9 ms·

Mouseless – fast mouse control with the keyboard

271 points by lvturner 2y ago

Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 2y ago
A similar FOSS software is keynav https://github.com/jordansissel/keynav https://github.com/jordansissel/keynav it uses dichotomic splitting though
- freddy12345 2y ago
  Keynav is good but warpd [1] offers all of keynav's features and more (and on Windows, an equivalent of warpd is mousemaster [2]). They not only implement dichotomic splitting but the hint grid too. And they're both FOSS software as well. [1] https://github.com/rvaiya/warpd https://github.com/rvaiya/warpd [2] https://github.com/petoncle/mousemaster https://github.com/petoncle/mousemaster
evanjrowley 2y ago
I'd absolutely try this out. It's similar to the grid that's provided by voice control on MacOS: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/use-voice-control-commands-mh40719/mac https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/use-voice-control-c...
- lvturner 2y ago
  There seems to be a bug at the moment with multi-monitor on different resolutions, but reading thru the dev's github issues it also seems it will be fixed soon. Aside from that, I'm really enjoying this, taking a little bit to wrap my head around it, but I think it'll very quickly become second nature -- can already see how in many cases it's going to be much faster and less distracting than reaching for the mouse.
- euroderf 2y ago
  When is there voice control where I can configure the use of vocal sound effects (clicks, pops, whatever) as meta ?
  - 082349872349872 2y ago
    it's configurable for both language and command phrases, so with a bit of effort (does apple already support any click-using natural language? if not, can you reverse engineer phoneme descriptions?) it ought to be possible? EDIT: replied and edited via voice command; HN looks very amenable to this style of navigation (though I personally will go back to silent clicking as soon as the novelty wears off)
- aeternum 2y ago
  His letter method makes so much more sense than numbers though. Higher resolution and faster to type.
TheFreim 2y ago
On mobile the embedded YouTube video is extremely tiny.
- hermitdev 2y ago
  On desktop, the embedded video is also fairly small and annoyingly, they disallow full-screen. why?
dartos 2y ago
How clever!
- stronglikedan 2y ago
  Clever? Yes. New and novel? No [0]. Shame there's nothing like it for Windows? Absolutely. [0]https://github.com/rvaiya/warpd/ https://github.com/rvaiya/warpd/
  - freddy12345 2y ago
    On Windows, there https://github.com/petoncle/mousemaster https://github.com/petoncle/mousemaster which took inspiration from warpd.
  - dartos 2y ago
    How have I never run into this?!?! Thank you!
MoreMoore 2y ago
Is there anything like this for Windows?
- dr_kiszonka 2y ago
  There are a few: https://github.com/GavinPen/AhkCoordGrid https://github.com/GavinPen/AhkCoordGrid https://github.com/EsportToys/TPMouse https://github.com/EsportToys/TPMouse https://github.com/lesderid/keynavish https://github.com/lesderid/keynavish
  - stronglikedan 2y ago
    None of those are quite like this, which is a shame. Unfortunately, I don't have time to get nerd sniped right now.
- freddy12345 2y ago
  mousemaster is a warpd-like, opensource, for Windows: https://github.com/petoncle/mousemaster https://github.com/petoncle/mousemaster
ksp-atlas 2y ago
I had an idea for something like this, but for Linux instead and utilizing numbers
xypine 2y ago
For Linux users there is https://github.com/moverest/wl-kbptr/ https://github.com/moverest/wl-kbptr/
- mistaken 2y ago
  Also: https://github.com/rvaiya/warpd/ https://github.com/rvaiya/warpd/
  - davidee 2y ago
    Giving this a whirl as it's both MacOS and Linux compat. Thanks.
  - davidee 2y ago
    Update: It's picky about the Wayland compositor and I didn't notice that. Couldn't get it to work under Kwin (didn't try very hard but life's a bit too short for that).
mistaken 2y ago
I'm not sure about the naming; similar software already exists for linux with the same name: https://github.com/jbensmann/xmouseless https://github.com/jbensmann/xmouseless https://github.com/jbensmann/mouseless https://github.com/jbensmann/mouseless
t_von_doom 2y ago
I wish I had seen this a few months sooner! I have solved the problem with hardware via a Keyball: https://github.com/Yowkees/keyball/blob/main/keyball44/doc/rev1/buildguide_en.md https://github.com/Yowkees/keyball/blob/main/keyball44/doc/r...
- dr_kiszonka 2y ago
  It looks great! How do you like it? I think I would prefer a small touchpad because it seems like it might put less of a strain on my thumb, but I am very curious about your experience.
  - AlexErrant 2y ago
    (I'm not OP - I'm on the Charybdis.) I prefer a trackball because I can momentum-flick my cursor from one side of my 4k screen (at 100% zoom) to another side monitor pretty easily... as long as I keep the ball bearings clean. I've been thinking about using a metal trackball for more momentum, but haven't gotten around to it yet. I have a "sniper" key I use to decrease sensitivity for more precision cursoring... but rarely use it (maybe once a month?). I do not have thumb fatigue.
    - dr_kiszonka 2y ago
      Thanks!
      - cyberbob156 2y ago
        Did you see: https://naya.tech/ https://naya.tech/
        dr_kiszonka 2y ago
        Thanks for the link, the keyboard looks amazing! Sadly, it's waaaay too pricey for me.
  - t_von_doom 2y ago
aitchnyu 2y ago
Its as effective as Shortcat, which needs time to collect clickable elements and build overlays, and of course can be used in more than browser. I changed keys to ASDFGHJKL;RVTBUM (18 characters) which is home row and index fingers and ok enough for clicking a close button a 27 inch screen. Dont recall any other tool offering this configuration. This uses Python and Pydantic to validate configuration.
