Firefox without releasing the keyboard with Vimperator

Vimperor is a great plugin for Firefox that allows you to use a large number of commands that you are used to when using the text editor Vim.

Installation

The installation is to go to the website of this extension and we will also clone the repository of GitHub for some extensions we will use.

  1. Install the extension from your website.
  2. Clone the repository for the extensions:
    $ git clone github.com/vimpr/vimperator-plugins.git vimplug
  3. Create the .vimperatorrc file:
    $touch.vimperatorrc
  4. Create the .vimperator directory:
    $ mkdir .vimperator

Basic handling

Once the browser is restarted, we will know the basic handling.

To do scroll we will use the key combinations that the editor has Vim by default, this is:

  1. Up down : k/j
  2. Open link in current tab: Press f and write the number that appears above the desired link
  3. Open link in another tab in the background: Press F and write the number that appears above the desired link
  4. Change tab: CTRL - n y CTRL - p
  5. Go back / go forward in the history of the current tab: CTRL - or y CTRL - i
  6. View current downloads: : downloads Note: Open in the same tab
  7. Add a bookmark: A Note: Later we will learn a more complete way to do this
  8. Find a bookmark: : bmark Note: Idem

Configuration

We will start by adding a few lines to our .vimperatorrc file which is like Vim's .vimrc.

nnoremap l nnoremap h

Now we enter the command mode of vimperator and load our new configuration:

: source! ~ / .vimperatorrc

Tiny explanation

What we did now is map The key l to be able to change flap / tab to the right and the key h to the left.

The next thing we will do is edit the file to be able to quickly access the sites we visit the most:

Add the following:

 
silent qmark R http://cloud.feedly.com silent qmark g https://gmail.com silent qmark w https://wolframalpha.com silent qmark r http://reddit.com silent qmark or https: // outlook .com

Again we load our file with

: source! ~ / .vimperatorrc

We can practice the configuration by pressing the keys gnR and a new tab will open with the reader feeds.

But now that we can access Feedly without touching the mouse we find that we cannot use the keyboard shortcuts of said service.

To solve it we will use one of the scripts that we cloned previously, in particular, we will use libly.js. In order to use it, we follow these steps:

  1. $ cp vimplug / _libly.js .vimperator / plugin /
  2. Add the following line to the beginning of the .vimperatorrc file
    : source ~ / .vimperator / plugin_libly.js
  3. Add the following line to the .vimperatorrc file
    : lazy fmaps -u = 'cloud \ .feedly \ .com' m / r gm ga gg gl ovnp
  4. We reload the file with
    : source! ~ / .vimperatorrc

Now every time we access Feedly we can use the keyboard shortcuts that this page allows.

Finally, if the line that goes down every time we press j we can add the following to the .vimperatorrc file

nnoremap j 3j nnoremap k 3k

Now it will go down / up three lines.

To quickly move tabs we can add the following code to the .vimperatorrc file

nnoremap : tabmove! -1 nnoremap : tabmove! +1

Bookmarks / Favorites

Something that I use a lot when doing research or finding useful information is _favorites_.

But the fastest way to dial is CTRL - D or with Vimperator is pressing A, which only adds the link and its title so if a few weeks later we need this information we have to remember the title or the website.

To use the labels we press the key a and at the end of the line that comes out we write:

-tags Label1, Label2, etc

Now to perform the inverse function, we press

: bmarks -tags Label1

If we just put : bmarks we can put part of the title or the link.

Miscellaneous

We can also access the context menu using the key combination ;c, we select the link (pressed with the keyboard
the digit that overlaps the link) and we press ENTER.

Tile Tabs

Although, being able to switch between flaps / tabs (from now on, out of laziness, tabs) with only h y l it is very comfortable, it can be improved a little
plus. This, using the extension Tile tabs that allows you to separate a tab into several, as if it were Vim's vsplit.

Once the extension is installed, its basic use is simple:

  1. Clone and separate the current tab press CTRL + Arrow
  2. Create new tab and separate press shift + Arrow
  3. Move to a sub-tab we press Shift+CTRL+ Arrow
  4. Unite in a single tab the current one and the one on the right, press F12, to separate them F12 again
This article has been written in our forum by daa1494I just bring it here with some small edits in the text.

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  1.   RAW-Basic said

    Great! .. ..I love Vimperator, I have been using it for several months, replacing my previous Uzbl browser, which gave me functionality similar to this add-on ..

    I recommend that if you try it, you use it for a few weeks to get used to it, and then you will see how fast and intuitive it becomes .. 😀

    1.    eliotime3000 said

      Well, Uzbl is just as good, but it's already getting stale because the Webkit rendering engine is not being maintained.

  2.   ahdezzz said

    I've been using vimperator for about three months and it's great, too bad it's not available for Chrome / Chromium. By the way, when using Ubuntu, I ran into the problem that Firefox did not recognize most of the vimperator commands, and apparently the fault is the global menu, so the solution is to disable the global menu for Firefox, which It is done from about: config => ui.use_unity_menubar by right clicking on the latter and choosing TOGGLE.

    Finally, I would like to mention other very useful keyboard shortcuts:
    d: close tab.
    u: recover tab in case of having closed it by accident (very useful!)
    gg: Move to the top of the page.
    G: Move to the bottom of the page.
    /: Enter "search" mode

    Greetings and thank you very much for the publication, some things have helped me a lot.

  3.   scorponox said

    I use dwb a lot. For me the best of this type.

  4.   jlbaena said

    Well, I use pentadactyl, which is similar to vimperator.
    http://5digits.org/pentadactyl/

  5.   oscar said

    Ok butoo… Does anyone know how to 'go back' to the previous page when I navigate in Firefox? (on the same tab) such a basic thing that I used to do by pressing the backspace key…: - /

    Another thing, in gThumb: Who the hell came up with the "brilliant" idea of ​​placing the arrows to move to the next photo, one pointing up and the other down? (what were they thinking?). And the most basic thing in the world: Why can't I change photos simply by pressing the left and right cursors (something of a lifetime, as in all programs of this type).

    In Linux they need a designer!

    Regards, and thank you very much!

    1.    elav said

      1.- To go back with the Backspace key here you have how.

      2- It is true that many applications need a better design, but it is very generic to say that Linux needs a designer.

      1.    oscar said

        Elav, thank you very much indeed !! I just fixed it!

        People like you make a difference! Sorry for the comment-criticism from earlier.

        Thanks again 🙂

        1.    elav said

          You're welcome Oscar, that's what we're for 😀