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One Week: No Mouse, Just Keyboard
jfruhlinger writes "Anyone in tech has heard from grousing old-timers who believe the GUI was the beginning of the end of civilization and that EMacs keyboard shortcuts are all the interface anyone should need. But can someone use a modern consumer OS without laying hands on a mouse? Kevin Purdy gave it a week-long try."
Really? He used Windows for this?
i learned my way around the keyboard shortcuts because of dead batteries in a wireless mouse, and nowhere sells AA's at 3am.
after that, i put it into practice a lot, makes it easier to quickly configure a new computer at work.
after a few goes, it gets really easy, to a point where a task most people use a mouse for, is so much easier with keyboard shortcuts
portfolio
Sounds like hell. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
Yeah, sort of..."
Around 13 years ago, I've tried using the keyboard to move the mouse pointer. I was still a student then so I couldn't afford buying a replacement for my broken mouse. You'll get by with keyboard shortcuts. The only time I found it necessary to move the mouse pointer was when I played Command & Conquer.
Yes. I have never used a mouse on iOS and it works just fine.
I had an adviser who was blind, the only was he could access his computer was a combination screen reader + keyboard. I cannot imagine the number of things he is cut-off from due to a lack of support for keyboards.
Except for web pages, I normally don't use a mouse. Much quicker to use the keyboard on Windows (XP and 7).
at itworld.com it would appear.
Why?
One of our students is blind and he doesn't use a mouse on his computer as it really wouldn't be so useful. He's got a keyboard, a braille output device, and screen reading software. He moves about the system (Windows XP) using only the keyboard. It works, it is just slower than using a mouse.
I've operated Windows systems without mice occasionally because there was some problem, and again, works just fine. Even though I do it rarely, I can still do it just fine.
If you aren't on friendly terms with your mouse I would recommend the conkeror web browser. This has saved me quite some hazzle in situations where I either don't have a mouse (my TV computer) or when the mouse is awkward to use (my laptop with a substandard trackpad).
For those who don't know, conkeror is a web browser based on xulrunner which is designed to be used in an effective manner without a mouse. If you happen to like emacs, you'll probably feel right at home since the keybindings (by default) are inspired by emacs. If you are not familiar with emacs you will probably need some more time to get used to conkeror. However, since conkeror allows you to use a mouse as well if you want to you can adapt to the browser without feeling too handicapped.
If this seems interesting you can find more information about conkeror at http://conkeror.org/.
On Win7, how the F*** do you log off, shutdown, or restart without a mouse?
On XP, it was {CTRL+ESC|WinKey}, U, {L|R|S}
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Mostly, on a Mac you can use either a keyboard or a mouse.
When Microsoft started Windows, that was also true. There were rules for how to
do GUI stuff and if you implemented that "GUI stuff" you also had to implement
the keyboard version of the navigations. Over time, Microsoft lost their interest
in efficiency of the individual and traded it for the the easiest way for a beginner
to use their product. Experienced and expert users were ignored. They are now
paying the price for that decision.
When I was teaching Linux system administration (a 3 month full-time course for unemployed - I accepted the job on the condition that I could select among the candidates based on motivation and reasoning skill), I setted up the computer of each student with nothing but a full screen text mode. I told them that there would be occasions when they had such a screen, because at that point they can start to troubleshoot. They used that for a whole week to learn using the shell and understanding the basic principles of the O., The last day of the first week would be on vim - my co-teachers thought I was nuts, but the students learned a lot during that weel. The first day of the second week they would do their first installation of Linux, including a windowing environment of their choice (so everybody was using something different, by the end of the secdond month we would also diversify among distros and even throw in BSD, Solaris and HP/UX in lab exercises), only to find out that their GUI would mainly be used as a way to start up a text terminal. We ran the course 3 times a year for several years and managed to train some damn fine sysadmins out of people who often never got any chances to excel before.
