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Wow, as cool as this is, it's kind of a shame that we need to say "use coords to show where the mouse should click" instead of designing interfaces that keep po
by CalRobert 4mo ago
Wow, as cool as this is, it's kind of a shame that we need to say "use coords to show where the mouse should click" instead of designing interfaces that keep pointing-device-free users in mind.
- Someone1234 4mo agoWith Windows in particular, you absolutely can navigate Windows + Office keyboard only. I do it every day. Now, third party software, is always going to be all over the place. Stuff that was largely built on Win32 components works fine, but "modern" stylized applications rarely have strong support.
- varun_ch 4mo agoYou’re right that lots of Windows apps were designed with Keyboard only workflows in mind. It’s a shame that MacOS has so many points where if you don’t have a mouse you’re out of luck. There is one major improvement you can do on Mac, at least for menus: https://varun.ch/posts/macos-keyboard/ https://varun.ch/posts/macos-keyboard/
- comboy 4mo agoObviously depends on your workflow but I think I use mouse only on websites on macos (with aerospace)
- jonfw 4mo agoIf you're interested in keyboard navigation of websites, consider a browser or extension with link hinting support! It worked really well in my experience a few years ago, although I've since became much more of a mouse guy and stopped using it. Qutebrowser was my favorite browser for keyboard navigation but firefox, chrome, etc. have extensions for this as well.
- reddit_clone 4mo agoVimium extension does that. Works well too. Works on Chrome and Firefox.
- Galus 4mo agotry out surfingkeys if vimmium isnt ur cup of tea
- reddit_clone 4mo agoI am currently trying something called ShortCat, this is not just for the browser but works in other Mac applications too! Look Ma, No mouse !
- Barbing 4mo agoLink hinting - love it
- mikestew 4mo agoLike the linked article says, every time I set up a new Mac, I’m annoyed that this isn’t the default.
- philistine 4mo agoI get that this might annoy you, but there is a direct trace all the way back to the original Mac in 1984 that required a mouse. As time went on and the two other OSes we still have gained mouse support (Windows, Linux) from their keyboard roots, they brought forward their ethos of keyboard navigation. Mac OS resolutely stayed attached to its mouse only roots.
- kid64 4mo ago“When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind, I don’t consider the bloody ROI.” Well Tim, I suppose the blind do outnumber the handless.
- devinprater 4mo agoCan confirm.
- layer8 4mo agoIt was a significant downside of MacOS from the beginning, and it still is.
- someguyiguess 4mo agoThat seems incredibly subjective. For people with carpal tunnel like myself, having to do everything on the keyboard can be very painful. The mouse alleviates that and gives visual feedback.
- bigyabai 4mo agoThat's a good reason to support the mouse as a backup peripheral, but not a good reason to gimp keyboards in your interface. Seeing as both can be accommodated, I would argue it's an objective limitation of macOS.
- graemep 4mo agoMost things in Linux too - all DEs I have tried have lots of keyboard shortcuts and so do a lot of applications. The problem is that they are less discoverable and you need to make and effort to get used to using them instead of point and click.
- CalRobert 4mo agoThey used to be discoverable with mnemonics (underlined letters) but those have been dead nearly thirty years…
- p-t 4mo agothese still exist on windows though? you just hold alt
- MarsIronPI 4mo agoGTK (and QT I do believe) also support this on GNU/Linux.
- foobarbecue 4mo agoOnly works for like 20% of the menus though. I remember alt shortcuts reliably being on every single menu in early Windows (95? ME? XP?)
- CalRobert 4mo agoHah, I was thinking 3.1…
- foobarbecue 4mo agoYeah I only used it a little bit so couldn't remember if it had the "hold alt to see shortcuts" thing
- thewebguyd 4mo agoThey died when people stopped using native toolkits and started making everything an electron app. Economics be damned, if you're going to make a native app, use the OS provided toolkits.
- stronglikedan 4mo agoI just wish the shortcuts between the OS and Office were consistent. Most are, but some of the more commonly used ones aren't.
- varenc 4mo agoOn macOS with "Full Keyboard Control" you can navigate the system and most any official app from the keyboard. It's not an efficient experience though.
- teo_zero 4mo ago> you absolutely can navigate Windows + Office keyboard only Unfortunately in Excel many operations can be done only with the function keys (e.g. F2, Shift-F8). I'd argue that leaving the center of the keyboard to press the function keys is not easier or quicker than reaching for the mouse.
- flux3125 4mo agoI'm curious if there's a program that uses a simple detection model for UX components to locate clickable areas. This would allow for global navigation similar to VimiumC
- stronglikedan 4mo ago> interfaces that keep pointing-device-free users There's plenty of TUIs for the dozens of you to use.
- CTDOCodebases 4mo agoA tiled window manager with Qutebrowser and it's vimium style shortcuts is the closest I have come to this.
- davidwest26 4mo agoI just hit tab 1 to N times and hope for the best. I wonder if VIM style search on elements with a new HTML tag attribute would work (at least for browsers).
- CTDOCodebases 4mo agoWait until you hear about tab+shift. It would be great if they built Vim style shortcuts into the spec and browser like you suggested but in the time being we have the Vimium extensions for other browsers. Personally I am not a fan of extensions unless I write them myself.
- dfxm12 4mo agoI think it's ok that hardware and software are designed with the 99% in mind. After that you probably run into competing interests/trade-offs anyway (a system built for ergonomics probably looks different from a system built for speed).
- reaperducer 4mo agoI think it's ok that hardware and software are designed with the 99% in mind. That's called mob rule. We don't act like cavemen anymore. We build entire civilizations to prevent that sort of thing. You may have read in a history book once "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." The word "all" is important.
- angiolillo 4mo ago> designing interfaces that keep pointing-device-free users in mind. Agreed. Using keyboard keys to emulate a mouse cursor seems like it ought to be a last resort for graphical applications that lack proper accessibility affordances. Contrast that with command palettes, accessibility controls, syntax tree navigation, and other approaches that rely on the names, content, and document structure that users already know rather than a special mode that displays two letter codes that must be read each time or memorized. Many of these other approaches also allow users to activate buttons, menu items, and links that are outside the current viewport or hidden in menus which reduces the overall number of "clicks" required to perform those actions. The downside is that they can take longer to type than a two-letter code. Still, my guess is that for most people it would be overall more efficient to optimize for cognitive load than pure speed. (Though in the long run, I suspect that improvements in eye-tracking will lead to hybrid systems that are both lower cognitive load and faster than any of these.)
- deafpolygon 4mo agoI think the controller interfaces for FFXIV is worth a study in this. They designed an interface that is workable for an MMORPG with both mouse and controller (in this case, the controller can act as a proxy for our keyboard).
- NooneAtAll3 4mo agoif anything, I'd want LESS keyboard controls more GUI, more visibility!
- nine_k 4mo agoBut that's the point for me. Unlike e.g. Vimium, this thing is not limited to clicking clicky things, but allows to imitate nearly arbitrary mouse movements, very quickly. There are cases when it's important.