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Comment by ashton314 | Hacker News Reader

For macOS users, I highly recommend ShortCat: https://shortcat.app/

ShortCat uses the accessibility API to put Vimium-style keyboard links on buttons and text fields in any app.

I find that Vimium works faster in Firefox than using ShortCat to click around websites, so I use both, but ShortCat technically should do everything (clicking-wise) that Vimium does.

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Shortcat has a ~second delay before showing links, homerow (https://www.homerow.app) is faster.

I wonder if it has to do with accessibility API thread locking. I found a different extension I used to emulate an i3 style environment suffered when I used the Unity game engine. It ended up being limitations of the accessibility API.

Could be, but there is another app that does the same thing faster so there must be some optimizations available.

This delay is configurable. The delay is there so you can actually type a bit before the UI pops up, and then the UI will be filtered to just your selection.

The configuration lies. Even with "Show hints" set to "Immediately", there is a long delay. Feels like half a second on M1 Pro.

Fair, fair—it's default is longer, so dialing it down made it feel zippy by comparison.

I'm trying out Homerow and I'm really liking it! Thanks for mentioning it. I might end up sticking with it actually.

I wish this was paid or open source…

As I understand it, a payment system is in the works. I would gladly fork over some cash to support ShortCat. Looks like someone recommended Homerow, which appears to be pretty comparable to ShortCat, and it has a one-time purchase option.

ShortCat is an incredible recommendation, thank you!

omg this is amazing. shortcat that is

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