I don't grep any obvious mention in there about his web-browser, but I should mention that, Opera has, among other tools*, a way to roughly navigate the 2D page via arrow keys while holding down shift. Much easier than hitting tab N times.
* For example, you can use text-searches to simply type the link you want and then hit enter (I often use this in forums) or Control-J to show all links in a page.
While interesting, the whole premise is rather silly. Trying to use an object while rejecting the intended control scheme and asking "will it work as well?" is the silly part. What's next, examining the effect of trying to drive a car with no steering wheel, just the column to grab onto? It's built to use the wheel, and is a daft comparison to make. For the best user experience, a modern OS is built to use the mouse (or a touchscreen for a mobile).
A worse case: on n900, a device with a keyboard, Nokia in their infinite wisdom decided that to set an alarm you need to swipe a number of times to scroll to the hour and minute you want.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
I would have loved to click the link in the article, but I couldn't as I too have given up my mouse...
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
why the hell did they change it? Here you have keyboard commands that millions of people have memorized, and they throw them out just for the hell of it. It's almost as if Microsoft doesn't give a damn about their customers. Crazy, I know.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
For many folks it's a more than an entertaining jaunt into the wild west of accessibility, it's a way of life.
In soviet linux the keyboard is the mouse:
http://www.tuxfiles.org/linuxhelp/movecursor.html
I'm surprised nothing was said about spatial navigation (particularly because Opera touts this as a big feature). It looks like Chrome is getting this too, though.
... I'm doing it all day long. Using a tiling window manager like dwn, wmii, awesome, ratpoison, (etc.) you can arrange your windows with the keyboard. Most applications I use on a daily basis are console-based anyway: vim, mutt, irssi, ... Even firefox is keyboard-friendly if you install the vimperator plugin.
Most of the time, I feel like I'm much faster using just the keyboard, especially when programming. However, there are of course certain applications where a mouse is needed (like image manipulation (GIMP), CAD, ..).
Designed for just keyboard use.
http://xmonad.org/
vimperator?
I did this from time to time (lets just say in the lab i find it enough if every oscilloscope or auxiliary control computer has a keyboard flying around without a mandatory mouse.
The gnome desktop was hard to navigate, Windows for sure possible and more consistent across applications.
The mouse is useful to select windows, do edge-scroll between virtual desktops and select text regions. (fvwm2, obviously)
Other than that, I use it for gaming and that is it.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I dont think I have even seen a router with a mouse plugged in.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
... one week NO MONITOR juta sdf agah!!!
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
the Finger-Nose
It's also possible to use a computer soully with a refreshable braille display device, though it gets aggrivating, and there's no way in hell I'd do it for a week.
On the Linux side of things, the accessibility is far worse than in Windows, but Gnome provides a lot of the same types of keyboard navigation mechanisms as Windows (Orca doesn't work on KDE, sadly).
... fail.
Supposedly, the operating system that "we" made was supposed to have full keyboard support, so we won't have to leave our beloved home row, right?
Wrong. I had a mouse go bad one time, and found out just how wrong.
For starters, just to log off or turn the computer off, you have to click a button in the top panel (in Ubuntu/Gnome), but, although there's a shortcut for the top menu (Alt+F1), you can't get to the panel buttons from there.
Plenty of other annoyances as well, including being not able (or hardly able) to switch among different sections of a program (such as file browser or web browser) with the keyboard.
Protip: I think Gnome's supposed to have support for MouseKeys. I used to use it all the time in Windows, but haven't in Ubunutu. In Windows, there's a handy keyboard combo for turning it on and off. Without that, you've disabled your numpad.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
The blind and some print disabled use computers all the time without a mouse. On MacOS X and the iOS there is a built in screen reader called VoiceOver (started with a command-F5 on a standard keyboard function-command-F5 on portables. With VoiceOver running you can work the OS with no mouse, or for that matter even a screen attached. It also support a wide range of braille displays.
There is similar products for Windows but they are not built into the OS and some, JAWS and WindowEyes for example, can cost more than the computer they run on.