jerpint 2y ago
This looks like it would be really useful for multimodal LLMs
taco_emoji 2y ago
This looks really cool but the Youtube video was very confusing. You were talking about a cell but I couldn't see WHERE the cell was. There needs to be a big arrow or obvious flashing circle or something. I still don't quite understand how this works.
- 16bytes 2y ago
  Agree. Apparently the grid is not made up of one letter squares and you have to figure out the row and column, it's made up of two letter rectangles. What it looks like when you select that rectangle to give you more precision, I could not figure out from the video. Two or three static images would be most helpful.
  - DHPersonal 2y ago
    It looks to me that each cell is two letters [ A K ], so if one wishes to go to that cell, then CMD + A + K would put the mouse in the center of that cell. Letting go of CMD would close the overlay and the mouse is just there in that space, while pressing Space before letting go of CMD would cause a mouse click event. If one wishes for greater mouse precision, after typing CMD + A + K and holding CMD there, a smaller grid of letter squares are displayed within the original cell; typing the matching character in the sub-cell moves the mouse to that even more specific point. Or it might not be holding CMD, I could be wrong. Here's a better and shorter video explaining it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2rmvlOz5l0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2rmvlOz5l0
  - numpad0 2y ago
    Looks like the screen is divided into a 26x26 H-V grid represented by |[A-Z] [A-Z]|, and typing e.g. `[hotkey], d, e` will click (4, 5) from top left? The cursor seem to click the center of the grid. Presumably that happens to be precise enough on macOS.
- zfnmxt 2y ago
  It's also unclear to me how you handle movements at a scale smaller than an individual cell, or if it's possible at all.
aantix 2y ago
This reminds me of Vimium, the Chrome extension, that allows you to follow links just by a couple of keystrokes.
- mindracer 2y ago
  Recently started using Viumium, much prefer it to using a mouse
  - croemer 2y ago
    Isn't it called Vimium, or is Viumium a new thing?
    - efilife 2y ago
      Probably just a typo
- charkubi 2y ago
  Vimac[1], is Vimium for the entire screen and also works for web pages like GMail that don't work on Vimium. [1] https://github.com/nchudleigh/vimac https://github.com/nchudleigh/vimac
- xnx 2y ago
  Vimium: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/vimium/dbepggeogbaibhgnhhndojpepiihcmeb?hl=en https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/vimium/dbepggeogbai...
bittersweet 2y ago
In your video you mention not being able to use tab, enter etc for system dialogs on Mac, if you enable 'Use keyboard navigation to move focus between controls' in the Keyboard settings (under Shortcuts), you can cycle the focus with tab (and shift+tab), and select them with space. It's one of the first things I enable on a new install :-)
- boxed 2y ago
  It's quite weird that this isn't the default imo.
  - Sohcahtoa82 2y ago
    If MacOS didn't have insane defaults, it wouldn't have any defaults at all. Obviously, I exaggerate, but damn I hate getting a new MacBook for work and have to go disable mouse acceleration, disable autohiding scroll bars, invert the scroll wheel so it goes the RIGHT way, and who knows what else.
    - boxed 2y ago
      Showing proxy icons of course. That's a big one.
defenestrated 2y ago
I've been hunting for a mouse panning solution for a multi-monitor setup on macos. This might be it!
bronco21016 2y ago
Are there any eye tracked solutions? I definitely see the use case for something like this on large monitor setups.
- MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago
  A colleague of mine had an eye-tracking mouse attached to his monitor; this was something like 5 years ago. It seemed pretty effective. So "yes" I guess.
- mrguyorama 2y ago
  https://gaming.tobii.com/products/ https://gaming.tobii.com/products/ I have tested out a tobii eye tracker in a microsoft store and it's just very nice. There's a circle that hovers over what you are looking at and some configurable ways to "click". Tobii is probably the consumer leader in this space. Their older trackers are perfectly functional and already did everything with perfect accuracy so them releasing newer ones that are twice the price with next to no added functionality (hand tracking? At my desk? Why?) is annoying.
thehours 2y ago
Other options for mouseless navigation on MacOS: - [1] warpd - uses grid - [2] Scoot - uses grid - [3] Shortcat - uses accessibility ui - [4] Superkey - uses text ocr [1] https://github.com/rvaiya/warpd https://github.com/rvaiya/warpd [2] https://github.com/mjrusso/scoot https://github.com/mjrusso/scoot [3] https://shortcat.app https://shortcat.app [4] https://superkey.app https://superkey.app
- brimwats 2y ago
  I've found mousemaster (windows) to be excellent and the dev incredibly nice and responsive https://github.com/petoncle/mousemaster https://github.com/petoncle/mousemaster
- frizlab 2y ago
  Wasn’t there a builtin solution in macOS directly?
  - oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
    I would love to know if there is. macOS has, IME, terrible keyboard support. Even navigating Finder is a nightmare. The new 'tiling' is sort-of keyboard accessible - some apps work, some don't.
    - hirvi74 2y ago
      To my knowledge, "Full Keyboard Access" in the accessibility settings is about as close as you can get; however, it falls rather significantly short compared to 3rd party applications. Try to enabling the setting, and you will see what I mean. https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/navigate-your-mac-using-full-keyboard-access-mchlc06d1059/mac https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/navigate-your-mac-u...
