[NCLUG] [OT?] Vimium on Chromium on FreeBSD

[Chad Perrin]

On Fri, Nov 05, 2010 at 04:44:31PM -0600, Bob Proulx wrote:
> Chad Perrin wrote:
> > What would you use for Back and Forward in browser history instead
> > of H and L?
> 
> I switched them with J and K since to me the forward and backward in
> history is mentally more of a stack-like queue.  Up (goBack) and Down
> (goForward) fit me better.  YMMV.
> 
> With a stack model I know there are people who will look at that in
> the opposite direction and want that to be K and J.  (shrug) It is a
> mirror image.  But for me I write left to right and top to bottom so
> the newest is always down at the bottom of the log file.  The opposite
> of stacking trays in the cafeteria.

I tend to think of it as left to right -- because that's how the tabs are
visibly arranged, I guess.


> 
> > > Dear Lazyweb, does one exist for Firefox?  I haven't found one.
> > > It is addicting.
> > 
> > Aside from Vimperator?
> 
> Yes, aside from Vimperator.  Vimperator creates a very much different
> environment which brings along much more baggage than I want just for
> key navigation of page links.  Plus I am not looking for a Vim
> experience.  I am an Emacs person.  Did you forget about the war? :-)

Good point.

Sorry -- I don't know, because I'm not an Emacs person, so I basically
had no reason to look.


> 
> > I find that Emacs users tend to appreciate vi-like keybindings in other
> > applications sometimes, while vi/Vim users do not tend to get as much out
> > of Emacs-like keybindings.  Maybe that's particular to the vi/Vim users I
> > know, though.
> 
> I have observed that same thing too.  (I will reserve comments on my
> theories of the psychology of it.)

My thought is, simply, that people who use vi are more generally obsessed
with the efficiency of the interface, and as such tend to make more
complete use of it within its own model of operation, and are less
tolerant of things that deviate from that model because of the
productivity and efficiency drag.  That's pretty much how it feels to me,
anyway.

Err, wait.  I forget -- this is war.  I'll rehrase:

It's because Emacs people on some level recognize the superiority of the
vi interface model.


> 
> > I can think of two solutions for this:
> > 
> > 1. Don't use MS Windows.  (Ha ha.  I kill me.)
> 
> Unfortunately the CUA has crept into GNOME and KDE too.  So that would
> also include not using very popular desktops too.

Bah.  GNOME and KDE are just Windows Lite.  (Ha ha.  I still kill me.
It's taking quite a while to die, though.)

Truly, though, I don't use either, for reasons similar to my preference
for vi over other editors.  I eschew frippery in favor of simplicity and
efficiency.


> 
> > 2. Get a browser extension that allows you to edit text from a textarea
> > using an external editor, like ViewSourceWith for Firefox, and use it a
> > lot.
> 
> I don't want to edit in an external editor server.  I am not looking
> to change the browser that much.  The html text area is just fine with
> me.  As long as the browser respects gtk-key-theme-name (both Firefox
> and Chromium use gtk+) so I can restore it to the original X (as in
> MIT X Window System) keybindings (which were emacs-like) by default.
> For a while that was broken in GTK+ but now it appears to be fixed
> again.  Yeah!  I went for about two years with Firemacs being the only
> thing that saved my sanity.  But now I can set the default system keys
> back to normal again without it.

Sorry, I don't know of a quick fix for your highlight-and-delete problem.
Are you sure that Ctrl Z (undo) won't work for that on MS Windows?


> 
> > > It is the MS "CUA" that aggravates me the most.
> > 
> > Do you mean the IBM Common User Access standard?
> 
> I am talking about C-x, C-c, C-v for Cut, Copy, Paste.  Was that IBM
> instead of MS?  My bad then.  But I thought IBM used a different set
> of keys for those things?  No?  I am not very knowledgeable about that
> side of the universe and have successfully avoided learning too much
> about it.

I'm pretty sure that CUA was specified (and named) by IBM, though
Microsoft may well have had input into the process, and uses the heck out
of it.


> 
> > Not to start any flame wars, or anything, but . . . I find that the GNU
> > Project (which pretty much runs the "standard" for Emacs) is
> > lackadaisical at best about any adherence to the Unix philosophy, and in
> > some cases appears to be actively hostile to that philosophy of software
> > design.
> 
> It has been drifting without an anchor over the years.  And every
> project has a different maintainer and a different set of core values.
> There is now a whole generation of users and developers who have never
> seen a Unix machine.  Code bloat and creeping features is the biggest
> threat that I see.  For example right now there is a discussion in two
> different Debian mailing lists about a base Squeeze installation not
> fitting into a 512M partition.

Holy cow.  It *has* grown since I stopped using it regularly.


> 
> > Though it comes as a little bit of a surprise to me that CUA is
> > sneaking into Emacs, it probably shouldn't.
> 
> The upstream default has changed and is now a highlighted mark mode
> known as Transient Mark mode.  (I configure my emacs back to the
> previous behavior now known as Persistent Mark mode.)  This was done
> primarily to support users who want the CUA active.  The CUA isn't the
> default but the mark mode change is a step that direction.
> 
>   http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Mark.html
> 
>   http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/CUA-Bindings.html

Why use Emacs if you want MS Windows-like behavior?  I don't get it.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]
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