caret browsing
i'm not an emacs or vi freak. nevertheless, i definitely prefer keyboard navigation to awkward mouse waving. i don't even want to think about how difficult life would be without all those handy eclipse key bindings.
the application i use 2nd most in my programming life is firefox. however, i have never really familiarized myself with all its keyboard shortcuts. of course i use Ctrl+T to open new tabs, Ctrl+L to access the location bar, Ctrl+F to search for text, and Alt+Home to return to my home page. but that's just about it...
time to catch up! here's a "less than one page manual" on firefox navigation:
the three most important shortcuts i've learned: Enter to follow a link, Alt+<- to go back, and Ctrl+Tab to cycle between tabs. hard to imagine that i could actually live without them?!
the Find as you type bar (launchable via Ctrl+F or good ol' /) is probably quite popular. it lets you type in a search phrase and incrementally searches for text while you type. what is less known, is the fact that the same bar can also be launched via '. it will then work in a different mode, in which it only highlights links. this is extremely handy: jump to a link, press Enter, and off you go...
alternatively, you can use Caret Browsing, a feature which has been introduced recently (press F7 to toggle it on or off). if switched on, you see a cursor which you can move around via arrow keys. again, the functionality is sensitive to links: as soon as the cursor is placed over a link (indicated by a dotted box) you can follow the link by pressing Enter.
the battle is on: who can use firefox without ever touching the mouse? i still can't :-(