- Carrok 2y ago
  Highly recommend shortcat.
  - 2y ago
zfnmxt 2y ago
The characterization of mouse keys as taking "five...more like ten seconds to get to where you want to go" is incorrect with a decent implementation/practice. I exclusively use mouse keys with my QMK keyboard [1] and I'm just as fast with it as with a mouse. I have four different cursor speeds that I toggle between as I move the mouse: I use the SUPA FAST LIGHTNING SPEED mode to move across the sceen and then reduce the speed as I zero in on my target. It's totally seamless and easy. I also happen to use Tridactyl which uses a very similar mechanism as mouseless, but sometimes when I'm lazy I just use mouse keys. I don't think navigating by key anchors is always better: there's a greater cognitive load to reading off characters and typing them vs. using WASD to move your mouse around. Alternatively, we could all simply relent and accept the fact that this problem was solved long ago in hardware and ship TrackPoints on all keyboards. [1] https://docs.qmk.fm/features/mouse_keys https://docs.qmk.fm/features/mouse_keys
- cenamus 2y ago
  A trackpoint with more articulation (probably like a mini joystick), so I don't get pain after two days, would be awesome. Perhaps also with another button you can hold for 3x speed?
  - hexmiles 2y ago
    I tried a joystick on my keyboard, but for me it didn't really work! To be fair I also don't really like the track-point. I wasn't able to find a joystick "nub" that was comfortable to use, most joystick on the market are not meant for the kind of use that i would need on a keyboard and are really uncomfortable, maybe you could 3d print something more ergonomic but I'm not sure. One thing I would love to try is a couple of really sensitive encoders for the two axis of a mouse. My split keyboard already has two encoders but they are to "stiff" to be used as mouse.
- hexmiles 2y ago
  I also started using mouse key due to RSI and i was surprised how well it works, I use a single speed and I can still be extremely fast (not yet fast as a "real" mouse but very close). One feature i would love to see is some sort of absolute pointer mode that work in a similar way of what op is doing as an alternative to do quick large movement (especially in multi-monitor scenario).
charkubi 2y ago
I've been using Vimac [1], which puts the targets directly on UI components. [1] https://github.com/nchudleigh/vimac https://github.com/nchudleigh/vimac
- zingababba 2y ago
  Huh this looks cool, like vimium but for the entire UI vs. just the browser.
qq99 2y ago
This is a really creative idea! I wish more keyboards would integrate that little red Lenovo mouse nub. Some thoughts: - allow me to maximize the youtube embed on your site, I can't really see the video clearly enough to gauge the product so had to open it on youtube - little green cursor in your vid is very hard to see - took me a long time to understand that your cells were rectangles, so "2 characters of any cell" didn't make sense for a while, maybe you could emphasize it (if only for the video)
- garciansmith 2y ago
  Agree about the rarity of trackpoints. One manufacture of those is TEX (Shinobi, Yoda), always wanted to try one out. Still waiting for someone to make a custom keyboard in an Alice (or similar) style with a trackpoint; that way you could have a trackpoint but also use standard MX keycap sets. The TEX ones would involve carving into the G, H, and B keys.
- senko 2y ago
  There used to be more brands with trackpoints but IMHO most were pretty bad, except for Lenovo. That said, their newer ones also seem a bit more slippery / harder / less precise than older ones, in my (subjective) impression.
- stronglikedan 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
    https://xkcd.com/243/ https://xkcd.com/243/ - HN isn't formal formal, but I think "nub" is perfectly reasonable.
    - rodolphoarruda 2y ago
      Ok, I just sent this to all my ex-IBM colleagues. They were so shy at the time, +20 years ago, to say the little word "clit" in formal meetings, especially with customers. I think they used "the red dot mouse pointer thing" in formal settings. Informally, it was the eternal short name: "the clit".
hailruda 2y ago
After watching the video, I think this is an exciting experiment to see if there exist better ways to control PCs without a mouse and just a keyboard. The standard of today being keyboard shortcuts.
MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago
This is great, and it gives me an idea for an alternative: A tool that uses a visual representation of your physical keyboard to move the mouse around the screen. So pressing Esc would move the mouse to the top left of the screen, and pressing H would move it closer to the center. Then repeatedly highlight smaller and smaller rectangles around the mouse cursor, repeating the process of tapping a letter, until you are satisfied with the cursor position.
- rnmp 2y ago
  I've wanted this for years
- freddy12345 2y ago
  I don't get the last part where you repeatedly have smaller and smaller rectangles, can you expand on that? How are the rectangles defined? I pressed H, I'm at the center of the screen. Now what?
  - geoffeg 2y ago
    I assume something like this https://github.com/rvaiya/warpd/?tab=readme-ov-file#grid-mode-alt-meta-g https://github.com/rvaiya/warpd/?tab=readme-ov-file#grid-mod...
    - freddy12345 2y ago
      Ok so just a warpd/keynav style grid mode then? I thought OP was describing a novel concept based on the idea that initially the whole keyboard would represent the entire screen.
      - MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago
        Yeah, "Grid Mode" sounds similar. But instead of only 4 zones it would just roughly map the keyboard to dozens of invisible zones based on the position of the keys on the keyboard. So it would mostly be by feel. I have no idea if this would be better or worse than "Grid Mode" but it would be interesting to try it.
