Idea: Total keyboard driven mode

[VolkovIlia]

Thanks for awesome soft, I switched to it from zathura and it is amazing.

But can you add features for total keyboard driven functionality (or mouse free).
Now key board driven features: link picking (f) and navigation, but can you add other stuff: smart jump, portals, highlights and select text for copy (visual-caret mode like in vim), etc?

[ahrm]

Unfortunately this is not possible. For example smart jump is not as "smart" as it sounds. It can have a lot of false positives and the reason it works is that the user does some of the work by clicking on something that is probably a reference (rather than a random piece of text or numbers).

Portals already can be made without mouse though (still needs mouse if you want to create it using a smart jump).

[VolkovIlia]

Unfortunately this is not possible. For example smart jump is not as "smart" as it sounds. It can have a lot of false positives and the reason it works is that the user does some of the work by clicking on something that is probably a reference (rather than a random piece of text or numbers).

Portals already can be made without mouse though (still needs mouse if you want to create it using a smart jump).

I use smart jumps about 5% of my workflow... But 95 % of workflow is selecting text and highlighting it, is it also not possible?

[ahrm]

That is probably possible (not for scanned documents though). I may add it once I have some free time.

[ahrm]

I added it in 6f08fcd. It looks like this:

2022-04-05.20-56-18.mp4

The relevant commands are:

keyboard_select
keyboard_smart_jump
keyboard_overview

[ryanwwest]

This is really awesome and I use it frequently to be totally mouse-free. However, I still think a more vim-like visual mode could be better for some people. A few reasons:

1. The yellow letterboxes used to select a first (and possibly last) word cover up a lot of each word, decreasing visibility when rereading text to select.
2. It also seems a bit unnecessary to need to look up two three-letter combinations when you already know the text you want to select. Many vim users (who seem to be a major audience for sioyek) are already familiar with navigation using vim's cursor by pressing v to enter visual mode then using keys like w/W/b/B/e/E/f/F/t/T etc. to quickly jump between the text and actively alter the selected portion of the text (before doing something with it like highlighting). Or something like vi[ to select text within brackets. I don't think quick adjustments of the selected portion of text are possible without restarting keyboard_select.

Of course, this would probably require a lot of work and I think the current solution is a good option to have. But when I use the visual mark in the ruler mode that focuses on a specific line, I constantly think about how it's so close to being a single caret/character cursor that vim has and I can almost navigate and select text similar to how I can with the Vimium Chrome Extension's 'caret' mode.

With a single-character cursor in the document, I could also see it being easier to jump to links (even when there are multiple on the same line) and likely for other commands too.

[agenbite]

Thanks for sioyek, it is my new pdf viewer of choice! :) I totally agree with @ryanwwest that a visual mode à la vim would be absolutely great.

Also, the video up there is apparently not working anymore and it took me a while to figure out how to use keyboard select. Anyway, thanks!

[ahrm]

Also, the video up there is apparently not working anymore and it took me a while to figure out how to use keyboard select. Anyway, thanks!

How do you mean? It should still work like the video above.

[agenbite]

How do you mean? It should still work like the video above.

Hm, it might be me, but I tried in a couple browsers and devices and the video doesn't play...

[ahrm]

Hm, it might be me, but I tried in a couple browsers and devices and the video doesn't play...

Aaah, I though you meant sioyek is not working like the video anymore.

[agenbite]

Sorry, I should have been clearer. :) Thanks again!

EDIT: I confirm that the video is working again. Thanks!

[BhargavManohar]

That is probably possible (not for scanned documents though). I may add it once I have some free time.

Is it possible to highlight a scanned document with a rectangular select or something of the sort?

[ahrm]

Yes (in the development branch only). See this: #941 (comment).