[HN Gopher] Show HN: Vimac - Productive macOS keyboard-driven na...
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Show HN: Vimac - Productive macOS keyboard-driven navigation
Author : dexterleng
Score : 244 points
Date : 2020-08-30 15:07 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (vimacapp.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (vimacapp.com)
| ivan888 wrote:
| Really want a way to have vi-mode input in all text inputs
| throughout the OS, hopefully that is a future possibility
| wavesplash wrote:
| You may know this already but emacs keys are supported in all
| text input areas on Mac. Carl-a (start of text), Carl-e (end of
| text) Carl-k (cut Text to end of line) Carl-y (yank/paste cut
| text) and many more.
| mkskm wrote:
| It's possible to customize these as well, see e.g.
| https://www.hcs.harvard.edu/%7Ejrus/Site/cocoa-text.html,
| http://www.deepsky.com/~misaka/MacOSX/DefaultKeyBinding.dict.
| narwally wrote:
| And the Mac kill ring is separate from the clipboard so that
| means you can have two things copied at once and insert them
| with separate keybindings. Unfortunately the kill ring only
| contains a single element, so has no history.
|
| some other useful ones are C-h/C-d (backwords/forwards
| delete), C-o (insert line), and the main Emacs movement keys
| C-n, C-p, C-b, C-f. Remapping Capslock to be a second Control
| makes using these regularly much more natural. Karabiner is a
| good app for easily remapping keys on macOS.
| mkskm wrote:
| This is the most promising project I've come across:
| https://github.com/glacambre/firenvim, although it only applies
| to the browser. The last time I tried it out it had some
| performance issues though.
| asjldkfin wrote:
| Love this app. Absolutely check it out if you are serious about
| keyboard navigation.
|
| The only suggestion I'd make is to have the cursor return to its
| old position after an action. But it's a minor nitpick.
| dexterleng wrote:
| I'm glad you like it!
|
| > cursor return to its old position after an action
|
| Will do!
| justnotworthit wrote:
| I've been using Shortcat for this and Amethyst for tiling. Glad
| to see another project. Anyone know Windows OS equivalents?
| rado wrote:
| Two letters appeared on a Safari tab, I typed them and nothing
| happened. Why?
| submeta wrote:
| Wow, seems phantastic. Love vimium in Firefox and all automation
| / keyboard remapping tools on the Mac (Keyboard Maestro, Alfred
| App, Karabiner Elements). Will definitely check this out.
| dexterleng wrote:
| Hello all! I am a student from Singapore who was introduced to
| Vimium by a friend two years ago. Vimac is my attempt to
| implement Vimium on an OS level.
|
| I have shared this app on Reddit about a year ago. Since then,
| the notable changes would be a major performance buff in
| webkit/electron, force keyboard layout, and reducing the
| overwhelming no. of hints to what is just "clickable".
|
| It is open source at https://github.com/dexterleng/vimac/.
|
| Do let me know if you have any questions!
| atsaloli wrote:
| Thank you!! Can't wait to try this out.
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| I don't know vim. If I get used to this, will I be halfway to
| knowing vim?
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| Nope. This is really just making your GUI work better with
| the keyboard. Editing text is fundamentally different than
| manipulating a graphical interface, so this doesn't mimic any
| vim functionality (with one exception: when this app is in
| scroll mode, you can use HJKL keys to scroll windows
| contents.)
| dexterleng wrote:
| It's very much like Vimium, which is nothing like Vim, so no.
| I see Vimium being referred to as "vim bindings" for chrome
| which I never got. Maybe someone could enlighten me on this.
| nchudleigh wrote:
| well i mean vimium implements a lot of similar bindings
| from com.
|
| navigation visual selection find scroll
| johne20 wrote:
| Great work! I am just trying it out, but realized it doesn't
| highlight links/buttons in Firefox. Is that outside the scope
| of this tool? If so, do you just suggest using Vimac in
| combination with Vimium?
| dexterleng wrote:
| It actually technically could support Firefox/chrome, but I
| have disabled it because enabling accessibility on chrome
| breaks window managers.
|
| Also vimium will always be faster than vimac due to how slow
| the accessibility API is.
|
| I would recommend using both for now.
| mkskm wrote:
| One missing piece worth noting is Vimium doesn't seem to
| support navigating preferences, bookmarks, etc. in Firefox
| or anything in the toolbar. Not sure if that is possible
| solely with the WebExtensions API.
| nikivi wrote:
| One issue I had with running this aside from it taking quite a
| lot of CPU is that when opening Discord, I'd always get a
| warning that I am using a screen reader.