On on the whole this is a rather silly question which if the authors had asked the question "How do the blind use a computer?" would have been answered.
Gregory Kearney
Manager - Accessible Media
Association for the Blind of Western Australia
61 Kitchener Avenue, PO Box 101
Victoria Park 6979, WA Australia
Telephone: +61 (08) 9311 8246
Telephone: +1 (307) 224 4022 (North America)
Fax: +61 (08) 9361 8696
Toll free: 1800 658 388 (Australia only)
Email: gkearney@gmail.com
But in Linux, of course. I use Arch Linux with the ratpoison tiling window manager. For web browsing I use firefox with the pentadactyl addon. pentadactyl (a fork of vimperator) gives firefox a modal interface like vim, along with the vim keybindings of course. I almost switched to chrome before I found that addon. apart from firefox, the only gui apps that I use are a few lightweight ones for dealing with pdf/media, such as apvlv (a pdf viewer with vi keybindings) and sxiv (an image viewer, also with some vi keybindings). for nearly everything else, I use the command line. MPD + MPC for music, mplayer for movies, mutt for email, vim of course, etc. the only time I ever use a mouse is for a few web apps (mainly google maps).
I wouldn't even bother if I wasn't using linux though. Windows and OS X are built with the mouse in mind, and they just aren't as configurable. I would still use pentadactyl, but that's about it. I do commend the author for trying such a feat though. I'd hate to have to deal with windows without a mouse.
also, anyone else out there use the dvorak layout? I switched in december and am up to about 80 WPM now. I actually use a variant called programmer dvorak (and with the caps lock and left control key switched). It really is great, I love the keyboard.
Anybody want a peanut?
F5 will refreshes everything.... except Notes. F9? WTF? It's the keyboarding equivalent of being the only airplane where yanking back on the yoke makes a nose dive.
If you never make mistakes, it's probably because you're not doing anything.
Many may already know this, but I thought I would post anyways... if you want to make greater use of gestures while browsing, and use Firefox, see the article here...
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=737074
There are assignable gestures hidden in about:config, and browsing is so much better once you find some customized combinations that you like. Here are the ones that I have altered and find helpful:
Swipe down: new tab
Swipe up: go home
Pinch in: close tab
Pinch out: toggle between full screen/not full screen
Rotate right: reload
Rotate left: undo close tab (for those times you accidentally pinch in)
Name: Mr. Anon E Mouse; SSN: 555-55-5555
I agree, keyboard shortcuts can make a relatively useable experience, I've used so many in XP, I have gone in with no monitor to repair minor screen resolution issues that were preventing me from seeing the display. The customers be amazed.
I did this with Windows 95/98 for a month just to force myself to learn the keyboard shortcuts of Windows. It is a little daunting at first but after a few days it is very natural and even somewhat faster during certain tasks. However, I didn't think it was newsworthy at the time.
The most annoying thing to me are web forms or applications with bizarre tab orders. (Even the "helpful" ones that move your focus after you fill the field are annoying since you might type your area code, hit tab for the next field, but end up at the field for last 4 digits.)
I won't even delve into the horror that is non-standard gui/keyboard implementations in flash interfaces.
Who's the leader of the band that made for you and me? M-I-C-K-EY M-O-U-S-E! Mickey Mouse. KEYBOARDS SUCK! Mickey Mouse. WTF?! Forever we will point until we die. HI HI HI! HEY there! HI there! HO there you're as welcome as can be. M-I-C-K-EY M-O-U-S-E!
If you never make mistakes, it's probably because you're not doing anything.
Still, in 2011, I have a Windows[tm] key on my keyboard. It STILL isn't used for anything. Did we *really* need a replacement for Ctrl-Esc? I remember not long ago, looking up the shortcuts for the Windows[tm] key, and the entire alphabet had not been allocated. It's as if Microsoft just innovated (snort) the Windows[tm] key in order to brand all keyboards with the Microsoft(R) symbol, and then forgot about the entire project. Looking at the docs, I see that Windows[tm]+G means "select next Windows Sidebar gadget item and bring all gadgets to the foreground." Wow! How freaking useful! Certainly good enough to allocate an entire key on the keyboard!