samatman 2y ago
So about this: https://github.com/croian/mouseless-issues/blob/main/mouseless_documentation.md#ssl--network-proxies https://github.com/croian/mouseless-issues/blob/main/mousele... You at no point explain why your application needs to interact with SSL in any fashion. What's up with that? The combination of giving elevated permission to control the host computer, with network interaction? That's a bad combination. Why are these things combined in your application? Edit: this comes across more accusatory than I meant it. I do think that the section should have a complete explanation of why the program needs an SSL bypass on certain networks.
vunderba 2y ago
I used a similar system when I had pretty bad RSI over a decade ago but it was a bit different - basically you would hit a keyboard shortcut and it would draw divide the screen into 4-shaded quadrants, you would type 1,2,3,4, and then it would zoom on that quadrant, and divide it up again into four quadrants. Rinse and repeat until the cursor position was at the position you wanted it. At any point in time, you could hit escape if your mouse was at the precision level you wanted. It actually worked pretty well.
- HPsquared 2y ago
  Binary space partitioning, kind of.
  - FelipeCortez 2y ago
    yep. it sounds like keynav [1], which I used for a couple of years and blogged about here [2] [1]: https://github.com/jordansissel/keynav https://github.com/jordansissel/keynav [2]: https://felipecortez.net/blog/mouseless.html https://felipecortez.net/blog/mouseless.html
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
ghjfrdghibt 2y ago
I feel like this could be implemented in autohotkey for Windows.
luhn 2y ago
Years ago my Mac got confused and seemed to think my keyboard was a mouse. Pressing any key would move the cursor up a few points. Ahead of its time, I guess.
charles_f 2y ago
Don't know if the developer is here, but feedback - a bunch of people complained that it was hard understanding that cells had two letters in it in the video. That also translates into the product. I have a hard time figuring if the cell is LO or OL. I think having the first and second letters either in different colors, or different font weight (eg first is bold, second is not) would really help.
SubiculumCode 2y ago
Why hasn't this type of program been integrated into i3 windows manager? It seems the natural fit for a system that wants to keep your hands on the keyboard. Does anyone know of something like warpd, but is in the ubuntu repository, instead of someone's github like warpd?
lovegrenoble 2y ago
interesting idea
corytheboyd 2y ago
Thank you for making this a one time purchase, not a subscription.
silentguy 2y ago
I used to use vimac (https://github.com/nchudleigh/vimac https://github.com/nchudleigh/vimac) when I had macbook. I was pretty happy with it. I liked its interface. Its interface was inspired by Vimium extension on browser.
cool-RR 2y ago
I developed a similar solution for Windows over a decade ago which I've been using every day. It works but it needs to be made easy for people other than me to use (Readme, requirements file, etc.) If anyone volunteers to spend a few hours polishing it, email me and I'll open-source it.
eviks 2y ago
These overlays should follow your keyboard physical layout to its advantage, so top-left should be starting with Q, not A
M95D 2y ago
When I was young there was a thing called "keyboard navigation". The user would press tab to move the keyboard cursor to the next control element on the screen, and spacebar to activate it, Enter to activate the default button (OK), or Esc to press "Cancel". Menus and most important controls had ALT+key shortcuts. Windows provided all elements with keyboard navigation by default and devs took great care for the controls to activate in the most logical order. Even browsers and websites had keyboard navigation. Such wonderful times... Gone now. Everything is touchscreen-only.
- syndicatedjelly 2y ago
  Not sure what alternate universe you got stuck in, but I'm using a Macbook Pro with all those features, plus some. OS accessibility has gotten better, not worse. Web design has gone the opposite direction unfortunately, which is ironic because the web community is the one berating everyone over a11y constantly
  - M95D 2y ago
    > Not sure what alternate universe you got stuck in, but I'm using a Macbook Pro "Everything else" universe.
jauntywundrkind 2y ago
Woot makes keyboards that can detect the position of every key. It'd be neat to see that used to control a cursor, with variable speed depending on how pressed down the button is.
syndicatedjelly 2y ago
Just downloaded and installed, I already love this idea :) nice work!
arkenflame 2y ago
For MacOS users of Hammerspoon, I made a similar plugin based on devoting the screen into successively smaller 3x3 grids: https://github.com/msolomon/griddle https://github.com/msolomon/griddle It’s free and fully customizable too.
paravz 2y ago
Lenovo still sells $100 ThinkPad keyboards with TrackPoint, it will never be as fast, but no need to move hands from the keyboard
novoreorx 2y ago
Great app! I'm already considering buying it. It reminds me of another app called Wooshy (https://wooshy.app/ https://wooshy.app/), which takes a different approach by targeting the mouse through search words from the entire screen. While Wooshy is more intuitive, Mouseless is more versatile and can perform drag-and-drop very easily.
lofaszvanitt 2y ago
"moving your hand back and forth between the mouse and the keyboard gets very tiring, pull you out of the zone and just takes up precious time " :DDD keyboard is not for fine grained movement, period. it might be useful for handicapped people, but I don't see the relevance in everyday usage.

