Mouse Gestures in Mozilla

Jedbro writes: "I have really enjoyed the mouse gestures in Opera since its release, since then I have come across an awesome new project at Mozdev, called OptiMoz. OptiMoz (a.k.a. MozGest) is a XPI for Mozilla allowing Mouse Gestures to be available. It works great with Mozilla 0.9.4 and nightly builds. It currently has Gestures for: *New Tab Window (Moz Tabs!!) *Forward in History *Backward in History *Reload *New Document *Up a directory in the URL *View Source *View Cookies for Current Domain *View Meta Data for Domain and *Access Homepage."

Comments

Headline...

[7608]

I just read this headline and all I could think of was a prostitute mouse hawking an AOL CD with Netscape on it. *shudders* I blame the poor quality of coffee in this facility.

Even better

[phaze3000]

Use keyboard shortcuts. They're quicker, and as an added benefit don't give you RSI.

Re:Even better

[litheum]

you must not spend much time looking at porn..

Sensiva

[metlin]

Sensiva is a nice tool for mouse gesturing, prety efficient too.

Esp. useful for keyboard-repellant people =)

This is really cool!

[Hazzl]

When I read this post, I immediately ran to mozdev and installed it. This is really cool! Now you can browse in complete full-screen without having to rely on context menus. Using the keyboard shortcuts (as has been suggested) is not as easy because I usually surf using only the mouse and switching my attention back and forth between keyboard and screen is quite cumbersome. In short: this completely ROCKS!!!

Re:This is really cool!

[abischof]

I'm curious. What's wrong with context menus?

The problem with context menus, especially since they activate on mousedown-then-mouseup (instead of just mousedown) is that they offer no muscle memory. With Netscape 4.x, for instance, the context menu activated on mousedown. That allowed such movements as mousedown - drag right - select Back - release button, all in one stroke. Now, with the contextmenu activating on mouseup (after mousedown), muscle memory no longer comes into play.

But, that's where mouse gestures come in. Sure, it may take a few minutes to learn. But, after a while, it's all second nature and you don't even need to think about it -- just like how copy-n-pasting is probably effortless to you since "your fingers" know all the right keys to press without you having to consciously think about it.

Re:Gimic

[Xenex]

You've never used the gestures in Opera for more then a few seconds, have you? Once you get used to them, you'll swear by them.

A quick set of down-up's on a bunch of links on a news site, and they're all loading in new windows in the background.

Down-Right, and a window closes.

Down, in new window in the forground.

Up-Down, refresh.

This is really only scraching the surface, but they are the ones I personally use.

With these gestures, I can browse the web with literally only the mouse, and still use it as easily as if I had access to keyboard shortcuts.

Sure, it's not for everyone, and I'm still split 50/50 between my usage of keyboard commands and gestures, but don't call something a gimmic just because YOU don't like it.

Re:Am I doing something wrong?

[mattdm]

This isn't part of the main mozilla project. See the optimoz install page.

Slashdot to thank

[abischof]

In a way, Slashdot is to thank for this. Back when Mozilla 0.9.2 was released, there was a +5 comment on the possibility of Opera-like gestures. That led people to read about gestures in bug 76537 and, from there, the community stepped up to the plate (specifically, Andy Edmonds). Nice.

Now, if only we could work together and get some working spellchecking for Mozilla :).

Re:Slashdot to thank

[FFFish]

In a way, *Opera* is to thank for this. If they hadn't been truly innovative, in that they thought to take the uncommon idea of mouse gesturing and applying it to browsing, this would never have made the radar.

Re:Slashdot to thank

[NutscrapeSucks]

Wouldn't that be "Slashdot to blame"? :)

Anyway, since mozilla.org is in a feature adding move, and we've got the opportunity to pimp a little, go and vote for Alt mail support or Here -- this will allow Mozilla to play nice with the mailer/newsreader of your choice instead of assuming you want Messenger.

Gestures take to long.

