6 ms·

If you're really looking to do something strange, you could ditch the mouse all togeter. That's what I've done on one of my laptops. For some reason when i fir

by howeyc 11y ago

If you're really looking to do something strange, you could ditch the mouse all togeter. That's what I've done on one of my laptops. For some reason when i first set it up the touchpad didn't work, and need some driver or something. Instead of fixing it like a normal person, I said to me self "just go with it". I found a browser (qutebrowser) that works by using just the keyboard, and use tmux/vim and other terminal apps for everything else. The scrolling in the browser highlighted weird stuff (since the mouse cursor was always in the middle of the screen), but once I found a way to set the cursor to the top-left of the screen when X starts (a command in .xinitrc), no more issue. I still have a minor issue every once and while. Sometimes i'll browse around and see a code snippit, or just some text I'd like to copy-paste, or a link with a url I'd like to copy and I'm not sure how. That's really been my only downside of going mouse-free.

branchless 11y ago
I use keyboard as much as possible but find for things like flash one needs to click. Would you mind sharing your xinit snippit to set cursor location? BTW my browsing experience with keyboard only is made largely painless by chrome with vimium. You can also select and yank text with this.
- tetraodonpuffer 11y ago
  not the OP, but xdotool mousemove x y should work
- nazri1 11y ago
  Checkout keynav, from the same author of xdotool, Jordan Sissel, pretty cool dude.
- dave2000 11y ago
  Why might someone need flash? (That was literally the last thing i was expecting in a discussion on HN about why someone might need a mouse!)
  - rjayatilleka 11y ago
    Some sites only use Flash like Crunchyroll or Quia for DRM purposes (and lack of technical chops)
- farrelle25 11y ago
  On Lubuntu: When I get stuck on Flash I use the following script bound to a key (Ctrl+shift+l in my case): #!/bin/bash # Activate Firefox window wmctrl -a "Mozilla Firefox" # Move cursor to specified position xdotool mousemove 250 50 # Send a mouse click (left click) xdotool click --repeat 2 1
baldfat 11y ago
That's what i3 does as the previous poster showed. My i3 is 100% mouse free. dmenu is the launcher <ctl d> type name <return> everything with a tiled window manager is first class short cuts. Browser use a plug in with vim bindings and everything is a short cut also :) > just some text I'd like to copy-paste command line to browser - xclip is your friend to go from browser to command line - <ctl c> text in browser then <shift insert> to console (Normally)
- platform 11y ago
  This very useful info for me as well. I have periodic pains in my neck when using mouse for too much. I have been switching hands. But still. I much prefer emacs-like interface where I can operate with keyboard only. And I like shells because I can connect from anywhere to the server where I do most dev and testing. However, I recently started doing android development and and I am forced to leave my emacs and shells. One reason is the running the emulator. It cannot run on remote x window sessions and I have to use mouse to access it. The other reason is AndroidStudio. Although I use emacs with flymaker, as a newcomer to Android -- I find Android Studio's tools to do code refactoring, on the fly suggestions, detection of new versions of updates, very useful.
  - thedaemon 11y ago
    "Mouse shoulder" is the bane of my existence. I also swap hands and try to use keyboard shortcuts as much as possible.
- kohlerm 11y ago
  how do you copy from a terminal buffer to another window? tmux allows selection without a mouse, but I agree with others that tmux tries to do too many things at the same time and I would therefore like to have a simple solution for this.
tingol 11y ago
I go mostly mouseless by choice. Since I can move the mouse I have no need for the pointer lock but I use unclutter a small utility that makes the mouse disappear when it's not used for a time. For copying, qutebrowser has caret mode (I believe the hotkey is 'V') that lets you move the pointer with the keyboard and visually select and copy text as you would with vim. Copying url's is done with the 'y' hotkey and a terminal emulator I use (termite) has a hotkey for finding and opening urls from the terminal.

by howeyc 11y ago

branchless 11y ago

I use keyboard as much as possible but find for things like flash one needs to click. Would you mind sharing your xinit snippit to set cursor location? BTW my browsing experience with keyboard only is made largely painless by chrome with vimium. You can also select and yank text with this.

tetraodonpuffer 11y ago
not the OP, but xdotool mousemove x y should work
nazri1 11y ago
Checkout keynav, from the same author of xdotool, Jordan Sissel, pretty cool dude.
dave2000 11y ago
Why might someone need flash? (That was literally the last thing i was expecting in a discussion on HN about why someone might need a mouse!)
- rjayatilleka 11y ago
  Some sites only use Flash like Crunchyroll or Quia for DRM purposes (and lack of technical chops)
farrelle25 11y ago
On Lubuntu: When I get stuck on Flash I use the following script bound to a key (Ctrl+shift+l in my case): #!/bin/bash # Activate Firefox window wmctrl -a "Mozilla Firefox" # Move cursor to specified position xdotool mousemove 250 50 # Send a mouse click (left click) xdotool click --repeat 2 1

baldfat 11y ago

That's what i3 does as the previous poster showed. My i3 is 100% mouse free. dmenu is the launcher <ctl d> type name <return> everything with a tiled window manager is first class short cuts. Browser use a plug in with vim bindings and everything is a short cut also :) > just some text I'd like to copy-paste command line to browser - xclip is your friend to go from browser to command line - <ctl c> text in browser then <shift insert> to console (Normally)

platform 11y ago
This very useful info for me as well. I have periodic pains in my neck when using mouse for too much. I have been switching hands. But still. I much prefer emacs-like interface where I can operate with keyboard only. And I like shells because I can connect from anywhere to the server where I do most dev and testing. However, I recently started doing android development and and I am forced to leave my emacs and shells. One reason is the running the emulator. It cannot run on remote x window sessions and I have to use mouse to access it. The other reason is AndroidStudio. Although I use emacs with flymaker, as a newcomer to Android -- I find Android Studio's tools to do code refactoring, on the fly suggestions, detection of new versions of updates, very useful.
- thedaemon 11y ago
  "Mouse shoulder" is the bane of my existence. I also swap hands and try to use keyboard shortcuts as much as possible.
kohlerm 11y ago
how do you copy from a terminal buffer to another window? tmux allows selection without a mouse, but I agree with others that tmux tries to do too many things at the same time and I would therefore like to have a simple solution for this.

tingol 11y ago

I go mostly mouseless by choice. Since I can move the mouse I have no need for the pointer lock but I use unclutter a small utility that makes the mouse disappear when it's not used for a time. For copying, qutebrowser has caret mode (I believe the hotkey is 'V') that lets you move the pointer with the keyboard and visually select and copy text as you would with vim. Copying url's is done with the 'y' hotkey and a terminal emulator I use (termite) has a hotkey for finding and opening urls from the terminal.