Who can use these laptop and netbook touchpads, trackpads, whatever you call the thing you-accidentally-tap and lose-focus-and-type-into-the-wrong-spot.
Specialized layout keyboard navigation is the way to go!
- Customized Conky to a top horizontal bar, always visible by setting my desktop margins.
- Installed Pytyle to organize my windows running on top of Openbox, with vi-like keybindings relying on the Super key.
- Hacked in a few global shortcuts for easy volume management and frequently used applications.
Crash course in navigation
So far I can manage 99% of tasks using the keyboard layout I set out below.
The Super is also known as the Winkey
Window shortcuts
- cycle the focused window, Super-J/K
- move the active window between panels on the screen, Super-Ctrl-J/K
- move the active windows to another desktop, Super-Shift-J/K
- switch desktops, Super-Alt-J/K
- Change master tile size, Super-H/L
- Add/remove master tiles, Super-./,
Media shortcuts
- Ctrl-Ins, up volume
- Ctrl-Del, down volume
- Ctrl-Backspace, pause/play music
- Super-V, alsa volume mixer
- Super-M, mocp music player
CLI Mode
When it comes to flash in websites that steals your focus, I feel like screaming. Due to bandwidth limits I use the text-mode CLI browser Elinks, and the CLI mail client Alpine.
I rebound many Elinks shortcuts for a vi-like experience to scrolling the page, within the page, browsing history, selecting links and so forth.
