f20 selects this discussion (the 20th link), but I used f4<Enter> to select threads (the 4th link); j,D, and <Space> scroll down by a line, half-screen/page and full-screen/page respectively; fr4 selects the correct reply (the fourth link whose text begins with r); gi goes to the first input field and enters insert mode.
In insert mode I may use the simple mixture of emacs/readline and CUA bindings — like ^w to wipe the last word, ^a to go to the beggining of the line and ^e to go to the end (eg. when inserting a > before a blockquote, then appending my commentary) — to write a straightforward comment from beginning to end, or I may use ^i to pop the field open in my $EDITOR (vis), where motions like m to mark my place, G to go to the end, o to open a new line, and M to return to my mark are useful for comments that might be written non-linearly, eg. if they have footnotes. I can save and exit vis (if I use it) with ZZ, and submit the comment with standard CUA <Tab><Enter>.
If I reference any other material then Pentadactyl’s browsing bindings like go«character» to open a quickmark, s to search, p or P to paste my X11 primary selection as a search term or the url of a current or new tab, b to fast-as-you-type search through tabs, y to yank the current website, ;y«number and/or title of link to yank» and d to delete a tab are useful (along with standard X11 Shift+Insert to paste the primary selection in insert mode).
Ideally though, I should use Pentadactyl only for browsing — for scrolling through and reading web documents — and have a dedicated newsreader that understands what posts, comments, etc. are and could make this several times more efficient. I’m currently dipping my toes in evil-mode emacs, which should enable this. I’ve recently spent less time on HN and more on IRC where I do have a dedicated native client that makes things orders of magnitude more smooth than trying to use a web client in my browser.
Now I can't tell if this thread is meant to be satire.
> f20 selects this discussion (the 20th link) but I used f4<Enter> to select threads (the 4th link)
So first you have to visually recognize every link in between the beginning and what you want to choose and then you have to count them all? I hope you don't miscount!
> j,D, and <Space> scroll down by a line, half-screen/page and full-screen/page respectively
How many lines, half-pages, or pages is it from the top to here? Just curious.
> fr4 selects the correct reply (the fourth link whose text begins with r);
So first you have to decide that "starts with r" is a good heuristic for getting where you want to go and then you have to find all of the links that start with r and count them?
> gi goes to the first input field and enters insert mode
But if it's not the first input field, then you have to count them or cycle through them?
> Ideally though, I should have a dedicated newsreader that understands what posts, comments, etc. are
So now you want a special bespoke reader for every website?
Oh yes this all sounds so much easier than just pointing at the thing you want! Thank you for clarifying.
I believe every single statement in your comment is factually false. The only one I don’t feel objectively certain of is this:
> Just curious.
But I sincerely doubt it’s true based on the tone of your comment. I’m willing to walk through each sentence with you, but as I have already sunk significant time into trying to help you I politely request that you first prove my doubt unfounded by investing five minutes in grabbing luakit, qutebrowser, or Pentadactyl — or at the very least a WebExtension attempt at emulating them like SurfingKeys — with your favorite package manager/browser and trying it out for yourself.
Edit: However I will walk through the sentences for the sake of the other people reading this thread in better faith, to respond to the strongest [weakly] plausible interpretation of your comment, although text is a worse medium for learning GUIs than video which is worse than first hand interactive use.
> So first you have to visually recognize every link in between the beginning and what you want to choose and then you have to count them all? I hope you don't miscount!
No, the browser automatically highlights them in a style of your choice (I use a gruvbox theme) and visually numbers them for you. You can also just begin typing any part of the link’s title and it will be selected when you’ve typed a subset unique to it.
> How many lines, half-pages, or pages is it from the top to here? Just curious.
~3 out of 4 screens on my threads right now. But note that I scrolled down one piece at a time and only know this because my bottom status bar happens to display it (as well as the url, mode, a minus or plus signifying pages back or forward in the tab’s history, on a background that signifies the SSL status of the site).
> So first you have to decide that "starts with r" is a good heuristic for getting where you want to go and then you have to find all of the links that start with r and count them?
No, you don’t need to use a heuristic but it saves reaching your left hand to the number row to eliminate half a dozen links by typing fr instead of just typing f10.
> But if it's not the first input field, then you have to count them or cycle through them?
No, you can use ;i to select fields the same way you select links, but it hasn’t taken me the months I’ve been using HN to notice all top-level discussion pages have exactly 2 input fields: one to add a top-level comment and one for the Algolia search (gi or 2gi will instantly teleport you to and insert you cursor in the first or second one respectively).
> So now you want a special bespoke reader for every website?
No, I want a native client for each type of software: a browser for browsing (exploring and reading) web documents, a news reader for news, an IRC client for internet real-time chat, a mail client for mail, a media player for playing media (I copy links and use a sxhkd binding to open them in MPV — https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24509028), etc.
I’m using a different plugin (I think it’s vimkeys) which is also great. I wanted to give the pentadactyl a try, but it looks like it’s discontinued- the latest release was in 2014. Am I looking in a wrong place?
The development¹ has been continued by the community after Firefox removed support for XUL extensions.
¹Well, tbh basic maintenance is a more accurate term — the updates have been minor, and the patch that enables it in the latest version of Palemoon hasn’t been pushed to the addon store yet, you have to clone from master at the moment.
In insert mode I may use the simple mixture of emacs/readline and CUA bindings — like ^w to wipe the last word, ^a to go to the beggining of the line and ^e to go to the end (eg. when inserting a > before a blockquote, then appending my commentary) — to write a straightforward comment from beginning to end, or I may use ^i to pop the field open in my $EDITOR (vis), where motions like m to mark my place, G to go to the end, o to open a new line, and M to return to my mark are useful for comments that might be written non-linearly, eg. if they have footnotes. I can save and exit vis (if I use it) with ZZ, and submit the comment with standard CUA <Tab><Enter>.
If I reference any other material then Pentadactyl’s browsing bindings like go«character» to open a quickmark, s to search, p or P to paste my X11 primary selection as a search term or the url of a current or new tab, b to fast-as-you-type search through tabs, y to yank the current website, ;y«number and/or title of link to yank» and d to delete a tab are useful (along with standard X11 Shift+Insert to paste the primary selection in insert mode).
Ideally though, I should use Pentadactyl only for browsing — for scrolling through and reading web documents — and have a dedicated newsreader that understands what posts, comments, etc. are and could make this several times more efficient. I’m currently dipping my toes in evil-mode emacs, which should enable this. I’ve recently spent less time on HN and more on IRC where I do have a dedicated native client that makes things orders of magnitude more smooth than trying to use a web client in my browser.