Switching back to Firefox from Nyxt and maintaining the emacs style workflow and keybinding theme.

About

I love Emacs, but it’s definitely not a viable alternative to modern browsers like firefox. The desire to have an ’emacs-like’ browser lead me to use Nyxt.

But… Despite nyxt being an awesome piece of software, it’s unpolished and comes with its issues, not to mention that many websites that use cloudflare basically refuse to work with nyxt.

So for now I’ve settled on using Firefox, but with Emacs-like keybindings by utilizing vimiun

Here’s how!

Step I: about:config

First visit about:config.

To change the modifier key to alt & use emacs keybindings when editing text set:

  • ui.key.accelKey to 18
  • ui.key.chromeAccess to 0
  • devtools.editor.keymap to emacs

Step II: gtk-key-theme

Now, adjust .config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini, make sure you’ve added gtk-key-theme-name = Emacs It should look something like this:

[Settings]
.....
gtk-key-theme-name = Emacs

Step III: Vimium

Install vimium.

Go on Vimium’s Options page to, by clicking the addon, feel free to use & adjust the following configuration to your liking.

unmapAll # use emacs-style bindings only
map <c-n> scrollDown
map <c-p> scrollUp
map <c-b> goBack
map <c-f> goForward
map <c-x>. scrollToTop
map <c-x>, scrollToBottom
map <c-V> scrollFullPageUp
map <c-v> scrollFullPageDown
map <c-x><c-r> reload
map <c-x>k removeTab
map <c-c><c-u> copyCurrentUrl
map <c-c><c-l> LinkHints.activateModeToCopyLinkUrl
map <c-c><c-o> openCopiedUrlInCurrentTab
map <c-c><c-O> openCopiedUrlInNewTab
map <c-c><c-i> enterInsertMode
map <c-x><c-f> LinkHints.activateMode
map <c-x><c-F> LinkHints.activateModeToOpenInNewForegroundTab
map <c-x><a-f> LinkHints.activateModeWithQueue
map <c-x>f LinkHints.activateModeToOpenInNewTab
map <c-x><c-d> Vomnibar.activate
map <c-x><c-D> Vomnibar.activateInNewTab
map <c-x>b Vomnibar.activateTabSelection
map <c-x><c-b> Vomnibar.activateBookmarks
map <c-x><c-B> Vomnibar.activateBookmarksInNewTab
map <c-@> Marks.activateCreateMode
map <c-x><c-@> Marks.activateGotoMode
map <c-s> enterFindMode
map <c-S> performFind
map <c-r> performBackwardsFind
map <c-R> performBackwardsFind
map <c-c>b previousTab
map <c-c>f nextTab
map <c-x>4 duplicateTab
map <c-g><c-r> restoreTab
map <c-x>5 moveTabToNewWindow
map <c-g><c-p> togglePinTab
map <a-B> moveTabLeft
map <a-F> moveTabRight
map <c-h> showHelp

You can find a complete vimium configuration that I’m using in my dotfiles repo

Final thoughts

With the above settings you will also get emacs keybindings when editing text, something that it was not the case with Nyxt (or at least the way I had it configured).

The only inconvenience is that I couldn’t find a way to remap M-w to copy. Other than that it’s a really nice experience that’s easy to reproduce between multiple machines.

Related content