hessiess
September 28th, 2008, 11:38 PM
Recently I have been trying to find a way to totally remove the mouse as a nesseserry part of computer control, there are a number of reasons behind this.
Im dyslexic and carry a laptop prity much everywhere I go, primevally to help with writing. it runs a fairly minimal Arch install, and boots in around 30 seconds from cold, 10 from standby. however this is nullified if I have to waste time untangling a mouse, as the tuchpad is so twitchy its next to useless(not a driver isule, its the same in XP). the second issue is if I use a mouse for any length of time my wrist and fingers ache, which for some reason isn't a problem when using a keyboard.
one solution is using CLI applications as much as possible, this is fine, except some things just aren't passable in the CLI, for example open office(I need it for my collage coerce).
web browsing presents a significant problem, as it evolved around the GUI. in firefox(my preferd browser, due to some extensions) pages can be navigated by searching through links "'", but that only works with text, not images. in the case of image-links, you eather have to get as close as possible with "'" and "/", or use "F7" mode, then tab to the link. while this works it is highly inefficient. the other option, disabling images and using the text search is totally dependent on the existence of "alt" attributes on the images. if threes a missing attribute on a image link, the link may as well not exist. another problem is with the spell checker, for some reason the "open right mouse click menu keybord button" dousent work with the spell checker, it just opens the menu as if the cursor wasent over a spelling error.
the other problem, Open Office. while this can be used with keyboard short cuts, its not exactly intuitive, and was obviously designed to be mouse oriented. although thankfully the 'right click button' actualy works proppaly. Currently i just tent to wright out the text using Vim, and copy it into OO. fine, but still very slow, and dousent work for spreadsheets etc. a partial solution would be Vi emulation in OO, but I have been unable to find a plug-in to do this. I would expect there to be one, as there is a pligin for MS office offering Vi emulation. spreadsheets etc with just the keyboard is just plain annoying.
all suggestions welcome.
Im dyslexic and carry a laptop prity much everywhere I go, primevally to help with writing. it runs a fairly minimal Arch install, and boots in around 30 seconds from cold, 10 from standby. however this is nullified if I have to waste time untangling a mouse, as the tuchpad is so twitchy its next to useless(not a driver isule, its the same in XP). the second issue is if I use a mouse for any length of time my wrist and fingers ache, which for some reason isn't a problem when using a keyboard.
one solution is using CLI applications as much as possible, this is fine, except some things just aren't passable in the CLI, for example open office(I need it for my collage coerce).
web browsing presents a significant problem, as it evolved around the GUI. in firefox(my preferd browser, due to some extensions) pages can be navigated by searching through links "'", but that only works with text, not images. in the case of image-links, you eather have to get as close as possible with "'" and "/", or use "F7" mode, then tab to the link. while this works it is highly inefficient. the other option, disabling images and using the text search is totally dependent on the existence of "alt" attributes on the images. if threes a missing attribute on a image link, the link may as well not exist. another problem is with the spell checker, for some reason the "open right mouse click menu keybord button" dousent work with the spell checker, it just opens the menu as if the cursor wasent over a spelling error.
the other problem, Open Office. while this can be used with keyboard short cuts, its not exactly intuitive, and was obviously designed to be mouse oriented. although thankfully the 'right click button' actualy works proppaly. Currently i just tent to wright out the text using Vim, and copy it into OO. fine, but still very slow, and dousent work for spreadsheets etc. a partial solution would be Vi emulation in OO, but I have been unable to find a plug-in to do this. I would expect there to be one, as there is a pligin for MS office offering Vi emulation. spreadsheets etc with just the keyboard is just plain annoying.
all suggestions welcome.