Chrome Keyboard Shortcuts

I typically use Chrome as my browser of choice, and it comes with a plethora of keyboard shortcuts that I find incredibly useful and use constantly. However there are ways to add to those shortcuts too, including a tool called Vimium…

Chrome keyboard shortcuts

The best source of docs on the available shortcuts is the Chrome Keyboard shortcuts. I have also include a list of the one I most commonly use below.

Note that Delete no longer takes you to the previous page, but that feature can be re-enabled using this Go Back With Backspace extension.

Navigating to Google search result links

After entering a search term and hitting Enter, you can hit Tab, then use the up and down arrow keys to navigate to the selected link. Note that this can be surprisingly tricky to get working. See here.

(I have also personally found that hitting Escape when on the Google search results page takes you back to the search text field).

Vimium

While the Chrome keyboard shortcuts are certainly useful, sometimes, they are not enough. Vimium is a Chrome extension which provides other keyboard shortcuts for navigation and control of Chrome. These shortcuts overlap with those used for the Vim text editor. Useful if you already know Vim, but honestly still incredibly useful even if you have never heard of it.

The feature I by far use most is the ability to turn any link on a page into a keyboard shortcut. With Vimium installed, simply press the f key on any page, and every link will have a one or two letter code displayed beside it. Type the letter(s) and you will navigate to the link. Use Shift with the letter(s) to open in a new tab. Brilliant.

The other Vimium shortcuts I use most are:

You can also setup Custom key mappings, via the Vimium Options. For example:



#rem that when using map<… a = alt, m = meta (Cmd), c=control

#map the backspace to to navigate to the previous page.
map <backspace> goBack

map <a-tab> goBack

#map meta key (command on mac)-n to move to next tab

#I use c-tab for next tab, so this is previousTab shortcut is convenient!
map <c-=> previousTab

 

 

Note that to use control instead of the command key, it would be:

map <m-right> nextTab

map <m-left> previousTab

 

The Vimium extension contains good documentation (Preference -> Extensions -> Vimium -> Options), or see the Github wiki.

Note that if you choose a keyboard shortcut that is already used by Mac, this may not work. e.g., in the above example, I found control-rightarrow was already used to switch Spaces, and had to disable. See http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/18043/how-can-i-make-ctrlright-left-arrow-stop-changing-desktops-in-lionGo Back With Backspace

Tags: chrome, keyboardshortcuts, productivity, vimium