If you use vim, you are probably one of the many who love their keyboard for more than their mouse. I love vim. My mouse seems to have collected some dust. However, there are still a few regular applications that I use in which having a mouse hasn’t been necessary, but I’m dragged to it anyway: the browser.
A friend of mine recently sent me a link to Vimperator … and my life has forever changed. I’ve longed to detach myself from the mouse. For almost a year now I’ve been using the most excellent Mouseless Browsing extension for Firefox. However, it wasn’t always enough. I still had to rely on the Firefox GUI for many operations or else rely on a combination of mouse and funky hot-keys. Vim, in contrast, discourages the use of the mouse and I’ve always found that to be a feature. I get more done with less reaching around, fewer “mistakes,” and better ergonomics. Why couldn’t a modern standards-compliant browser do that?
Well, now it can.
Thanks to Martin Stubenschrott for pioneering this effort and making my dreams come true!
(Now if only there was a more fluid way to navigate form elements… or even embed vim key-bindings into textareas.)