Amiga Workbench could be used mouseless by using key combinations to move the mouse around. It was cumbersome, but just good enough to let you use the system if your mouse was broken, or you had plugged a second joystick into the mouse port and couldn't be bothered swapping them to launch a game. Later there were add-ons like Reqtools and MCP which let you use keys more, e.g. Escape to close a window, or Return (Enter) to hit OK on a dialog box.
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.
With 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.
You’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:
I wouldn't say they're dead, just more hidden (e.g. GTK4 only shows them when you hold Alt). AFAIK most toolkits still support them, but app developers also have to actually define them.
I'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
If you wanted to go in the other direction, you could achieve more productivity with faster mouse skills. The competitive FPS genre has spawned a bunch of aim training tools[0] to improve muscle memory.
Looks kinda similar to https://github.com/rvaiya/warpd/ , which is open source and free software. Always worked very well for me on Wayland, but seems to be working on Xorg and macOS as well.
Nah, this is a very good point; I've seen things similar to this in the past and it's a cool idea -- but "subscription modeling" every little tool is not a good path to keep going down.
Free and open source is important and it's perfectly fine to be critical here.
Demanding everything be free and open source is important if you don't want independent developers to be able to make a living, and instead wish to create a world where the vast majority of software is controlled by big tech, who are the benefactors of "free" software. The less you're willing to pay people making good software, the more territory predatory ad/tracking-fueled "free" software gets. The more territory you give them, the more they're going to buy out open source software to destroy. We see this happening more and more recently, with uv, bun, vite etc. being bought out - if they can't put food on the table, they will sell out to monopolists.
I agree that I would never pay a subscription fee for any kind of system functionality, but there is a lifetime purchase option available, so there is no grounds to critique that here. Having extra payments models available in addition to a regular purchase model does not make a product worse.
I made a very good living developing open source software for more than a decade. Nothing about open source software precludes one from making money, it's just a different business model from closed source.
A business model that supports a tiny fraction of the market. To the extent there is money in FOSS, even then most of it is provided by the funding of big tech (a whole host of some of the most widely-used FOSS, like Linux, LLVM, Go, Rust, C#, Typescript, VSCode, React, are all obviously corporate-backed). Independent developers who can make a living selling FOSS exist, but are absolutely on the fringe.
i use this! it actually comes in handy when i'm too lazy to move my hands from my keyboard. on my ultrawide, the click zones are larger and easier to digest/hit.
well, you should be able to, at the OS level use only keyboard shortcuts. Windows once was great with tab, enter, escape, but browsers make things more complicated than dialog boxes, and MacOS really isn't good at keyboard shortcuts. I would prefer the solution was not Mouseless and the others, but no mouse.
If you have a big form to fill in, surely its going to take longer to type in the coordinates of each text box and get the mouse to click them rather than just hitting tab to select the next input element?
Keynav – retire your mouse (2016) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11945936
Wayland port: https://github.com/kovetskiy/waynav
Amiga Workbench could be used mouseless by using key combinations to move the mouse around. It was cumbersome, but just good enough to let you use the system if your mouse was broken, or you had plugged a second joystick into the mouse port and couldn't be bothered swapping them to launch a game. Later there were add-ons like Reqtools and MCP which let you use keys more, e.g. Escape to close a window, or Return (Enter) to hit OK on a dialog box.
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.
> interfaces that keep pointing-device-free users
There's plenty of TUIs for the dozens of you to use.
With 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.
You’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/
Obviously depends on your workflow but I think I use mouse only on websites on macos (with aerospace)
Like the linked article says, every time I set up a new Mac, I’m annoyed that this isn’t the default.
Most 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.
They used to be discoverable with mnemonics (underlined letters) but those have been dead nearly thirty years…
I wouldn't say they're dead, just more hidden (e.g. GTK4 only shows them when you hold Alt). AFAIK most toolkits still support them, but app developers also have to actually define them.
these still exist on windows though? you just hold alt
Only works for like 20% of the menus though. I remember alt shortcuts reliably being on every single menu in early Windows (95? ME? XP?)
GTK (and QT I do believe) also support this on GNU/Linux.
I'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
https://www.homerow.com/
Been using this for years.
Sorry, I forgot to add "on Linux" at the end. Still, that's a nice one!
If you wanted to go in the other direction, you could achieve more productivity with faster mouse skills. The competitive FPS genre has spawned a bunch of aim training tools[0] to improve muscle memory.