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
awesome
Enlightenment was designed to deal with that as were several other window managers in the decade+ since. The clue is to actually look at a list of keyboard shortcuts in your environment of choice and if they even have mouse movements in there you know it has been dealt with. I never said easy or ideal, just that you can get away without a mouse even when running a program that is designed to be operated only by mouse.
Who cares.
No keyboard, just mouse.
I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
On Gnome 2.28 (running SL6): [Ctrl]+{Shift]+[Tab] to the "top panel" then right-arrow four times to get to the "System" menu. How you'd do it using Gnome 3... I've no clue.
Everytime I run out of UHF mouse batteries, or my bluetooth mouse is dead, I end up with a keyboard for at least a few days. I already use shortcuts for all my software(and if not, from the keyboard I can add it) and since I started with a C:/ prompt I am pretty comfy with it.
I hate laptops that have horrid shortcuts or none, and when someone breaks the touchpad....ugh, glad I carry a wireless mouse with me and my tech stuff. Keyboards are useful, I wish more tablets and computer came with fuller functioning keyboard models.
I miss my PF keys from my old school IBM mechanical keyboard. 12 custom one press shortcuts. even my logitech desktop board doesn't do completely custom shortcut buttons.
I watched with amusement one day when one of our IT support folk tried to "fix" a monitor. Someone had dicked with the the res, and set it really low. When the IT guy went into the desktop properties using the mouse, the dialogue box was so huge that the "OK/Cancel/Apply" buttons were off screen. He changed the res, using the mouse, but was totally thrown by not being able to click OK.
I waited for him to just hit tab then enter, or even esc if he was really stumped, but he just stared at it blankly, said "is broken, I take it away".
I was dumfounded.
Learn how to use a computer, and your Windows key can be used for whatever you want.
But I forget, things were better when there was a giant fucking empty space between ctrl and alt! I MEAN LOL U CULD PUT A FAKE 'PANIC' KEY THERE HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA
Kevin is a wimp. Next week I go 1 week with just a keyboard and mouse. No monitor or computer.
What's EMACS?
I thought you meant vi....
Self Defense - A Human Right www.a-human-right.com
We can operate computer (I am used to Win; 7 now) with only keyboard - for most part... Mouse can accelerate my ability, since I use it as a second input device rater then using it as the primary device. I am often shocked at today's users who does not even know that there are keyboard shortcuts availabe. At work, once in a while some people even irritate my by wasting time trying to use 5 clicks that can be done using 1 shortcut.
So according to me, we can very well use just keyboard and survive.
I can't do any real work with a trackpad. Compared to a mouse, I find the trackpad inferior for text editing, it's useless with photoshop, 3d modeling application and games (not that games constitute work, unless one's making them). For most stuff (other than web browsing) even on my laptop I use a mouse.
On a side note, of all the laptops in the house (new macbook air, sony, toshiba, acer netbook) I actually find the apple trackpad the hardest to use because of the virtual buttons.
Unless by "work" you mean browsing the internet, I don't get it. Maybe I'm missing something?
iOS has really excellent support for the disabled, built in screen reading and everything. You might think the blind could not use a touchscreen well but the devices are small enough it's easy to get position right.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I traded in a desktop cga xt with a 14.4 modem for a mono vga 386 nec laptop with broken screen hinges and no mouse. 2 years later fuck it! windows is braindead for the keyboard enabled
ctrl alt windows bullshit, nothing special
by using ctl + f, then hitting escape, you can type the text present in a link and go to it without the mouse. ctl+f gets you to the search function, escape activates the link, and enter clicks it through. if the link is a common word on the page, ctl+f to a near word and then press tab. that works in chrome and firefox. i can't yet figure it out in safari.
