Vimperator Learning Tutorials

　　

Some people always say that vim is difficult to learn, and Vimperator has turned Firefox into Vim, so many think that only the fans of Vim will use the plugin, but in fact it is not. Vimperator after the installation, as long as a little practice, you can make our browsing more efficient. Its biggest feature is the use of the keyboard instead of the mouse, but also do not exclude the mouse, so, after a period of time, users will find themselves can not leave the plug-in (this is actually my feeling, we can try). For example, Vimperator uses these keys on the keyboard to scroll the page, which is really handy after that.

J (scroll down one line)
H (scroll left) L (scroll 1 columns to the right)
K (scroll up one line)

These 4 keys are VIM's four cursor movement keys, in fact, we sometimes play computer games also often define similar keys. The advantage is that you can scroll the page directly without having to move your finger. In daily browsing, it is generally the use of J (scroll down) and K (scroll up)

(2) Opening and closing Web pages
After installing Vimperator, it hides all the menus and toolbars in Firefox, so the novice will feel unable to do so. In fact, after entering Firefox, you can simply press a few letters on the keyboard to complete the browsing task (note the uppercase and lowercase letters, vimperator case-sensitive):

Open a specific URL. URL if it is a Web site, then directly open the URL, and if not the URL, then use the default search engine for this keyword. If the first keyword is a search keyword, search for the following keywords through the specified search engine. These three commands correspond to "the page" "" in the New tab "" in the new Window "to open the corresponding URL, and also with the shortcut key o/t/w one by one corresponds.

O
After this letter, Vimperator will automatically fill in the bottom of Firefox: Open, indicating that the letter represents the command open, that is, open a URL, so, after this, as long as the direct input URL, press ENTER to browse the specified site, for example, after the letter O, Enter www.iteye.com and press ENTER to browse the Java line of sight website.

T
This is the same as O, but represents Tabopen, which opens the site in a new tab, while O is browsing the site in the current tab page.

W
Represents Winopen, which opens a Web site in a new window.

D
Represents delete, which closes the tab of the Web site currently being browsed, which can be a lot easier to use than a mouse, especially if you have a lot of tabbed pages open.

U
Represents undo, which restores the most recently closed label page.

These letters are in fact the Vimperator provides the command mode shortcut keys, but all better memory.

The commands provided by Vimperator can actually be entered into the command input mode, and then the corresponding command is completed. The way to enter the command mode is to first enter the colon (:), then the bottom of Firefox will appear the input prompt cursor, then you can enter the full name of the corresponding command, press ENTER to confirm. Three common commands are described below.

: Q
Close the current Firefox window

: QA
Close all Firefox windows and exit Firefox

: Wq
Close all Firefox windows and save the open Web sites in these windows and then exit Firefox, and the next time you start Firefox, you will be restored to the websites that are viewed in those windows.

If you mistakenly enter the command input mode, or if you want to cancel the input when you enter the command, simply press ESC to exit the command input mode.

In addition, Vimperator will automatically remember the input commands, as long as the command input mode, press the upper and lower cursor keys, you can recall the previously entered commands.

(3) Navigating the page
Usually the most common is to scroll the page, when the page is longer, the mouse is not convenient, except for the introduction of the H, J, K, L four letters, you can also use the following one or several combination of letters for quick navigation.

Gg
View the top section of the currently open Web page

G
View the bottom section of the currently open Web page

Using the mouse to click on the hyperlinks in the page is our most common way to open the page, Vimperator for us to use keyboard navigation to provide the following common way.

F
After this letter, Vimperator will be in the current page of all the hyperlink with a yellow digital ID, this time, as long as the corresponding number, you can directly open the corresponding hyperlink. However, there are times will only make the corresponding super-chain into green, then as long as the hit enter, you can.

; y23/* Copy the link address numbered 23 to the pasteboard */

; b
Note that the first character is a semicolon, which is similar to the function of F, but when you enter a number for the link, the corresponding hyperlink is opened in the background.

Because Vimperator hides the toolbar, it is inconvenient to move forward or backward with the mouse in the browsed web history, and you can use the following letters for similar operations.

H
Back in the history record

L
Move forward in the history record

These two letters in fact and the original introduction of the page in the left and right scrolling of H and L are somewhat similar, that is, the case is different.

GH or GH
Back to the home page, these two are not exactly equivalent, which opens the home page in a newly opened tab.

In fact, after mastering these, basically can use vimperator, if sometimes you need to use the menu and toolbar, you can use the following command to re-tune them out.

: Set GUIOPTIONS=MT

Where the first colon is the universal symbol at the beginning of each command, and the SET command is used to set the options in Vimperator, guioptions refers to the graphical user interface options, and the MT after the equals sign represents the menu and Toolsbar (toolbars), Firefox's menus and toolbars will appear.

Again the command to remove the display of menus and toolbars is

: Set guioptions=

There is nothing to do after the equals sign.

Sometimes, we will copy a URL in the Web page or in the Address bar to the system's Clipboard backup, this time, as long as you are not in the editing state of Firefox (that is, not in a text box to enter text), press the following letter key

P

It means put, Firefox can be automatically transferred to the copied URL.