271 points by lvturner 2y ago

A similar FOSS software is keynav https://github.com/jordansissel/keynav https://github.com/jordansissel/keynav it uses dichotomic splitting though

freddy12345 2y ago
Keynav is good but warpd [1] offers all of keynav's features and more (and on Windows, an equivalent of warpd is mousemaster [2]). They not only implement dichotomic splitting but the hint grid too. And they're both FOSS software as well. [1] https://github.com/rvaiya/warpd https://github.com/rvaiya/warpd [2] https://github.com/petoncle/mousemaster https://github.com/petoncle/mousemaster

evanjrowley 2y ago

I'd absolutely try this out. It's similar to the grid that's provided by voice control on MacOS: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/use-voice-control-commands-mh40719/mac https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/use-voice-control-c...

lvturner 2y ago
There seems to be a bug at the moment with multi-monitor on different resolutions, but reading thru the dev's github issues it also seems it will be fixed soon. Aside from that, I'm really enjoying this, taking a little bit to wrap my head around it, but I think it'll very quickly become second nature -- can already see how in many cases it's going to be much faster and less distracting than reaching for the mouse.
euroderf 2y ago
When is there voice control where I can configure the use of vocal sound effects (clicks, pops, whatever) as meta ?
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  it's configurable for both language and command phrases, so with a bit of effort (does apple already support any click-using natural language? if not, can you reverse engineer phoneme descriptions?) it ought to be possible? EDIT: replied and edited via voice command; HN looks very amenable to this style of navigation (though I personally will go back to silent clicking as soon as the novelty wears off)
aeternum 2y ago
His letter method makes so much more sense than numbers though. Higher resolution and faster to type.

TheFreim 2y ago

On mobile the embedded YouTube video is extremely tiny.

hermitdev 2y ago
On desktop, the embedded video is also fairly small and annoyingly, they disallow full-screen. why?

dartos 2y ago

How clever!

stronglikedan 2y ago
Clever? Yes. New and novel? No [0]. Shame there's nothing like it for Windows? Absolutely. [0]https://github.com/rvaiya/warpd/ https://github.com/rvaiya/warpd/
- freddy12345 2y ago
  On Windows, there https://github.com/petoncle/mousemaster https://github.com/petoncle/mousemaster which took inspiration from warpd.
- dartos 2y ago
  How have I never run into this?!?! Thank you!

MoreMoore 2y ago

Is there anything like this for Windows?

dr_kiszonka 2y ago
There are a few: https://github.com/GavinPen/AhkCoordGrid https://github.com/GavinPen/AhkCoordGrid https://github.com/EsportToys/TPMouse https://github.com/EsportToys/TPMouse https://github.com/lesderid/keynavish https://github.com/lesderid/keynavish
- stronglikedan 2y ago
  None of those are quite like this, which is a shame. Unfortunately, I don't have time to get nerd sniped right now.
freddy12345 2y ago
mousemaster is a warpd-like, opensource, for Windows: https://github.com/petoncle/mousemaster https://github.com/petoncle/mousemaster

ksp-atlas 2y ago

I had an idea for something like this, but for Linux instead and utilizing numbers

xypine 2y ago

For Linux users there is https://github.com/moverest/wl-kbptr/ https://github.com/moverest/wl-kbptr/

mistaken 2y ago
Also: https://github.com/rvaiya/warpd/ https://github.com/rvaiya/warpd/
- davidee 2y ago
  Giving this a whirl as it's both MacOS and Linux compat. Thanks.
- davidee 2y ago
  Update: It's picky about the Wayland compositor and I didn't notice that. Couldn't get it to work under Kwin (didn't try very hard but life's a bit too short for that).

mistaken 2y ago

I'm not sure about the naming; similar software already exists for linux with the same name: https://github.com/jbensmann/xmouseless https://github.com/jbensmann/xmouseless https://github.com/jbensmann/mouseless https://github.com/jbensmann/mouseless

t_von_doom 2y ago

I wish I had seen this a few months sooner! I have solved the problem with hardware via a Keyball: https://github.com/Yowkees/keyball/blob/main/keyball44/doc/rev1/buildguide_en.md https://github.com/Yowkees/keyball/blob/main/keyball44/doc/r...

dr_kiszonka 2y ago
It looks great! How do you like it? I think I would prefer a small touchpad because it seems like it might put less of a strain on my thumb, but I am very curious about your experience.
- AlexErrant 2y ago
  (I'm not OP - I'm on the Charybdis.) I prefer a trackball because I can momentum-flick my cursor from one side of my 4k screen (at 100% zoom) to another side monitor pretty easily... as long as I keep the ball bearings clean. I've been thinking about using a metal trackball for more momentum, but haven't gotten around to it yet. I have a "sniper" key I use to decrease sensitivity for more precision cursoring... but rarely use it (maybe once a month?). I do not have thumb fatigue.
  - dr_kiszonka 2y ago
    Thanks!
    - cyberbob156 2y ago
      Did you see: https://naya.tech/ https://naya.tech/
      - dr_kiszonka 2y ago
        Thanks for the link, the keyboard looks amazing! Sadly, it's waaaay too pricey for me.
- t_von_doom 2y ago

aitchnyu 2y ago

Its as effective as Shortcat, which needs time to collect clickable elements and build overlays, and of course can be used in more than browser. I changed keys to ASDFGHJKL;RVTBUM (18 characters) which is home row and index fingers and ok enough for clicking a close button a 27 inch screen. Dont recall any other tool offering this configuration. This uses Python and Pydantic to validate configuration.

jerpint 2y ago

This looks like it would be really useful for multimodal LLMs

taco_emoji 2y ago

This looks really cool but the Youtube video was very confusing. You were talking about a cell but I couldn't see WHERE the cell was. There needs to be a big arrow or obvious flashing circle or something. I still don't quite understand how this works.

