A computer can still work without a mouse but it is very tough to navigate around Windows. You have to know the correct shortcut keys such as Ctrl+Esc to bring up the Start Menu, Ctrl+Shift+Esc to launch Windows Task Manager, Win + R for Run command and etc… Then the Tab key can be used to navigate between options and Shift+Tab to go backwards.
Browsing a webpage on your web browser without a mouse will be a very painful experience or I can say nearly impossible because you’ll have to hit the Tab key a lot of times to get to the link that you want to access. Not to worry because previously I’ve shared with you on how to move or control your mouse cursor with keyboard using mouse emulator software. That should take care of the problem…
Recently I discovered another method which is able to browse the web with your keyboard! So if you don’t have a mouse and for some reason you can’t set up the mouse emulator properly, you can try this. For Firefox browser only!
Mouseless Browsing (MLB) is a Firefox-Extension (Add-On) which enables you to browse the internet with the keyboard. The basic principle is to add small boxes with unique ids behind every link and/or form element. You just have to type in the id and press enter (there is also an automatic mode available) to trigger the corresponding action i.e. following a link, pressing a button or selecting a textfield.
Mouseless Browsing Features:
Supports numeric as well as character ids; character set configurable Option to show ids before entire page is loaded Configurable modifiers to open link in new tab/window/Cooliris Previews Configuration option to use numpad exclusively for Mouseless Browsing Configuration options to define for which elements ids should be shown (form element, links, pure image links, frames) Smart positioning of ids: Ids for image links, textfields, selectboxes are placed in the right upper corner to minimize the impact on the page layout. Possibility to configure URL specific behavior (black/whitelist) Configurable shortcuts for all Mouseless Browsing actions
After installing the Mouseless Browsing plugin for Firefox, every link or form element will have a unique number attached to it. Let’s take the example image below. Mark wants to click on the Ads by Google link which has a number 13 attached to it. Instead of hitting the tab multiple times to get there, you can just press and hold the CTRL key followed by number 1 and 3. The Firefox browser will immediately and automatically access or click the link that says “Ads by Google” for you… If you want to open the link on a new tab, use the Alt key instead of Ctrl. To enable/disable the numbers, just press the “.” or “Del” key at the numeric keypad. If the keys doesn’t suit you, it can be changed in the configuration window.
Mouseless Browsing plugin is highly configurable to suit your personal needs and preferences. Nearly everything on the plugin can be customize including how the numbers, shortcut keys, URL rules to disable MLB for certain webpages, and etc.
This excellent Firefox plugin is only 71.5KB in size and it doesn’t increase the memory or CPU usage at all. All I can say about this technique is brilliant and this is the first time that I am seeing something like this. I bet soon programmers would create something similar for other browsers such as Opera, Internet Explorer and Google Chrome. Whether I have a mouse or not, I will definitely use this Firefox plugin so I can keep both of my hands on the keyboard and don’t need to reach for my mouse so often.