[HN Gopher] Mouseless - fast mouse control with the keyboard
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Mouseless - fast mouse control with the keyboard
Author : lvturner
Score : 172 points
Date : 2024-12-12 04:53 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (mouseless.click)
(TXT) w3m dump (mouseless.click)
| evanjrowley wrote:
| I'd absolutely try this out.
|
| It's similar to the grid that's provided by voice control on
| MacOS: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/use-voice-
| control-c...
| lvturner wrote:
| There seems to be a bug at the moment with multi-monitor on
| different resolutions, but reading thru the dev's github issues
| it also seems it will be fixed soon.
|
| Aside from that, I'm really enjoying this, taking a little bit
| to wrap my head around it, but I think it'll very quickly
| become second nature -- can already see how in many cases it's
| going to be much faster and less distracting than reaching for
| the mouse.
| euroderf wrote:
| When is there voice control where I can configure the use of
| vocal sound effects (clicks, pops, whatever) as meta ?
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| it's configurable for both language and command phrases, so
| with a bit of effort (does apple already support any click-
| using natural language? if not, can you reverse engineer
| phoneme descriptions?) it ought to be possible?
|
| EDIT: replied and edited via voice command; HN looks very
| amenable to this style of navigation (though I personally
| will go back to silent clicking as soon as the novelty wears
| off)
| TheFreim wrote:
| On mobile the embedded YouTube video is extremely tiny.
| hermitdev wrote:
| On desktop, the embedded video is also fairly small and
| annoyingly, they disallow full-screen. why?
| dartos wrote:
| How clever!
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Clever? Yes. New and novel? No [0]. Shame there's nothing like
| it for Windows? Absolutely.
|
| [0]https://github.com/rvaiya/warpd/
| freddy12345 wrote:
| On Windows, there https://github.com/petoncle/mousemaster
| which took inspiration from warpd.
| MoreMoore wrote:
| Is there anything like this for Windows?
| dr_kiszonka wrote:
| There are a few:
|
| https://github.com/GavinPen/AhkCoordGrid
|
| https://github.com/EsportToys/TPMouse
|
| https://github.com/lesderid/keynavish
| stronglikedan wrote:
| None of those are quite like this, which is a shame.
| Unfortunately, I don't have time to get nerd sniped right
| now.
| freddy12345 wrote:
| mousemaster is a warpd-like, opensource, for Windows:
| https://github.com/petoncle/mousemaster
| ksp-atlas wrote:
| I had an idea for something like this, but for Linux instead and
| utilizing numbers
| xypine wrote:
| For Linux users there is https://github.com/moverest/wl-kbptr/
| mistaken wrote:
| Also: https://github.com/rvaiya/warpd/
| davidee wrote:
| Giving this a whirl as it's both MacOS and Linux compat.
| Thanks.
| mistaken wrote:
| I'm not sure about the naming; similar software already exists
| for linux with the same name:
| https://github.com/jbensmann/xmouseless
| https://github.com/jbensmann/mouseless
| t_von_doom wrote:
| I wish I had seen this a few months sooner! I have solved the
| problem with hardware via a Keyball:
| https://github.com/Yowkees/keyball/blob/main/keyball44/doc/r...
| dr_kiszonka wrote:
| It looks great! How do you like it? I think I would prefer a
| small touchpad because it seems like it might put less of a
| strain on my thumb, but I am very curious about your
| experience.
| AlexErrant wrote:
| (I'm not OP - I'm on the Charybdis.)
|
| I prefer a trackball because I can momentum-flick my cursor
| from one side of my 4k screen (at 100% zoom) to another side
| monitor pretty easily... as long as I keep the ball bearings
| clean. I've been thinking about using a metal trackball for
| more momentum, but haven't gotten around to it yet.
|
| I have a "sniper" key I use to decrease sensitivity for more
| precision cursoring... but rarely use it (maybe once a
| month?). I do not have thumb fatigue.
| dr_kiszonka wrote:
| Thanks!
| evanjrowley wrote:
| The keyball and trackball manuform variants[0] all seem great
| to me. My one issue with them is that the thumb clusters are
| not symmetrical.