16bytes 2y ago
Agree. Apparently the grid is not made up of one letter squares and you have to figure out the row and column, it's made up of two letter rectangles. What it looks like when you select that rectangle to give you more precision, I could not figure out from the video. Two or three static images would be most helpful.
- DHPersonal 2y ago
  It looks to me that each cell is two letters [ A K ], so if one wishes to go to that cell, then CMD + A + K would put the mouse in the center of that cell. Letting go of CMD would close the overlay and the mouse is just there in that space, while pressing Space before letting go of CMD would cause a mouse click event. If one wishes for greater mouse precision, after typing CMD + A + K and holding CMD there, a smaller grid of letter squares are displayed within the original cell; typing the matching character in the sub-cell moves the mouse to that even more specific point. Or it might not be holding CMD, I could be wrong. Here's a better and shorter video explaining it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2rmvlOz5l0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2rmvlOz5l0
- numpad0 2y ago
  Looks like the screen is divided into a 26x26 H-V grid represented by |[A-Z] [A-Z]|, and typing e.g. `[hotkey], d, e` will click (4, 5) from top left? The cursor seem to click the center of the grid. Presumably that happens to be precise enough on macOS.
zfnmxt 2y ago
It's also unclear to me how you handle movements at a scale smaller than an individual cell, or if it's possible at all.

aantix 2y ago

This reminds me of Vimium, the Chrome extension, that allows you to follow links just by a couple of keystrokes.

mindracer 2y ago
Recently started using Viumium, much prefer it to using a mouse
- croemer 2y ago
  Isn't it called Vimium, or is Viumium a new thing?
  - efilife 2y ago
    Probably just a typo
charkubi 2y ago
Vimac[1], is Vimium for the entire screen and also works for web pages like GMail that don't work on Vimium. [1] https://github.com/nchudleigh/vimac https://github.com/nchudleigh/vimac
xnx 2y ago
Vimium: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/vimium/dbepggeogbaibhgnhhndojpepiihcmeb?hl=en https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/vimium/dbepggeogbai...

bittersweet 2y ago

In your video you mention not being able to use tab, enter etc for system dialogs on Mac, if you enable 'Use keyboard navigation to move focus between controls' in the Keyboard settings (under Shortcuts), you can cycle the focus with tab (and shift+tab), and select them with space. It's one of the first things I enable on a new install :-)

boxed 2y ago
It's quite weird that this isn't the default imo.
- Sohcahtoa82 2y ago
  If MacOS didn't have insane defaults, it wouldn't have any defaults at all. Obviously, I exaggerate, but damn I hate getting a new MacBook for work and have to go disable mouse acceleration, disable autohiding scroll bars, invert the scroll wheel so it goes the RIGHT way, and who knows what else.
  - boxed 2y ago
    Showing proxy icons of course. That's a big one.

defenestrated 2y ago

I've been hunting for a mouse panning solution for a multi-monitor setup on macos. This might be it!

bronco21016 2y ago

Are there any eye tracked solutions? I definitely see the use case for something like this on large monitor setups.

MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago
A colleague of mine had an eye-tracking mouse attached to his monitor; this was something like 5 years ago. It seemed pretty effective. So "yes" I guess.
mrguyorama 2y ago
https://gaming.tobii.com/products/ https://gaming.tobii.com/products/ I have tested out a tobii eye tracker in a microsoft store and it's just very nice. There's a circle that hovers over what you are looking at and some configurable ways to "click". Tobii is probably the consumer leader in this space. Their older trackers are perfectly functional and already did everything with perfect accuracy so them releasing newer ones that are twice the price with next to no added functionality (hand tracking? At my desk? Why?) is annoying.

thehours 2y ago

Other options for mouseless navigation on MacOS: - [1] warpd - uses grid - [2] Scoot - uses grid - [3] Shortcat - uses accessibility ui - [4] Superkey - uses text ocr [1] https://github.com/rvaiya/warpd https://github.com/rvaiya/warpd [2] https://github.com/mjrusso/scoot https://github.com/mjrusso/scoot [3] https://shortcat.app https://shortcat.app [4] https://superkey.app https://superkey.app

brimwats 2y ago
I've found mousemaster (windows) to be excellent and the dev incredibly nice and responsive https://github.com/petoncle/mousemaster https://github.com/petoncle/mousemaster
frizlab 2y ago
Wasn’t there a builtin solution in macOS directly?
- oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
  I would love to know if there is. macOS has, IME, terrible keyboard support. Even navigating Finder is a nightmare. The new 'tiling' is sort-of keyboard accessible - some apps work, some don't.
  - hirvi74 2y ago
    To my knowledge, "Full Keyboard Access" in the accessibility settings is about as close as you can get; however, it falls rather significantly short compared to 3rd party applications. Try to enabling the setting, and you will see what I mean. https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/navigate-your-mac-using-full-keyboard-access-mchlc06d1059/mac https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/navigate-your-mac-u...
Carrok 2y ago
Highly recommend shortcat.
- 2y ago