[0] https://www.3daimtrainer.com/
RIP my hand by RSI
I think I prefer the approach that Homerow uses: https://www.homerow.com/
It's like vimium but for your entire mac. It hooks into the macOS accessibility APIs.
Anyone interested in this should really try out Homerow (https://www.homerow.app)
(not affiliated, just a happy user for years now)
Opensource alternatives:
- https://github.com/moverest/wl-kbptr
- https://github.com/petoncle/mousemaster
- https://github.com/y3owk1n/neru
- https://github.com/mjrusso/scoot
- https://github.com/jbensmann/mouseless
- https://github.com/rvaiya/warpd (not really maintained anymore)
Another new one is stochos: https://github.com/museslabs/stochos
Disclaimer: I'm one of the authors/maintainers.
you know what's efficient? controlling a computer with one hand rather than two.
Thanks, but I'm too old to switch - will wait for the Neuralink implant.
saying it is for Linux made me think it would be open source as there are already lot of things people can do without mouse...
There is an extensive list of window managers, like Sway or I3, file managers like Vifm and Ranger and browsers like Luakit.
Looks kinda similar to https://github.com/rvaiya/warpd/ , which is open source and free software. Always worked very well for me on Wayland, but seems to be working on Xorg and macOS as well.
Using closed source software to drive my OS doesn't sound that appealing to me.
Then don't buy it. Not everything in the world needs to be made free just for you.
Nah, this is a very good point; I've seen things similar to this in the past and it's a cool idea -- but "subscription modeling" every little tool is not a good path to keep going down.
Free and open source is important and it's perfectly fine to be critical here.
Demanding everything be free and open source is important if you don't want independent developers to be able to make a living, and instead wish to create a world where the vast majority of software is controlled by big tech, who are the benefactors of "free" software. The less you're willing to pay people making good software, the more territory predatory ad/tracking-fueled "free" software gets. The more territory you give them, the more they're going to buy out open source software to destroy. We see this happening more and more recently, with uv, bun, vite etc. being bought out - if they can't put food on the table, they will sell out to monopolists.
I agree that I would never pay a subscription fee for any kind of system functionality, but there is a lifetime purchase option available, so there is no grounds to critique that here. Having extra payments models available in addition to a regular purchase model does not make a product worse.
I made a very good living developing open source software for more than a decade. Nothing about open source software precludes one from making money, it's just a different business model from closed source.
A business model that supports a tiny fraction of the market. To the extent there is money in FOSS, even then most of it is provided by the funding of big tech (a whole host of some of the most widely-used FOSS, like Linux, LLVM, Go, Rust, C#, Typescript, VSCode, React, are all obviously corporate-backed). Independent developers who can make a living selling FOSS exist, but are absolutely on the fringe.
i bought it for like 4 bucks several months ago. for the price (and subscription tier) i'm seeing now, i wouldn't say it's worth it.
If you're on Linux, mouseless [0] may work well for you.
[0] https://github.com/jbensmann/mouseless
Vimium for the browser solves most of the mouse needs. I dont see it helping with drawings.
Did anyone notice the use of the mouse at the end?
https://www.homerow.com/
Homerow is like vimium but for your entire mac.
Indeed or https://tridactyl.xyz
VimFX + LegacyFox is still the best; it even works on about: pages.
I was literally just thinking about the desire to have a mouseless keyboard solution yesterday.
Pretty cool, would have been great before the trackpad.
This is a helpful method for visually grounding LLMs to take actions on the screen such as clicking. For humans though, hell no.
Waiting for the AutoHotKey or AHK with an LLM, GUI automation, and screenshots. Someone else develop it because it will be ignored if I do it.
i use this! it actually comes in handy when i'm too lazy to move my hands from my keyboard. on my ultrawide, the click zones are larger and easier to digest/hit.
Or you could use tab, arrow keys, page up/down, enter...
well, you should be able to, at the OS level use only keyboard shortcuts. Windows once was great with tab, enter, escape, but browsers make things more complicated than dialog boxes, and MacOS really isn't good at keyboard shortcuts. I would prefer the solution was not Mouseless and the others, but no mouse.
That's OK in menus and the OS in general but if you're working on a web app or big form tabbing through it can be a PITA.
If you have a big form to fill in, surely its going to take longer to type in the coordinates of each text box and get the mouse to click them rather than just hitting tab to select the next input element?
Let me introduce you to https://tridactyl.xyz
I've never seen anything more ridiculous than this in my life.
At least your are living a fulfilling life ridiculing others, that is awesome. /s