If you need to copy the URL of the page you're currently on to the Clipboard, just use the letter key

Y

Y stands for Yank, copying the meaning, so that if we need to copy the current URL to the Clipboard, it is very convenient to use this key.

In addition, in different operating systems, the copy page of the selected text of the key combinations are different, in Windows and Linux, is CTRL + C, in Mac OSX is command+c, which makes use of Firefox in different systems often easy to press the wrong key, for this, Vimperator provides one of the following letter keys

Y

Is the y of the capital letter, and with this key, you can copy it to the Clipboard after the text is selected.

(4) Prompt for commands
As mentioned above, Vimperator's commands are a word that begins with a colon, and some parameters followed by these words can be automatically prompted with the TAB key. For example, if you want to use a menu in Firefox, you can use the following command

: Emenu

The purpose of this command is to execute a menu item in a menu, then, you can lose Emenu, then enter a space, and then press the TAB key, Vimperator will automatically list the available menus, continue to press the TAB key to move backwards between these options, the Enter to execute the corresponding menu item; The Shift+tab moves forward.

(5) Common dialog box recall

Use the following: Set GUIOPTIONS=MT to bring up the menu and toolbar to complete this task, or you can enter the command below directly.

: Addo[ns]
Note that the upper bracket indicates that the character inside is optional, that is, just enter Addo, which opens the Attachment Component dialog box.

:p Ref[erences]
The meaning of the brackets above, open the Firefox Options dialog box

:d Ownl[oads]
The meaning of the brackets above, open the Firefox download list

: SB
This is better to remember:), the representative shows the sidebar (sidebar), but also after the command to show the name of the sidebar to display, you can then press Tab,vimperator will prompt the available sidebar name, with the TAB key to select what you want to open, press ENTER on it.

In fact, all the dialogs in Firefox can be recalled by the following command

:d Ial[og]

This command is followed by the name of the dialog that needs to be opened, so it is convenient to join the TAB key. That is, first enter the colon +dial or colon +dialog, then enter a space, and then press the TAB key, Vimperator automatically lists the list of available dialog boxes, you can use the tab to move from the top down in the list, or you can use the Shift+tab key to move backwards. Press ENTER to confirm.

Call FX

The various properties

:P ref/* To bring up the Option dialog box for FX */

:p ref! /* Bring up FX About:config */

: Addon/* Bring up the FX Extension dialog box */

Addons/* Bring up the FX Extension dialog box */

:D Ialog checkupdates/* Bring up the Upgrade dialog box */

Console/* Bring up the console */

Downloads/* Bring up history download list */

Zz

Save to close the browser.

: Res[tart]

Restart the browser.

: mkvimperatorrc!

Save the settings to the configuration file.

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There is also a semicolon (;) starting with the hint mode, both for the extended hint mode. You can do more than just enter the link for the corresponding hint, such as saving the link target, copy the link address, popup Right-click menu, and so on. Specifically, you can click the semicolon after the completion of the complete view. In fact, this is equivalent to the hint Mode command mode.

We can see that the map command is broadly divided into two categories, map and Noremap, and each class is divided into C (command), I (insert), n (normal) three are corresponding to a specific pattern. The latter need not say much, the former is the difference between map and Noremap? Map means mapping RHS to LHS, which is equivalent, while Noremap maps the original RHS to LHS and does not need to obey the mappings of the RHS itself. Let me give you a simple example:

: Map D D
: Map D W

The first one means to re-map D to D, so hitting D is the equivalent of hitting d. But then another one to map D to W, that is to hit D is equivalent to hitting W, so the final result is to hit D after the effect of hitting W, that is, start: Winopen command.

: Noremap D D
: Noremap D W

This is totally different. The first note maps D to D, the second is to map W to D, but they have nothing to do with each other's original function, that is to say, the result of hitting D is to close the label, while hitting D is the start: Winopen. As a result, Noremap has a very important role to play in redefining shortcut keys. For example, there is one of the most commonly used:

: Noremap Q GT
: Noremap W GT

Q is originally a macro shortcut key, W is originally a new window shortcut. But we don't usually use them, so why not switch to a common but troublesome keyboard sequence? So we can map the gt/gt to the w/q to implement the q/w two key to switch the label. Then d close the label, R refresh the label, the label operation can be concentrated on one hand, greatly improve the efficiency.

Modifying shortcut Keys is an example, so how do you add shortcuts to the rest of the keyboard sequences? Also very simple, give a common example:

: Map:set Toolbars=na8wvigation,bookmarks,addons,tabs
: Map:set Toolbars=none,tabs

These two commands mean to put, that is, map CTRL + UP ARROW keys to one command, so that the browser displays three columns. Then use CTRL + DOWN ARROW keys to hide the three columns. In fact, the command here is a keyboard sequence, which is equivalent to when you break into the shortcut key is the equivalent of entering a long list of commands, and finally enter (the last tag is the meaning of the carriage return). In this way, basically all browser operations can be configured to make the Vimperator seamless through shortcut keys. Of course, these map commands need to be written to the configuration file, and the Vimperator will be automatically read and configured at startup. So do not forget to write into the RC file after debugging.

If you have any questions that you don't understand, you can get help by command:

: Help

Vimperator Learning Tutorials