zfnmxt 2y ago

The characterization of mouse keys as taking "five...more like ten seconds to get to where you want to go" is incorrect with a decent implementation/practice. I exclusively use mouse keys with my QMK keyboard [1] and I'm just as fast with it as with a mouse. I have four different cursor speeds that I toggle between as I move the mouse: I use the SUPA FAST LIGHTNING SPEED mode to move across the sceen and then reduce the speed as I zero in on my target. It's totally seamless and easy. I also happen to use Tridactyl which uses a very similar mechanism as mouseless, but sometimes when I'm lazy I just use mouse keys. I don't think navigating by key anchors is always better: there's a greater cognitive load to reading off characters and typing them vs. using WASD to move your mouse around. Alternatively, we could all simply relent and accept the fact that this problem was solved long ago in hardware and ship TrackPoints on all keyboards. [1] https://docs.qmk.fm/features/mouse_keys https://docs.qmk.fm/features/mouse_keys

cenamus 2y ago
A trackpoint with more articulation (probably like a mini joystick), so I don't get pain after two days, would be awesome. Perhaps also with another button you can hold for 3x speed?
- hexmiles 2y ago
  I tried a joystick on my keyboard, but for me it didn't really work! To be fair I also don't really like the track-point. I wasn't able to find a joystick "nub" that was comfortable to use, most joystick on the market are not meant for the kind of use that i would need on a keyboard and are really uncomfortable, maybe you could 3d print something more ergonomic but I'm not sure. One thing I would love to try is a couple of really sensitive encoders for the two axis of a mouse. My split keyboard already has two encoders but they are to "stiff" to be used as mouse.
hexmiles 2y ago
I also started using mouse key due to RSI and i was surprised how well it works, I use a single speed and I can still be extremely fast (not yet fast as a "real" mouse but very close). One feature i would love to see is some sort of absolute pointer mode that work in a similar way of what op is doing as an alternative to do quick large movement (especially in multi-monitor scenario).

charkubi 2y ago

I've been using Vimac [1], which puts the targets directly on UI components. [1] https://github.com/nchudleigh/vimac https://github.com/nchudleigh/vimac

zingababba 2y ago
Huh this looks cool, like vimium but for the entire UI vs. just the browser.

qq99 2y ago

This is a really creative idea! I wish more keyboards would integrate that little red Lenovo mouse nub. Some thoughts: - allow me to maximize the youtube embed on your site, I can't really see the video clearly enough to gauge the product so had to open it on youtube - little green cursor in your vid is very hard to see - took me a long time to understand that your cells were rectangles, so "2 characters of any cell" didn't make sense for a while, maybe you could emphasize it (if only for the video)

garciansmith 2y ago
Agree about the rarity of trackpoints. One manufacture of those is TEX (Shinobi, Yoda), always wanted to try one out. Still waiting for someone to make a custom keyboard in an Alice (or similar) style with a trackpoint; that way you could have a trackpoint but also use standard MX keycap sets. The TEX ones would involve carving into the G, H, and B keys.
senko 2y ago
There used to be more brands with trackpoints but IMHO most were pretty bad, except for Lenovo. That said, their newer ones also seem a bit more slippery / harder / less precise than older ones, in my (subjective) impression.
stronglikedan 2y ago
[flagged]
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
  https://xkcd.com/243/ https://xkcd.com/243/ - HN isn't formal formal, but I think "nub" is perfectly reasonable.
  - rodolphoarruda 2y ago
    Ok, I just sent this to all my ex-IBM colleagues. They were so shy at the time, +20 years ago, to say the little word "clit" in formal meetings, especially with customers. I think they used "the red dot mouse pointer thing" in formal settings. Informally, it was the eternal short name: "the clit".

hailruda 2y ago

After watching the video, I think this is an exciting experiment to see if there exist better ways to control PCs without a mouse and just a keyboard. The standard of today being keyboard shortcuts.

MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago

This is great, and it gives me an idea for an alternative: A tool that uses a visual representation of your physical keyboard to move the mouse around the screen. So pressing Esc would move the mouse to the top left of the screen, and pressing H would move it closer to the center. Then repeatedly highlight smaller and smaller rectangles around the mouse cursor, repeating the process of tapping a letter, until you are satisfied with the cursor position.

rnmp 2y ago
I've wanted this for years
freddy12345 2y ago
I don't get the last part where you repeatedly have smaller and smaller rectangles, can you expand on that? How are the rectangles defined? I pressed H, I'm at the center of the screen. Now what?
- geoffeg 2y ago
  I assume something like this https://github.com/rvaiya/warpd/?tab=readme-ov-file#grid-mode-alt-meta-g https://github.com/rvaiya/warpd/?tab=readme-ov-file#grid-mod...
  - freddy12345 2y ago
    Ok so just a warpd/keynav style grid mode then? I thought OP was describing a novel concept based on the idea that initially the whole keyboard would represent the entire screen.
    - MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago
      Yeah, "Grid Mode" sounds similar. But instead of only 4 zones it would just roughly map the keyboard to dozens of invisible zones based on the position of the keys on the keyboard. So it would mostly be by feel. I have no idea if this would be better or worse than "Grid Mode" but it would be interesting to try it.

