Hacker News Reader

Comment by doktrin | Hacker News Reader

Wow, it really is blazing fast, and just at a glance I like what they're doing with the dev tools. Unfortunately...

> Vimperator : "This add-on is not compatible with your version of Firefox."

Ouch. Guess I might need to wait a bit to make this my daily driver. All in all, though, I have to say I'm really glad to see Firefox is still solidly in this race - and with a kick ass and quite possibly superior product to boot.

edit :

I didn't realize at the outset that a FF57 version of Vimium was available (link provided by gogoengie) :

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vimium-ff/

View on HN

There's also Saka Key [ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/saka-key/ ] that has an vim keybindings mode. It looks like currently Vimium-FF cannot open new tabs...

Wait, really? The plugin page even uses 5t as an example of command repetition. Might not make the switch if that's the case.

Could you be more specific? I don't believe this is a known issue. If you're experiencing this behavior, you may want to report it: https://github.com/philc/vimium/issues

Personally, I'm running Firefox 55.0.3 with `vimium-ff` 1.6.0 (current build on addons.mozilla.org), and the `t` keybinding opens new tabs just like `Ctrl-t`. Command repetition also works (eg, `5t`).

Sorry, new tabs from links in background, using 'F'. Or at least with yesterday's version on ff58.0a1

Ah, cool. Yes, known bug. Reported fixed yesterday (though I've not tried it myself).

reported: https://github.com/philc/vimium/issues/2510

closed with: https://github.com/philc/vimium/pull/2602

I'm not familiar with their release cycle, so I don't know when it'll hit AMO.

Vimium can open a tab as long as you're in a web tab, just not a system tab like about:newtab. Actually has that same problem in Chrome.

Vimperator, unfortunately, appears to be one of the few extensions that can never be fully ported, as it made use of API's that implied a security risk.

Very interesting, that does appear to be the case - likewise for VimFx. From what I gather, the go-to Vim plugin after this year will be Vimium (which I currently use on Chrome), although it hasn't yet been ported to FF 57.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vimium-ff/

Yes, but in VimFx's case it's more a matter of the developer not feeling like it considering Vimium is available, which for me has been a drop-in replacement of VimFx. I just assumed that as you mentioned Vimperator, you wanted the complete, somewhat more invasive, experience.

It's preferable, but if I'm honest Vimium is Good Enough(tm) for my general use case. I didn't realize they had a FF57 compatible version :)

Vimium is /mostly/ there, but gaps in the WebExtensions API make the experience rough in my experience.

The biggest issue for me, right now, is that there are a lot of places where FF won't allow WebExtensions to intercept key events for shortcuts, like on the new tab page, error pages, any other "system" pages, or certain pinned tabs (this one is particularly inconsistent). This means that if I'm jumping through several tabs with J/K and hit any of those by accident, I'm stuck there until I figure out what happened and either use the mouse or the official hotkeys to switch back out.

Same with focusing the URL bar and the slightly quirky experience of the omnibar that Vimium has to use instead.

It works, but mostly serves to remind me how much I miss VimFX rather than to improve my productivity.

Note: I should correct this. It's not about the developer not feeling like it, but about him only wanting to do it without having to work around API limitations like Vimium had to: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1215061#c3

I'm using vimium in nightly right now.

Mozilla is still doing something with the keyboard shortcuts API to make that more capable. I don't know what exactly they're doing, it won't be as powerful as Vimperator, but it should be a good bit more powerful than Vimium.

This (obviously) won't be in Firefox 57, but should be ready relatively soonish after. So, this is something that they have already been actively working on for a few months. I'm guessing 59 or 60 from how I've heard it described.

Yes, Mozilla + volunteer contributors. Check the last comments in this: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1215061

There was a meeting today and the contributors participated in it.

I’m sad that I’ll have to stop using VimFX, it was the best Vim plugin I could find. It was lightweight and did just what it had to (I absolutely hate the custom search/address bar thing in Vimium). My alternative right now is Saka Key. I hate the default keybindings, but you can customize them all you want. The thing I miss the most right now is being able to focus on the address bar (pressing “o” with VimFX). I’m not sure if it’s possible with the current WebExtensions API.

Pentadactyl too is horribly broken. I'm running Firefox's Extended Support Release for this very reason. Will probably have to bite the bullet and switch to Vimium within a year.

Vimium port for FF is acceptable.

The lack of dev work on vimperator is actually what drove me back to chrome. I've been using cvim, and it has all the features I liked in vimperator. Unfortunately, vimium-FF is still not as full featured as I'd like yet.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com