|
| I don't have money for a svalboard[1] so I opted for an
| interesting variant found on AliExpress[2]. Unfortunately the
| delivery person threw the package on the ground[3], so my
| integrated pointing device project is in limbo until this
| curious planck-like keyboard arrives[4].
|
| [0] https://bastardkb.com/charybdis/
|
| [1] https://svalboard.com/
|
| [2] https://a.aliexpress.com/_m0Tn0vv
|
| [3]
| https://ring.com/share/ff5c6ccf-d168-4975-a726-c58faff51204?...
|
| [4] https://a.aliexpress.com/_mqFzwnl
| AlexErrant wrote:
| Happy Charybdis user here. If you ask, I'm sure Quentin would
| be willing to build a Charybdis with a trackball on both
| sides - he was very accommodating of a change I requested (I
| wanted ball transfer units). He already supports having the
| trackball on either side.
| aitchnyu wrote:
| Its as effective as Shortcat, which needs time to collect
| clickable elements and build overlays, and of course can be used
| in more than browser.
|
| I changed keys to ASDFGHJKL;RVTBUM (18 characters) which is home
| row and index fingers and ok enough for clicking a close button a
| 27 inch screen. Dont recall any other tool offering this
| configuration.
|
| This uses Python and Pydantic to validate configuration.
| jerpint wrote:
| This looks like it would be really useful for multimodal LLMs
| taco_emoji wrote:
| This looks really cool but the Youtube video was very confusing.
| You were talking about a cell but I couldn't see WHERE the cell
| was. There needs to be a big arrow or obvious flashing circle or
| something. I still don't quite understand how this works.
| 16bytes wrote:
| Agree. Apparently the grid is not made up of one letter squares
| and you have to figure out the row and column, it's made up of
| two letter rectangles.
|
| What it looks like when you select that rectangle to give you
| more precision, I could not figure out from the video.
|
| Two or three static images would be most helpful.
| DHPersonal wrote:
| It looks to me that each cell is two letters [ A K ], so if
| one wishes to go to that cell, then CMD + A + K would put the
| mouse in the center of that cell. Letting go of CMD would
| close the overlay and the mouse is just there in that space,
| while pressing Space before letting go of CMD would cause a
| mouse click event. If one wishes for greater mouse precision,
| after typing CMD + A + K and holding CMD there, a smaller
| grid of letter squares are displayed within the original
| cell; typing the matching character in the sub-cell moves the
| mouse to that even more specific point.
|
| Or it might not be holding CMD, I could be wrong. Here's a
| better and shorter video explaining it:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2rmvlOz5l0
| zfnmxt wrote:
| It's also unclear to me how you handle movements at a scale
| smaller than an individual cell, or if it's possible at all.
| flemhans wrote:
| You can press any key on the keyboard afterwards for further
| precision. I think.
| andoando wrote:
| Yes. Once you hit "JM" for example, you see a subgrid with
| more letters (these are standardized for all the character
| pairs, so you only have to remember them once). You can
| just press space or hit one of the additional letters for
| additional precision.
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| It's difficult to see in the video, but I've downloaded it and
| tried it, and on a real screen, it's very obvious that the grid
| is made up of cells that contain two letters, like [MK].
|
| I'm not sure if I had a use for this, but it was extremely easy
| to use. I'm already looking where I want to click anyway, so
| when I hit the Command key, two letters appear where I'm
| looking, I'm typing them and space, and I've clicked the area.
| aantix wrote:
| This reminds me of Vimium, the Chrome extension, that allows you
| to follow links just by a couple of keystrokes.
| mindracer wrote:
| Recently started using Viumium, much prefer it to using a mouse
| croemer wrote:
| Isn't it called Vimium, or is Viumium a new thing?
| charkubi wrote:
| Vimac[1], is Vimium for the entire screen and also works for
| web pages like GMail that don't work on Vimium.
|
| [1] https://github.com/nchudleigh/vimac
| xnx wrote:
| Vimium:
| https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/vimium/dbepggeogbai...