I use to own a XP. and Is easy to shutdown it using only the keyboard. Even with the monitor off. I have done it daily. Something like "ctrl+esc up enter right enter"
Now I "upgraded" to Windows 7, and the same key combo don't seems to work. Any suggestion? What combinations of keys will result on W7 to shutdown?
-Woof woof woof!
When I read the title and summary I immediately imagined browsing the web to be tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, shift-tab, shift-tab, enter, repeat. This method makes a bit more sense.
I would like to see a window environment that offers command mode like vim. For example, all controls in currently focused window should have a line number faintly visible (one number per line for text boxes with multiple lines). You can highlight change focus to a particular control like changing to a line in vim: `:12` Tightly packed stuff such as buttons on a tool bar might only one number, with decimal values for the things inside it (or a number each, whatever). You would only need to show the number every 8 buttons or something, people can count the sequence between. ctrl+w, hjlk for window selection... etc And while we're at it, repurpose that useless scroll-lock key to toggle to vim mode, so power users can quickly turn it on when they sit down at any computer.
... but still use my favourite analog pointing device, thanks to ThinkPads and the awesome trackpoint-enabled ThinkPad USB keyboard.
God, root, what is difference ?
I think you misspelled "fap, fap, fap, ..., fap" there...
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
While I use keyboard shortcuts for a whole lot of things in my day-to-day computing, it would not be possible for me to do my work without a mouse. Why? I do a fair bit of CAD, using software like Pro/E and Solidworks. Quite simply, there is no way to create or manipulate those 3D objects without a mouse. You could get far with the keyboard for viewing objects, and both of those CAD applications make extensive use of (heavily customizable) shortcuts for creating and executing features, but a lot of core operations (sketching, selecting, etc.) can only be done with a mouse.
I think i'll try going a week driving my car without using my brakes.
Why do blind people need GUIs?
Was the mouse right there, next to the keyboard? Was it covered with spikes and nails and sharp blades, all of them pointing outward? Was the laser light (installed on the top instead of underneath for some strange reason) always aiming for his remaining good eye? Was the surface underneath lathered with gel?
I am looking for such a mouse.
The entire point of a GUI is to facilitate input devices like mice, keyboards, trackpads, those pen-thingies, trackballs, etc. For example, I use a mouse and a trackpad (running Lion dev 4) because of the various gestures available with those two device. In addition, I use a keyboard, because it's the best way to input text (duh).
People who complain about GUIs and lament the diminishing use of the command line are doing so because of a poorly designed GUIs or personal baggage they bring to the plate. Of course people are going to prefer the way they know, even if it isn't as good as the new way.
Of course command line is better for some things for some people, but the overwhelming majority of things average users do with a computer are better achieved via a GUI. There's no shame in using a GUI and there's no extra nerd cred for going command line, because being a geek stopped being new about 15 years ago.
Used to be, back in the NT4 days, you could get around with just a keyboard quite easily. You can still do it today, but the amount of time you save by using a mouse has increased dramatically. Just think about the web experience today vs 10 years ago. Now some websites have dynamic menus that you have to hover over to select your choices - can't do that with a keyboard. Also, there are many sites that have hundreds of links, would you really want to tab through those when you could just use a mouse to click? And what about tabbed browsing? Now you have to first select the tab you want, before it used to be as simple as Alt - Tab to switch to the browser window that had the site you wanted. Not saying tabbed browsing is a bad thing by any means, but it does make operating with a keyboard a bit more difficult.
I'm only 14, and I'm pretty good with working my way around with the command line (Windows Vista). Even when I'm using the Explorer GUI, I tend to use the arrow keys.
Web browsing would be a bit of a pain though. Should get a text only browser first
Long ago, I was chatting with a MS engineer from Redmond when Windows 3.1 came out. We got to talking about mouse vs keyboard and which was faster/easier to use. Back then, I was on the keyboard side of the camp and really had a strong distaste for the mouse. He quickly pointed out that there were keyboard combinations for everything in the O/S at the time.