[ivan256]

They were my least favorite part of that Black & White game.. If they work anything like that in Mozilla then why bother? With your other hand on the keyboard you can just use keyboard shortcuts which take one press instead of opposing movements. The only thing I ever use the mouse for is clicking on a link anyway. Everything else involoving the mouse is so unnatural to do with your hands. If it weren't for graphical web browsers and quake, I would never use my mouse at all. It may just be that I have really big hands, but I just find resting my hand on a mouse (they're all too small) makes my hand curl unnaturally. I don't even want to get in to the scroll wheel...

how about additional mouse buttons ?

[mbyte]

I got an M$ Intellimouse with 5 buttons + wheel
(if u count the wheel as buttonts, then it has 7)

In IE the 4th button is the Page back feature .. this is WAY more convinient than every possible guesture, just press ur thumb , and page back.

Any way to configure Mozilla to have the same behavior ? The best i found is using key for page pack, but as written below u need 2 hands for that ... Any ideas ? Do i need to fill out a mozilla bug ? :)

Re:how about additional mouse buttons ?

[abischof]

In IE the 4th button is the Page back feature .. this is WAY more convinient than every possible guesture, just press ur thumb , and page back.

That specific functionality is bug 30431. Feel free to vote for it if that issue is important to you. In the meantime, there are still ways in which you can make use of those extra buttons:

1. First, configure at least one of the side-buttons to Ctrl
2. Then, goto Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Mouse Wheel.
3. Select "Ctrl" from the pull-down and set the radio button to "Move back and forward in the browsing history".

Now, to move back or forward, just hold down the side-button that you configured to Ctrl and move the mouse wheel. Ok, so it's not as nice as just a click, but at least it's something until bug 30431 is fixed.

YES, please: more ways to browse with the keyboard

[Tom7]

This is a fun feature, and I'm sure people will get a kick out of it. But gestures don't seem like a good "expert" way to browse -- the keyboard offers faster, more accurate input. And you are absolutely right about the RSI: since I started using my keyboard for almost everything (except web browsing, ah..) my wrist problems have gotten much better.

What I'd really like to see is more ways to browse with the keyboard. I don't have any ideas in particular (being able to use the arrows to move around in a spatial way instead of tabbing through links in order would be a plus), but I would definitely learn and use any system that's better than what I've got now.

Re:Didn't work for me

[brunes69]

Also, from the experience I've had, the user you're running mozilla under has to be able to write to the mozilla directory to install plugins. So I su root, install the plugin, then re-start in user mode. The plugin then appears.

Re:XPI?

[knarf]

XPI ('Zippy') is mozilla lingo for 'Cross Platform Installer' or something like that. XPI files are to mozilla what deb files are to Debian, or RPM's to RedHat. They are actually jar files (you know, Java Archives, which in turn are really zip-files with a twist) with an install script and a description of the contents of the archive in RDF format. More on this can be found on the mozilla website

vim mode?

[The Pim]

Use keyboard shortcuts. They're quicker.

It's not just that keyboard controls are good on general principles; it's also the ridiculous extent to which browsers neglect them. Do you realize that when the focus is in the page (> 90% of the time), almost every single keypress does absolutely nothing? What a waste!

I would give my left foot for a vim-like mode in mozilla. Flexible and powerful navigation, visual selection, one-key incremental regex searches, marks and jumps, macros. Some modifications would be necessary for a browser environment, but I think most of the endearing non-editing properties of vim could be carried over.

So, anyone want to write this?

Re:vim mode?

[Ecyrd]

I would give my left foot for a vim-like mode in mozilla.

Okay. You send me your left foot and I'll make Mozilla support a vim-like mode. Sounds like a fair deal, though I am more used to accepting souls in return.

But a foot is a good start.

This can't work

[humming]

atleast for me, as I keep wiggling the mouse, marking random text and pressing buttons while I read a page. Dunno why, compulsive disorder probably. ;)

Atleast I learned pretty quick not to mark text text and press middle mousebutton in mozilla. :)

//Humming

Can Slashdot help them stop adding features?

[Tony Shepps]

I'm just about at the end of my wick over certain mozilla bugs, such as the myriad problems with cursor management in textareas. Over the last six months to a year, I swear Moz has moved backwards in getting rid of these kinds of piddling little problems - problems which, in my opinion, absolutely prevent its wider acceptance.