| bittersweet wrote:
| In your video you mention not being able to use tab, enter etc
| for system dialogs on Mac, if you enable 'Use keyboard navigation
| to move focus between controls' in the Keyboard settings (under
| Shortcuts), you can cycle the focus with tab (and shift+tab), and
| select them with space. It's one of the first things I enable on
| a new install :-)
| boxed wrote:
| It's quite weird that this isn't the default imo.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| If MacOS didn't have insane defaults, it wouldn't have any
| defaults at all.
|
| Obviously, I exaggerate, but damn I hate getting a new
| MacBook for work and have to go disable mouse acceleration,
| disable autohiding scroll bars, invert the scroll wheel so it
| goes the RIGHT way, and who knows what else.
| boxed wrote:
| Showing proxy icons of course. That's a big one.
| defenestrated wrote:
| I've been hunting for a mouse panning solution for a multi-
| monitor setup on macos. This might be it!
| bronco21016 wrote:
| Are there any eye tracked solutions? I definitely see the use
| case for something like this on large monitor setups.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| A colleague of mine had an eye-tracking mouse attached to his
| monitor; this was something like 5 years ago. It seemed pretty
| effective. So "yes" I guess.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| https://gaming.tobii.com/products/
|
| I have tested out a tobii eye tracker in a microsoft store and
| it's just very nice. There's a circle that hovers over what you
| are looking at and some configurable ways to "click". Tobii is
| probably the consumer leader in this space.
|
| Their older trackers are perfectly functional and already did
| everything with perfect accuracy so them releasing newer ones
| that are twice the price with next to no added functionality
| (hand tracking? At my desk? Why?) is annoying.
| thehours wrote:
| Other options for mouseless navigation on MacOS:
|
| - [1] warpd - uses grid
|
| - [2] Scoot - uses grid
|
| - [3] Shortcat - uses accessibility ui
|
| - [4] Superkey - uses text ocr
|
| [1] https://github.com/rvaiya/warpd
|
| [2] https://github.com/mjrusso/scoot
|
| [3] https://shortcat.app
|
| [4] https://superkey.app
| frizlab wrote:
| Wasn't there a builtin solution in macOS directly?
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| I would love to know if there is. macOS has, IME, terrible
| keyboard support. Even navigating Finder is a nightmare. The
| new 'tiling' is sort-of keyboard accessible - some apps work,
| some don't.
| hirvi74 wrote:
| To my knowledge, "Full Keyboard Access" in the
| accessibility settings is about as close as you can get;
| however, it falls rather significantly short compared to
| 3rd party applications. Try to enabling the setting, and
| you will see what I mean.
|
| https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/navigate-your-
| mac-u...
| Carrok wrote:
| Highly recommend shortcat.
| linsomniac wrote:
| I've had shortcat installed for a year or more, but it has
| never "stuck" with me. What are some of your "Can't live
| without"s?
| dchristian wrote:
| Talon Speech recognition also includes mouseless options and
| eye tracking: https://talon.wiki/Quickstart/Hardware/tobii_5
|
| Works on Mac, Windows, and Linux
| mjrusso wrote:
| Great list. Small correction: the latest version of Scoot
| (admittedly, I haven't updated it in quite some time) offers
| both grid and accessibility-based navigation modes.
| hirvi74 wrote:
| Thank you so much for creating Scoot, by the way. I wanted to
| create my own ShortCat like app for macOS, and Scoot has been
| a great source of inspiration (on top of being useful, of
| course!).
| malkosta wrote:
| Also [Homerow](https://www.homerow.app/) is really good
| silentguy wrote:
| A very good list. You should add
| https://github.com/nchudleigh/vimac to the list. It works
| similar to shortcat but I found Vimac to be more performant and
| reliable.
| zfnmxt wrote:
| The characterization of mouse keys as taking "five...more like
| ten seconds to get to where you want to go" is incorrect with a
| decent implementation/practice.
|
| I exclusively use mouse keys with my QMK keyboard [1] and I'm
| just as fast with it as with a mouse. I have four different
| cursor speeds that I toggle between as I move the mouse: I use
| the SUPA FAST LIGHTNING SPEED mode to move across the sceen and
| then reduce the speed as I zero in on my target. It's totally
| seamless and easy.
