Ubuntu ZA

Who can use these laptop and netbook touchpads, trackpads, whatever you call the thing you-accidentally-tap and lose-focus-and-type-into-the-wrong-spot.

Specialized layout keyboard navigation is the way to go!

Customized Conky to a top horizontal bar, always visible by setting my desktop margins. Installed Pytyle to organize my windows running on top of Openbox, with vi-like keybindings relying on the Super key, And then hacked in a few Openbox global shortcuts for easy volume management and frequently used applications.

Crash course in navigation

So far I can manage 99% of tasks using the keyboard layout I set out below.

The Super is also known as the Winkey

Window shortcuts

cycle the focused window, Super-J/K

move the active window between panels on the screen, Super-Ctrl-J/K

move the active windows to another desktop, Super-Shift-J/K

switch desktops, Super-Alt-J/K

Change master tile size, Super-H/L

Add/remove master tiles, Super-./,

Media shortcuts

Ctrl-Ins, up volume

Ctrl-Del, down volume

Ctrl-Backspace, pause/play music

Super-V, alsa volume mixer

Super-M, mocp music player

CLI Mode

When it comes to flash in websites that steals your focus, I feel like screaming. Due to bandwidth limits I use the text-mode CLI browser Elinks, and the CLI mail client Alpine.

I rebound many Elinks shortcuts for a vi-like experience to scrolling the page, within the page, browsing history, selecting links and so forth.