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I don't hate the poor old mouse so much as being forced to use it.
I don't have RSI or anything, but I'm completely convinced it's simply faster if your hands can simply stay on the keyboard 99%/100% of the time. I feel the "obligatory mouse" should be confined to actions where you need to designate areas of screen real estate.
And even then there should be alternatives (however tricky to master), and I'm thinking above all for people who do have disabilities of one kind or another.
When I develop Java apps I always make sure the thing can be handled using keyboard-only, and one hotkey always displays all the hotkeys that are available in any given context.
But when it comes to distributed computing, I'm stumped. Very limited use of Alt keys is of course available in Firefox, but even that has to contend with the menu mnemonics. Then there is multiple tabbing... one gets quite adept at this, but it's hardly ideal.
Is there anything in HTML5 to help with this? Or has anyone ever thought of a Firefox add-on to help with this functionality? I have searched, but found nothing, which I find puzzling. Autohotkey (on a Windows platform) might be useful for some purposes, but again it's not designed for this, and far from ideal.
Later: Seth's comment helped me to clarify what I'm frustrated by: just as, in CSS, JQuery and Selenium/Selenide, there is now a fully fledged, powerful language dedicated to "selection" of webpage elements, I'd like to see something similar available to the USERS of web pages, to prevent having to navigate the cursor all the time, whether by the mouse or by the Ease of Access keyboard "mouse workaround".
mike rodent
Posted 2016-10-14T08:43:48.323
Reputation: 367
What distributed computing? What exactly is your question? Are you designing something or do you have trouble using something? Windows can navigate your mouse using the keyboard, it's in the
Ease of Accessoptions. – Seth – 2016-10-14T08:53:41.450Ease of Access is kind of a workaround. By "distributed computing" I mean server-browser technology as opposed to desktop/standalone apps. Let me clarify: I'm faced with a web page ... and it has number links and buttons. There should be a simple way to activate a button or link based on the text content, so on this page, for example, I press some pre-key, and then enter "Ad", and immediately the browser has shown by a visual indicator that by then pressing the spacebar (for example) I can press the "Add Comment" button. I don't want to be obliged to use the mouse. – mike rodent – 2016-10-14T09:05:04.930
You could look into software for blind people. Depending on the kind of scripting just pressing Tab also helps to navigate through elements. Some webdevs actually to use the
accesskeyattribute but it's not available on every site. – Seth – 2016-10-14T09:28:12.693Thanks... yes,
accesskeywas what I was referring to when I mentioned "Alt" keys, and multiple tabbing is not really what you want as a "solution" in the 21st Century. I should indeed look into assistive tech for the visually impaired... but what I really want is a browser add-on or new functionality (assuming there is no current browser which does what I want). – mike rodent – 2016-10-14T09:31:55.557Well a current browser that does that would be links/lynx which are text only. The problem is with current webdesign particses and scripting all around you won't really enjoy it. There is a vast number of scripts (from my experience) that rely on events like
hoverwhich just don't really work by using a keyboard as the input. As such you'd need something that actually emulates the mouse movement. GL on your journey, tools for visually impaired might have some solutions for that but it's all I can think of. – Seth – 2016-10-14T09:57:25.527Tx - I've heard of Lynx, but I don't see why I can't have the full visual experience but not have to use a cursor to go anywhere. Hovering is merely an "energised state" of a page element. Sigh... obviously it *is* currently beyond the wit of woman/man... – mike rodent – 2016-10-14T15:55:54.287
If you wrote an extension, you cover have it modify the html to automatically assign accesskey values to whatever elements you wished. You would have to have a systematic key selection method. I have also seen programs that allow you to use the keyboard arrow keys to move the cursor. "WindowsEyes" is one software for the blind. – cybernard – 2016-10-15T03:35:26.310
@cybernard thanks. From the answers so far I am indeed beginning to wonder whether I might go down the route of attempting to write an extension. I've never looked into this and have no idea whether this might be a realistic challenge to my feeble aptitudes. There seems to be no "Firefox Extensions for Dummies" but plenty of helpful-looking intro sites out there... – mike rodent – 2016-10-15T08:32:35.307