AS an avid desktop user for most of my life, the change to using a laptop as a primary device has been interesting. The portability is great, but the interaction is a bit limited. I'm looking at you, trackpad. I miss my mouse but I'm slowly learning that using a mouse or even a trackpad is not always necessary. And if we are talking about time efficiency, taking your hand off the keyboard to grab the mouse and navigate the UI is certainly less than ideal. To solve that many of our favorite programs come with keyboard shortcuts to help users move through the software at a faster pace. Some of these ready to go shortcuts are great, but there are certainly holes to fill. Enter Vivium.
Vivium is a chrome browser extension that promises to allow the user to navigate the internet without ever using a mouse. It's got the added benefit of making the user feel like a real hacker with all the clicking and clacking your keyboard will do. It's modeled after Vim, and adds several useful shortcuts to chrome.
Installation and Basic Commands:
First and foremost, installation is necessary. Open up Chrome and take a moment to visit their extension store. I also provide a link to the extension here.
To demonstrate a few of the commands I'll walk through visiting Reddit. On your desired webpage, press the F keyboard when your cursor is not active in an input field. Your screen will be filled with short, 2-letter boxes. If you type the corresponding letter, you will select and be brought to the link they are hovered over.
You can also scroll along the page by pressing "D" to go down and "U" to go up. Nifty! To scroll more slowly, on a line by line basis, you can press "J" to go down and "K" to go up.
Creating and changing tabs is also possible with Vivium. Try it out by creating a new tab with "Shift + F" to create a new tab, followed by "Shift + K" to make it active. Move back to your old tab with "Shift + J" If you decide you are done with your tabs you may close the current one with "Shift + X"
Give it a whirl, it will be faster navigation than using a mouse when you get used to it! Check out their GitHub page for official documentation and a deeper dive.
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