Web Browsing

This page covers the fundamentals of using the "basic", "chrome", "mouse" and custom modes for web browsing. It also provides general advice that may be helpful. For more details, see the help files for these modes. For example, say "open help chrome".

Bookmarks Bar

For any websites you use often, you should bookmark them on the bookmarks bar. The "show" command works very well for opening these bookmarks. You can also organize these bookmarks in folders for a hierarchy.

Tab Management

The "chrome" mode provides many commands for tab management. Here are some examples:

• "open new tab"
• "close tab"
• "go right tab three"
• "go left tab five"
• "go to tab six"
• "go to address"

Show and Show Links

For many elements on a webpage, you can use the "show" command to click them. For small elements, or links within text, the "show links" command is more effective.

If the cursor is currently in an editable text field, use the "show force links" command instead of the "show links" command. This forces an escape key press before initiating the Vimium extension, because the extension cannot process links while the cursor is in a text field.

Selecting and Copying Text

To select text that is in an editable text field, use the "show" or "show links" commands to insert the cursor in the field. From there, you can use the directional commands ("go left/right/up/down"), word selection commands ("select left/right word"), "select all", and/or "hold/release shift" commands to select text.

To select text that is not in an editable text field, you can use the "toggle cursor" command to activate the Chrome cursor. Use the "show" command to insert the cursor near the text you want to select, then use the selection commands as described above.

After the text is selected, use the "copy that" command to copy the selection.

Menus

When interacting with menus, it is often easiest to use "show" or "show links" to open the menu, direction commands to highlight a menu item, then "enter" to select the highlighted menu item. Using "press escape" works in most cases to close the menu.

Checkboxes

You can use the "show" or "show links" command to select a checkbox. The "tab" command also usually works well to cycle focus over multiple checkboxes, or other types of controls. If a checkbox is in focus, the "space" command usually works to select or unselect the checkbox.

Custom Commands to Open Links

Later in the documentation, you will learn how to create custom modes and commands. When defining new commands, you can define commands that open specific URLs using the openLink function. For an example command, you can see the "open setup link" command in the "global" mode.

Custom Modes for Web Applications

If you use certain web applications often, you should consider creating custom modes for the applications. As an example, you can see the "gmail" mode.