He explained (back then) there was someone else in the O/S programming department that also hated the mouse. They would on random times go around and quietly take away everyone's mouse for a day (they removed the mice at night), forcing the programmers to make sure that they could continue to function without a mouse the next day. If they found that they were stuck, they had to make a note of it, and fix it.
It was eventually called "Eeeek! No mouse day."
After hearing this tale (I'm still not sure if the story is true, but it is fun to repeat), I made and concerted effort to learn the keyboard shortcuts. It was very helpful in my past, as it was quite often I would have to work on a system that didn't have a working mouse, for some reason. Waaay-back-then, mice weren't as reliable as they are now. The old mice (with a ball in them) would get "gunked" up, or the drivers would just hang, and one would be forced to use the keyboard. Or on a rack server there just wasn't a mouse because there really wasn't a good place to put them. You just couldn't unplug, then plug in a mouse when you needed it. The mouse had to be there when the O/S booted, to work.
I always had fun pointing out to Mac fanbois at the time that I drive without a mouse. I would ask them if they could on the old Mac OS. Turns out they couldn't. There were some keyboard shortcuts (cut, copy, paste, and some other basic ones), but back then they were forced to use the mouse.
congratulations, you just wasted a week of your life... oh wait, and I wasted 5 minutes.
Just type update-rc.d gdm remove (i think its remove don't quote me) and use the shell! I have been using a linux box as my main machine for months without a GUI. Elinks baby! in windows... with choice software and a good memory perhaps
I find that vista/7 broke a whole bunch of keyboard shortcuts. In the past the OS components used by most win32 apps had a standard set of hotkeys. Now, it seems the new guys doing UI work at MS don't even know what the hotkeys should be so they don't implement them when they choose to rewrite the UI interfaces. Plus the whole alt/vs ctrl argument barely works anymore. In the past, a key to operate globally would be alt and key, the local application equivalent would be ctrl and key. So Alt-f4 was close application windows, where ctrl-f4 was close MDI child/dialog box. Ctrl-tab, change tab/mdi child, alt-tab change application. Before MS decided "hiding" the keyboard shortcuts for menu items was a good default, most applications made it a priority to make sure every menu item had a keyboard shortcuts. Now its not unusual to find applications that just fail to provide any at all.
In chrome you can get a plugin called Vimeum, that basically removes the need for mouse in-browsers.
I've had it a few days, and am getting very used to it.
shutdown.exe -s -t 00 I just createated a shortcut to this that is alt/ctrl/caps lock. cause,WHO USES CAPS LOCK ANYWAY! ;)
data entry people.
Some regulations in some industries demand sentence in all caps.
and so on.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I go the other way. With the microsoft disability software(standard with windows 7), I only need one hand to do everything on my computer. I just click the on-screen keyboard with my mouse.
Windows (at least from XP as I know) lets you create shortcuts on the DESKTOP to the most frequent apps you need (like Ctrl + Alt + F for Firefox browser).
The nice thing is, once created, these shortcuts can be invoked anytime, even if you're working in another app.
Shortcuts can be added even to your yahoo mail's inbox, a link to a review of your favorite smart phone, just about any app.
The only catch is every shortcut works with the Ctrl + Alt + (A-Z/0-9) combo - so you can create 36 shortcuts in all.
I setup a group of shortcuts for my dev team, and they just love using them.
When I used to use windows, (I switched to linux shortly before XP came out, and then to mac right after Apple switched to Intel chips,) I used to seldom use the mouse preferring keyboard shortcuts for navigating. With linux I never really got there because each application could implement it's interface so differently. Plus, I was in console the majority of time anyway. With Mac it's a whole different experience. I use the touchpad a lot more then I did in either windows or linux. I also use keyboard shortcuts more then I did in either. People used to say they didn't like only having on button, but I looked it as having one pointer and a whole panel full buttons.