|
| I also happen to use Tridactyl which uses a very similar
| mechanism as mouseless, but sometimes when I'm lazy I just use
| mouse keys. I don't think navigating by key anchors is always
| better: there's a greater cognitive load to reading off
| characters and typing them vs. using WASD to move your mouse
| around.
|
| Alternatively, we could all simply relent and accept the fact
| that this problem was solved long ago in hardware and ship
| TrackPoints on all keyboards.
|
| [1] https://docs.qmk.fm/features/mouse_keys
| cenamus wrote:
| A trackpoint with more articulation (probably like a mini
| joystick), so I don't get pain after two days, would be
| awesome. Perhaps also with another button you can hold for 3x
| speed?
| hexmiles wrote:
| I tried a joystick on my keyboard, but for me it didn't
| really work! To be fair I also don't really like the track-
| point. I wasn't able to find a joystick "nub" that was
| comfortable to use, most joystick on the market are not meant
| for the kind of use that i would need on a keyboard and are
| really uncomfortable, maybe you could 3d print something more
| ergonomic but I'm not sure.
|
| One thing I would love to try is a couple of really sensitive
| encoders for the two axis of a mouse. My split keyboard
| already has two encoders but they are to "stiff" to be used
| as mouse.
| hexmiles wrote:
| I also started using mouse key due to RSI and i was surprised
| how well it works, I use a single speed and I can still be
| extremely fast (not yet fast as a "real" mouse but very close).
|
| One feature i would love to see is some sort of absolute
| pointer mode that work in a similar way of what op is doing as
| an alternative to do quick large movement (especially in multi-
| monitor scenario).
| charkubi wrote:
| I've been using Vimac [1], which puts the targets directly on UI
| components.
|
| [1] https://github.com/nchudleigh/vimac
| zingababba wrote:
| Huh this looks cool, like vimium but for the entire UI vs. just
| the browser.
| qq99 wrote:
| This is a really creative idea!
|
| I wish more keyboards would integrate that little red Lenovo
| mouse nub.
|
| Some thoughts:
|
| - allow me to maximize the youtube embed on your site, I can't
| really see the video clearly enough to gauge the product so had
| to open it on youtube
|
| - little green cursor in your vid is very hard to see
|
| - took me a long time to understand that your cells were
| rectangles, so "2 characters of any cell" didn't make sense for a
| while, maybe you could emphasize it (if only for the video)
| garciansmith wrote:
| Agree about the rarity of trackpoints. One manufacture of those
| is TEX (Shinobi, Yoda), always wanted to try one out. Still
| waiting for someone to make a custom keyboard in an Alice (or
| similar) style with a trackpoint; that way you could have a
| trackpoint but also use standard MX keycap sets. The TEX ones
| would involve carving into the G, H, and B keys.
| senko wrote:
| There used to be more brands with trackpoints but IMHO most
| were pretty bad, except for Lenovo.
|
| That said, their newer ones also seem a bit more slippery /
| harder / less precise than older ones, in my (subjective)
| impression.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| > little red Lenovo mouse nub
|
| clit mouse
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| https://xkcd.com/243/ - HN isn't _formal_ formal, but I think
| "nub" is perfectly reasonable.
| rodolphoarruda wrote:
| Ok, I just sent this to all my ex-IBM colleagues. They were
| so shy at the time, +20 years ago, to say the little word
| "clit" in formal meetings, especially with customers. I
| think they used "the red dot mouse pointer thing" in formal
| settings. Informally, it was the eternal short name: "the
| clit".
| necrotic_comp wrote:
| TEX Shinobi - I have many of these and they are excellent:
| https://tex.com.tw/products/shinobi?srsltid=AfmBOoqVuwqI9Ot2...
| qq99 wrote:
| Looks very interesting, not sure I love the layout of the
| Home/End/Del but I do love how narrow this would be on your
| desk
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| I am intrigued by this product, but the video is, frankly,
| terrible marketing.
|
| People want to know two things: 1. Is it quick? 2. Is it easy.
|
| Demonstrating the first is easy, but your product will live or
| die by whether you can demonstrate the 2nd, and its already
| working against you: First impression is an overwhelming matrix
| of letters. The video's demonstration ignores this, and
| explains "type the letters in the cell", and then the video
| moves on within a second, when he should slow down and explain.
