch Philosophy/Structure Applied to a Browser

#39 2009-04-15 12:59:10

Re: Arch Philosophy/Structure Applied to a Browser

#40 2009-04-15 18:04:16

Re: Arch Philosophy/Structure Applied to a Browser

#41 2009-04-15 19:28:05

Re: Arch Philosophy/Structure Applied to a Browser

#42 2009-04-15 21:10:54

Re: Arch Philosophy/Structure Applied to a Browser

#43 2009-04-17 13:19:16

Re: Arch Philosophy/Structure Applied to a Browser

#44 2009-04-18 03:18:55

Re: Arch Philosophy/Structure Applied to a Browser

#45 2009-04-19 12:16:49

Re: Arch Philosophy/Structure Applied to a Browser

#46 2009-04-19 16:39:34

Re: Arch Philosophy/Structure Applied to a Browser

#47 2009-04-19 17:22:04

Re: Arch Philosophy/Structure Applied to a Browser

#48 2009-04-19 17:41:55

Re: Arch Philosophy/Structure Applied to a Browser

#49 2009-04-19 18:09:44

Re: Arch Philosophy/Structure Applied to a Browser

#50 2009-04-19 23:59:59

Re: Arch Philosophy/Structure Applied to a Browser

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