samatman 2y ago

So about this: https://github.com/croian/mouseless-issues/blob/main/mouseless_documentation.md#ssl--network-proxies https://github.com/croian/mouseless-issues/blob/main/mousele... You at no point explain why your application needs to interact with SSL in any fashion. What's up with that? The combination of giving elevated permission to control the host computer, with network interaction? That's a bad combination. Why are these things combined in your application? Edit: this comes across more accusatory than I meant it. I do think that the section should have a complete explanation of why the program needs an SSL bypass on certain networks.

vunderba 2y ago

I used a similar system when I had pretty bad RSI over a decade ago but it was a bit different - basically you would hit a keyboard shortcut and it would draw divide the screen into 4-shaded quadrants, you would type 1,2,3,4, and then it would zoom on that quadrant, and divide it up again into four quadrants. Rinse and repeat until the cursor position was at the position you wanted it. At any point in time, you could hit escape if your mouse was at the precision level you wanted. It actually worked pretty well.

HPsquared 2y ago
Binary space partitioning, kind of.
- FelipeCortez 2y ago
  yep. it sounds like keynav [1], which I used for a couple of years and blogged about here [2] [1]: https://github.com/jordansissel/keynav https://github.com/jordansissel/keynav [2]: https://felipecortez.net/blog/mouseless.html https://felipecortez.net/blog/mouseless.html
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

ghjfrdghibt 2y ago

I feel like this could be implemented in autohotkey for Windows.

luhn 2y ago

Years ago my Mac got confused and seemed to think my keyboard was a mouse. Pressing any key would move the cursor up a few points. Ahead of its time, I guess.

charles_f 2y ago

Don't know if the developer is here, but feedback - a bunch of people complained that it was hard understanding that cells had two letters in it in the video. That also translates into the product. I have a hard time figuring if the cell is LO or OL. I think having the first and second letters either in different colors, or different font weight (eg first is bold, second is not) would really help.

SubiculumCode 2y ago

Why hasn't this type of program been integrated into i3 windows manager? It seems the natural fit for a system that wants to keep your hands on the keyboard. Does anyone know of something like warpd, but is in the ubuntu repository, instead of someone's github like warpd?

lovegrenoble 2y ago

interesting idea

corytheboyd 2y ago

Thank you for making this a one time purchase, not a subscription.

silentguy 2y ago

I used to use vimac (https://github.com/nchudleigh/vimac https://github.com/nchudleigh/vimac) when I had macbook. I was pretty happy with it. I liked its interface. Its interface was inspired by Vimium extension on browser.

cool-RR 2y ago

I developed a similar solution for Windows over a decade ago which I've been using every day. It works but it needs to be made easy for people other than me to use (Readme, requirements file, etc.) If anyone volunteers to spend a few hours polishing it, email me and I'll open-source it.

eviks 2y ago

These overlays should follow your keyboard physical layout to its advantage, so top-left should be starting with Q, not A

M95D 2y ago

When I was young there was a thing called "keyboard navigation". The user would press tab to move the keyboard cursor to the next control element on the screen, and spacebar to activate it, Enter to activate the default button (OK), or Esc to press "Cancel". Menus and most important controls had ALT+key shortcuts. Windows provided all elements with keyboard navigation by default and devs took great care for the controls to activate in the most logical order. Even browsers and websites had keyboard navigation. Such wonderful times... Gone now. Everything is touchscreen-only.

syndicatedjelly 2y ago
Not sure what alternate universe you got stuck in, but I'm using a Macbook Pro with all those features, plus some. OS accessibility has gotten better, not worse. Web design has gone the opposite direction unfortunately, which is ironic because the web community is the one berating everyone over a11y constantly
- M95D 2y ago
  > Not sure what alternate universe you got stuck in, but I'm using a Macbook Pro "Everything else" universe.

jauntywundrkind 2y ago

Woot makes keyboards that can detect the position of every key. It'd be neat to see that used to control a cursor, with variable speed depending on how pressed down the button is.

syndicatedjelly 2y ago

Just downloaded and installed, I already love this idea :) nice work!

arkenflame 2y ago

For MacOS users of Hammerspoon, I made a similar plugin based on devoting the screen into successively smaller 3x3 grids: https://github.com/msolomon/griddle https://github.com/msolomon/griddle It’s free and fully customizable too.

paravz 2y ago

Lenovo still sells $100 ThinkPad keyboards with TrackPoint, it will never be as fast, but no need to move hands from the keyboard

novoreorx 2y ago

Great app! I'm already considering buying it. It reminds me of another app called Wooshy (https://wooshy.app/ https://wooshy.app/), which takes a different approach by targeting the mouse through search words from the entire screen. While Wooshy is more intuitive, Mouseless is more versatile and can perform drag-and-drop very easily.

lofaszvanitt 2y ago

"moving your hand back and forth between the mouse and the keyboard gets very tiring, pull you out of the zone and just takes up precious time " :DDD keyboard is not for fine grained movement, period. it might be useful for handicapped people, but I don't see the relevance in everyday usage.