Show HN: HandsFread - Hands Free Page Scroller Bookmarklet | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: HandsFread - Hands Free Page Scroller Bookmarklet

handsfread.herokuapp.com

10 pointsyobriefcase11 comments

I've been looking for hands-free (and preferably silent) ways to control my laptop for the same reason as the OP: When I'm holding our sleeping baby, I don't want to risk disturbing him by typing/mousing or by issuing voice commands.

This, as the OP says, is a pretty basic approach -- but it's a start. It's probably best used for longer passages, where the amount of text in the viewport is pretty consistent.

What I'm really looking forward to is when eye-tracking apps get good enough and cheap enough that a browser will automatically scroll based on your eye movements. Add in a couple of other commands -- maybe wink to click, cross your eyes to switch tabs -- and you could do some decent browsing.

Then you'd just need a lip-reading app so you can mouth words and have them converted to text!

Let see how we could improve this. Browser Extension/Plugin with a site whitelist. When you browse to the site and there is significant content below the fold you get a tiny popup informing you that scrolling will start in X seconds unless you hit cancel (or perhaps just move the mouse).

All you would have to do is browse to the site (I imagine, ReadItLater, Readability etc. to be typical sites people would use this extension with).

Just a though.

Sounds like you've got a real use case for the Opera face gestures then? http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/labs-introducing-opera-fa... (April fool 2009 but maybe now more realistic...?)

Very basic evening project I threw together. Currently not supported in many mobile browsers but desktop ones appear to work as expected (no promises).

Came into existence because I feed my son at around 3AM and scrolling all the time is a bit of a pain. So I just set this up and let it scroll for me.

Written in Play 2 (Scala) but it's mostly static HTML and JavaScript so thats largely irrelevant.

Constant scrolling feels awful. It if would just jump ahead every few seconds or so it will be less painful.

OK there are 2 values you can adjust - the interval (how many ms before it attempts to scroll again) and the increment (how many px's it will jump). You can adjust to your taste if you prefer something else.

I was worried about scrolling on different browsers looking a bit rough - it's something i'll need to tackle soon.

Can't you make a button which you drag / drop on the bookmarks bar in stead of all the steps you've written?

OK the bookmarklet is being pushed as we speak should be available in a minute or so. Thanks for the feedback.

What's the advantage over using the middle mouse button?

Good point. I haven't used a mouse with a middle button or a mouse come to think of it) in a long time. Difference? None. Another option for the mouseless people, like me, is always good right?

Not needing a middle mouse button. Like on a trackpad.

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