Show HN: Keynavish – Control the mouse with the keyboard (Windows)

galkk 5 years ago |

This is also standard feature for qmk based keyboards (ergodox, dactyl etc):

https://beta.docs.qmk.fm/using-qmk/advanced-keycodes/feature...

It doesn't require any special support and works in every OS.

Here is how it looks in ZSA visual configuratior, for example: https://configure.ergodox-ez.com/moonlander/layouts/ZrQev/Eo...

lesderid 5 years ago | |

keynavish (and the original keynav) use a different cursor movement system, as they work with a grid that you can recursively split/move to be centered around the target position, but yes, the end result is more or less the same as the qmk feature.

One advantage you get with this method is that you can e.g. bind a key that sets the grid size and position to match the active window, which you obviously can't do in keyboard firmware (example: https://lesderid.net/keynavish-demo.webm).

arkenflame 5 years ago |

For MacOS folks, I made a hammerspoon plugin which works similarly: https://github.com/msolomon/griddle

villgax 5 years ago |

Check out pointer control in macOS under Accessibility. You can move the pointer with you head & perform clicks with tongue out/smile/eyebrow raises etc too!!

rijoja 5 years ago |

Nice, what alternatives are there for linux here. Or rather what do people here prefer?

aruggirello 5 years ago | |

On KDE you can choose to control the mouse with the numeric keypad under accessibility settings - no need for external apps. BTW we also have KDE Connect, where you can control your mouse with your smartphone too.

rijoja 5 years ago | | |

hm that is good to know! Haven't used KDE for a while though but maybe it's time to take it for a spin again.

Ah it seems that there is this program called keynav. Something I guess I could have guessed.

For browsers I love to use these pentadactyl/vimium/... extensions. Would there be anything similar for reguar desktop applications. I get that it would be a huge effort to support all the different toolkits though.

lesderid 5 years ago | | |

> Ah it seems that there is this program called keynav.

Yep, I wrote this as a direct clone of the original keynav, so I can use the same config file on both operating systems.

> For browsers I love to use these pentadactyl/vimium/... extensions. Would there be anything similar for reguar desktop applications. I get that it would be a huge effort to support all the different toolkits though.

You can bind arbitrary keys to control the grid, and the default bindings are vim-like, but it only goes down to the window level. Interesting idea though, probably doable with LD_PRELOAD stuff.

rijoja 5 years ago | | |

Nice of you to keep the same format as the original.

Unfortunately keynav doesn't seem to be working all that well in Ubuntu 20.20, I am a bit interested in fixing this somehow.

The LD_PRELOAD approach might be a good idea actually.

I do have some further ideas on how to do this and some practical use cases as well.

lesderid 5 years ago | | |

> Unfortunately keynav doesn't seem to be working all that well in Ubuntu 20.20, I am a bit interested in fixing this somehow.

I assume you mean Ubuntu 20.10? I tried it and it works fine for me in an Ubuntu 20.10 VM. Are you using Wayland perhaps?

> I do have some further ideas on how to do this and some practical use cases as well.

Feel free to contact me if you want to discuss it, could be a fun project. My contact info is on https://lesderid.net.

acct776 5 years ago | | |

Can anyone comment on real world usage of KDE Connect after the changes to the Android permission structure that caused/(is causing?) them some turmoil?