Firefox: non-Vimperator way to do mouseless browsing?
- by Peter Mortensen
Is it possible to do efficient browsing with Firefox using
only the keyboard (like in Opera)?
By efficient I mean something faster than using TAB - this
takes far too long. The arrow keys should be for navigation
(in Opera it is Shift + arrow key). It can done with the
Vimperator add-on, but isn't there a simpler way?
Update 2: the closest to Opera's way is to enable caret
navigation (F7 toggles this mode). It doesn't
jump between links so it is a little bit slower, but the
normal navigation (arrow keys, page up, page
down, etc.) works and the focus/caret/cursor follows
(in contrast to a text editor for page up/down). And text
can be selected and copied like in a text editor.
The biggest drawback is that in practice it is necessary to
switch in and out of caret mode. And there is no indication
of which mode is currently active.
Update 1: a work-around (proposed by several but is not
really what I am looking for) can be used if 3 settings are
changed (to make it practical). After these changes the
first few letters of a link text can be typed and that link
will selected so pressing Enter will open it.
Using the work-around the screen will jump around if it is a
long page as it does not restrict itself to the current
visible page, but it is usable.
First settings change:
menu Tools/Options/Advanced/tab General/Accessibility/Search for text when I start typing
Turn this option on.
Second settings change: set option to only go to links; in address
bar enter:
about:config
followed by Enter. Then: press "I'll be careful,
I promise", find the line
accessibility.typeaheadfind.linksonly, select it and
change the value to True by either hitting Enter or
Shift+F10/Toggle (accessibility.typeaheadfind.linksonly is
on line 11 when I tried).
Third settings change: turn off case-sensitivity. Set
accessibility.typeaheadfind.casesensitive to 0 (same
procedure as for accessibility.typeaheadfind.linksonly, see
above. When Enter is pressed a dialog box will appear with
the current value. Type 0 and press Enter).
To use: type some part of the link. If there are several
possibilities use Ctrl+G (or F3)
to jump between them. Use Ctrl+Enter to
open in a new tab.
Platform: Firefox 3.0.6, Windows XP 64 bit SP2.