|
| Was it solved in new versions?
| dexterleng wrote:
| > it taking quite a lot of CPU
|
| Yes that is fixed.
|
| The reason for slow performance + high cpu usage on
| electron/webkit apps was just the sheer amount of mach ipc
| calls (from the many many <div> layers) needed to be made to
| fetch the entire UI element tree.
|
| This has been fixed two days ago Heres the solution for those
| interested: https://github.com/dexterleng/vimac/pull/190
|
| I was also using a bunch of async queues instead of just a
| single NSThread which likely contributed to high cpu usage,
| and that has also been fixed.
|
| > warning that I am using a screen reader.
|
| Nope, you should get this warning, although it was a one time
| prompt for me. This is because Accessibility is opt-in for
| electron apps for performance reasons, and I have to ask for
| it through setting the AXManualAccessibility attribute (see h
| ttps://electronjs.org/docs/tutorial/accessibility#assistive..
| .), which I guess triggers the prompt.
| fny wrote:
| Why did you choose to use electron for something so
| specific to MacOS?
|
| Awesome project by the way. This will save my wrists from a
| lot of pain.
| hibiscus4156 wrote:
| > Why did you choose to use electron for something so
| specific to MacOS?
|
| I think you're mistaken. OP is referring to Discord as
| the webkit/electron app.
| messe wrote:
| I don't think they did. They're just talking about the
| high cpu usage when trying to navigate an electron app
| while using vimac.
| dexterleng wrote:
| The app is written in Swift, not Electron.
|
| Vimac had major performance issues previously when
| traversing the UI Element tree of Electron/Webkit apps.
| victoriasun wrote:
| I love this! As a colemak-dh user, is there a way to easily re-
| kebind hjkl?
| dexterleng wrote:
| Yes, you can do so!
| nchudleigh wrote:
| yes yes yes yes yes. can't wait to try this out. heavy vimium
| user
| mkskm wrote:
| This is great, thank you! Although, the name seems like a bit of
| a misnomer since there's not much in common with vim aside from
| the HJKL keys. It's more like EasyMotion or avy-mode.
| wakkaflokka wrote:
| I have been looking for something like this for a LONG time.
| Impressive! My ideal state is to be able to navigate anything and
| everything with VIM keybindings. Including the physical world :)
| steffan wrote:
| I'm sure there's a way to hack this into a Tesla
| RMPR wrote:
| I remember when you posted this on Reddit[0] very happy you
| continued to work on it. At one point I might even switch to
| macOS :)
|
| 0:
| https://reddit.com/r/vim/comments/dc95by/vimac_vimium_for_ma...
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| toptal wrote:
| Can someone please create this for Cubase, Logic, etc.
| stefanfisk wrote:
| I've been thinking about implementing something like this for
| years - it's great to see that someone actually went ahead and
| did it!
|
| The accessibility API is one thing that I really miss since
| mostly leaving macOS for Linux. Most apps support it in at least
| a rudimentary way, and it allows for a bunch of neat tricks.
| tkainrad wrote:
| Great job! Always amazing when a single person sees a problem and
| engineers the hell out of it.
|
| For everyone interested in efficient keyboard usage: You might
| enjoy KeyCombiner - a web app to organize, learn, and practice
| keyboard shortcuts.
|
| https://keycombiner.com/
| ndand wrote:
| Very handy!
|
| My right wrist used to pain a lot because of excessive mouse
| usage. I had tried out various keyboard-driven apps but I didn't
| find any app practical enough for my needs, so I made one.
|
| I'd like to share here my "generic" keyboard-driven navigation
| app for Windows:
|
| https://github.com/ndandoulakis/SlickCursor
| siproprio wrote:
| I really want a version of this for Windows as well!
| dmortin wrote:
| I wonder why people are downvoting you for asking for a windows
| version. Is everyone a mac user here?
| ziftface wrote:
| Would also love a gnome/linux version.
| dexterleng wrote:
| I have yet to try it out:
|
| https://github.com/zsims/hunt-and-peck
| tcoff91 wrote:
| This is incredible! wow!
| xenonite wrote:
| macOS 10.14 or later required. (Still on 10.11 here)
| Fang_ wrote:
| 10.12 reporting in. Wondering how hard it would be to backport
| this... I'm not too familiar with ~macdev.
| vivab0rg wrote:
| macOS 10.13 is the last macOS supported on my one and only
| Macbook Air 13" Mid-2011 :(
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(page generated 2020-08-30 23:00 UTC)