Mouseless Browsing
I’ve recently added the Mouseless Browsing extension to Firefox in an effort to make Web browsing a little easier when using Dragon.
The goal of this extension is to enable browsing by using the numeric keys on the Number keypad instead of using a mouse or repeatedly using the Tab key.
How does it work?
The extension marks every link and/or form element with an unique numeric id. To follow a link, focus on a textfield or press a button, the user enters the appropriate numeric ID. Depending upon how the extension has been configured, the link will then either be automatically activated after a specified period of time or will require manual confirmation using the enter key. If the focus is on a textfield, textarea or selectbox, the user will need to press the CTRL-Key to avoid entering the form ID as part of the form entry. The action should then be triggered automatically.
Additionally, you can also configure keyboard shortcuts for going back and forward within your History , navigating tabs and for disabling the extension. Links can be automatically opened in a new tab by depressing the ALT-key while entering the id.
All of this sounds relatively easy , in theory, and certainly, if you use the numeric keypad, it is extremely easy to focus on, and activate, any one link in a page containing hundreds. Selecting the IDs with Dragon is is proving a little more difficult, however - especially when dealing with IDs that extend into the hundreds.
The process isn’t made any easier by the fact that Dragon appears to make use of Firefox’s built-in “Find” function to locate items on a web page. Consequently, when you are trying to move through links, the Find box keeps appearing and disappearing constantly - which can be more than a little distracting. Factor in that, at the moment, my successful hit rate is probably less than 50% and that the Find option has an annoying habit of “blipping” at you whenever it cannot find the phrase, or word, that you asked for. Toolbars appearing and disappearing , accompanied by random blips and colour changes, are not my idea of multimedia!
Hopefully, as I become more adept at using Dragon, these minor annoyances will reduce and the Mouseless Browsing extension will become more useful. It certainly appears to be, by far, the most useful extension of its type that I have come across, so far.
hello i did a google search for mouseless browing and dragonnaturally speaking and found you.. did you ever get it to work properly and if so sould you please giv eme some pointers? i am getting pretty frustrated with it all.
Unfortunately, I had to uninstall the Mouseless Browsing extension when I upgraded Firefox to 1.5 and, as yet, the extension hasn’t been upgraded.
Mouseless browsing is probably the single most frustrating experience I’ve had using Dragon. To a large extent, I’ve reverted to using a mouse when I can. On bad days, I’ll use a keyboard and try to limit usage to single keypresses. I have found the Windows Sticky Keys accessibility feature to be invaluable as it means I don’t have to press more than one key as a time and, these days, tend to have it switched on all of the time.
Ultimately, though, in common with other Dragon users that I know, if my hands are bad, I just don’t browse the web very much - if at all. It’s just not worth the effort or stress.
FYI, the extension now works with firefox 1.5.x. as far as the find fucntion getting in the way, you can configure that. go to advanced settings and make sure “begin finding when you begin typing” is disabled. then when you want to run the find you can hit ctl-f (or i think /) to start the find. hope that helps.
Thanks - I’ll have a go at re-installing it.
With regard to re-configuring the ‘find as you type’ function in Firefox, I’ve used the method outlined in the Stop Firefox Blipping entry.