Keyboard-only web browsing

I recently decided to improve my keyboard navigation skills for two reasons. First, keyboard navigation increases productivity. Moving between keyboard and mouse takes time—and saving time on little things means having more time for more worthwhile activities. Second, using the mouse often strains my wrist, and I’m hoping that keyboard navigation will lessen this.

Someday I’d like to be able to work without touching the mouse for long periods of time. I decided to start small. One of my goals in July was to learn keyboard navigation for web browsing in Firefox and for the web applications I frequently use—Gmail and Google Reader. The first order of business was to find a way to click on links without using the mouse. The traditional way of doing this is to use the tab and shift-tab commands. As you can imagine, I hoped to find a better solution—tabbing is simply unfeasible for long pages with hundreds of links.

How to open links using the keyboard

I did some searching and found Hit-a-Hint, which I recommended in my post on Firefox add-ons. After installing Hit-a-Hint, you can open a link using the keyboard by doing the following:

1. Press and hold the space bar. Numbers will appear beside all the links on the page.
2. If you’d like to open the link in a new tab, press and hold the CTRL key.
3. Type the number beside the link you want to open.
4. Let go of the space bar. The link will open.
5. Naturally, let go of the CTRL key if you opened the link in a new tab.

Hit-a-Hint allows you to navigate through form elements as well.

I was running Firefox 3, and I was at first dismayed to see that the add-on was only available up to Firefox 2. Here’s the solution I used to make it work with my version of Firefox (currently 3.0.12 on Windows XP).

1. Download hah_0_9_1.xpi from the add-on’s installation page.
2. Use 7-Zip or some such application to unzip the file as you would a zip file.
3. Open install.rdf with a text editor.
4. On line 8, change em:maxVersion="2.0" to em:maxVersion="3.1".
5. Zip the files into a new hah_0_9_1.zip.
6. Change the .zip extension to .xpi.
7. Open your new hah_0_9_1.xpi in Firefox and install the add-on.

You could also install it using my own file: Hit-a-Hint for Firefox 3. I can’t guarantee that it will work on every machine. I take no responsibility for any undesired or unexpected effects it may cause on your computer.

Firefox, Gmail, and Google Reader keyboard shortcuts

I studied these shortcuts by printing them out and memorizing them. Since I knew many of them already, I highlighted the ones I wasn’t familiar with and focused on those. Here are the shortcut lists:

• Firefox keyboard shortcuts for Windows, Mac, and Linux
• Gmail keyboard shortcuts (must be enabled on Settings page)
• Google Reader keyboard shortcuts

I put my knowledge into practice by setting blocks of time in which I went about my regular browsing habits while attempting to use the keyboard only.  I had to refer to my printed lists quite often, and several times I used the mouse out of habit. I’m still not quite used to keyboard browsing, as accustomed to the mouse as I am—but I’m getting better each day.

General keyboard navigation

I started with web browsing, but I plan to eventually learn general keyboard navigation for various computer tasks. I plan to start with the basics:

• Common keyboard shortcuts for Windows, Mac, KDE, and Gnome
• Keyboard shortcuts for Microsoft products such as Windows, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office, and Windows Media Player

Then maybe later I might delve into keyboard navigation of the desktop applications I often use. Here’s to less strain and more productivity.