|
| My recommendations: Don't say cell, say box. Its less
| technical. Don't assume people realize that each box has a
| unique combination of letters, tell them. Say: "Each box has
| two letters, and no two boxes have the same two letters. Type
| those two letters and your cursor moves to the box."
| ct0 wrote:
| trackpoint - its called a trackpoint
| hailruda wrote:
| After watching the video, I think this is an exciting experiment
| to see if there exist better ways to control PCs without a mouse
| and just a keyboard. The standard of today being keyboard
| shortcuts.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| This is great, and it gives me an idea for an alternative:
|
| A tool that uses a visual representation of your physical
| keyboard to move the mouse around the screen. So pressing Esc
| would move the mouse to the top left of the screen, and pressing
| H would move it closer to the center. Then repeatedly highlight
| smaller and smaller rectangles around the mouse cursor, repeating
| the process of tapping a letter, until you are satisfied with the
| cursor position.
| rnmp wrote:
| I've wanted this for years
| freddy12345 wrote:
| I don't get the last part where you repeatedly have smaller and
| smaller rectangles, can you expand on that? How are the
| rectangles defined? I pressed H, I'm at the center of the
| screen. Now what?
| geoffeg wrote:
| I assume something like this
| https://github.com/rvaiya/warpd/?tab=readme-ov-file#grid-
| mod...
| samatman wrote:
| So about this:
|
| https://github.com/croian/mouseless-issues/blob/main/mousele...
|
| You at no point explain why your application needs to interact
| with SSL in any fashion.
|
| What's up with that?
|
| The combination of giving elevated permission to control the host
| computer, with network interaction? That's a bad combination. Why
| are these things combined in your application?
|
| Edit: this comes across more accusatory than I meant it. I do
| think that the section should have a complete explanation of why
| the program needs an SSL bypass on certain networks.
| vunderba wrote:
| I used a similar system when I had pretty bad RSI over a decade
| ago but it was a bit different - basically you would hit a
| keyboard shortcut and it would draw divide the screen into
| 4-shaded quadrants, you would type 1,2,3,4, and then it would
| zoom on that quadrant, and divide it up again into four
| quadrants. Rinse and repeat until the cursor position was at the
| position you wanted it.
|
| At any point in time, you could hit escape if your mouse was at
| the precision level you wanted. It actually worked pretty well.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Binary space partitioning, kind of.
| FelipeCortez wrote:
| yep. it sounds like keynav [1], which I used for a couple of
| years and blogged about here [2]
|
| [1]: https://github.com/jordansissel/keynav
|
| [2]: https://felipecortez.net/blog/mouseless.html
| ghjfrdghibt wrote:
| I feel like this could be implemented in autohotkey for Windows.
| luhn wrote:
| Years ago my Mac got confused and seemed to think my keyboard was
| a mouse. Pressing any key would move the cursor up a few points.
|
| Ahead of its time, I guess.
| charles_f wrote:
| Don't know if the developer is here, but feedback - a bunch of
| people complained that it was hard understanding that cells had
| two letters in it in the video. That also translates into the
| product. I have a hard time figuring if the cell is LO or OL. I
| think having the first and second letters either in different
| colors, or different font weight (eg first is bold, second is
| not) would really help.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| Why hasn't this type of program been integrated into i3 windows
| manager? It seems the natural fit for a system that wants to keep
| your hands on the keyboard.
|
| Does anyone know of something like warpd, but is in the ubuntu
| repository, instead of someone's github like warpd?
| lovegrenoble wrote:
| interesting idea
| corytheboyd wrote:
| Thank you for making this a one time purchase, not a
| subscription.
| silentguy wrote:
| I used to use vimac (https://github.com/nchudleigh/vimac) when I
| had macbook. I was pretty happy with it. I liked its interface.
| Its interface was inspired by Vimium extension on browser.
| cool-RR wrote:
| I developed a similar solution for Windows over a decade ago
| which I've been using every day. It works but it needs to be made
| easy for people other than me to use (Readme, requirements file,
| etc.) If anyone volunteers to spend a few hours polishing it,
| email me and I'll open-source it.
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(page generated 2024-12-12 23:01 UTC)