The usual reply is that you can't prevent people from working on what they want to work on. Well guess what, if the piddling little bugs aren't fixed, there won't BE an open source browser for you to add your favorite little quirks to.

I'm composing this in Moz and if I hit the right arrow button at the end of a line, the cursor will go to the top of the text area. If I hit the down arrow key, it will create a hidden EOL. Sometimes entire lines of text just disappear and then re-appear. Sometimes unhighlighted text remains highlighted. Once in a while it even crashes, which I like because then at least something has a chance of getting attention.

It's so bush, too, that's the problem with it. Looks like Moz can manage to claim compatibility with important WWW standards but CAN'T MANAGE STANDARD TEXT EDITING.

You can complain about me complaining, but my contribution is not coding, and all my words are out of frustration for seeing these stupid little bugs live on for month after month. To live to make it into milestone after milestone. And the worst part is, IT USED TO WORK PERFECTLY. At some point, probably last spring, text editing was BROKEN. WTF, people?

And I won't even mention how many times the window focus problems have changed but not improved in the last six months. And to think that, a year ago, I though Moz was three months away from "ready".

Re:Can Slashdot help them stop adding features?

[Eloquence]

You make valid points. I am not very familiar with the Bugzilla interface. But I tend to think that interfaces mean a lot, and with slight changes there often come great increases in productivity and changes in direction.

The problem that important bugs remain unfixed seems to stem from a lack of knowledge and motivation for developers to concentrate on the important stuff. All bugs are considered equal. So when everything is equal, it seems to be logical to do what looks "cool" to you instead of what may actually be important. On the other hand, if fixing important bugs increases your status in the Mozilla community more than adding features, the problems you describe are likely to go away soon.

I notice that Bugzilla already has a voting system. That is good. However, it seems to be mostly unused. That is bad. Why is that so? Probably because the voting interface is deeply integrated into the complex Bugzilla interface, which most end users will never access directly (let alone create an account for, which is necessary to vote) but only through the templates -- but you need the end users to vote on the most annoying bugs. How can that be changed? Perhaps all reported bugs should also be automatically submitted to a collaborative weblog like Kuro5hin. Scoop, the K5 engine, is open source. It allows users to vote on "stories" submitted, either to the front page or to a page section. In this specific application, users would have to decide which bugs and feature suggestions are very important, which ones are relatively important, and which ones are irrelevant.

This seems to be the simplest solution -- many others are possible, from improving the Bugzilla interface to integrating Bugzilla bugs into an existing weblog. You could also create a new native interface to report and rate bugs (and to rate the users who rate bugs), but that is the most time-intensive approach (if the most promising).

In general, I think that the current state of Mozilla reveals a clear weakness in the development model, one which is likely to only show up in very large projects. Improving the interface(s) to rate bugs and feature suggestions and to find the bugs that really matter should be a priority -- and the tools to do that could be useful to others, as well.

Re:YES, please: more ways to browse with the keybo

[Ian Bicking]

One thing I like about the keyboard is that it's so predictable -- I hit a key three times, and it's exactly three times. I have near-100% accuracy, where mice are always fuzzy -- always off by a pixel or two, sometimes much more.

But in browsers there's another level of unpredictability that is a pain. You never know where the next tab is going to leave you. Could be any number of input forms, or a URL, or maybe you didn't realize it and your focus isn't on the page... it makes navigation with a keyboard near-impossible. Of course, this is largely true for any complicated GUI form. Browsers just happen to be the most common complicated GUI in use.

I suppose it's because keyboards are good for modal or serial interfaces, where mice are better for more random-access interfaces. OTOH, with you use the keyboard to its full potential (i.e., as more than just a bunch of shortcuts) the keyboard can be far more expressive (e.g., CLI). But I don't have any clever ideas on how to map that to a web page.

A list of gestures in Opera...

[antdude]

You can view the list here. This is for Windows version and I was using Opera v5.12. This is sweet! I can't wait to use this with Mozilla and Galeon. :)

Voice Nav is better

[SCHecklerX]

And if you have ever used OS/2 Warp with Netscape (which was speech enabled on the OS/2 platform), you'd see how crummy your gestures are. Try surfing hands free. No mouse required. Speak a link that is on the page, it goes there. No pointy-clicky required.