Customizing or disabling nav keys

March 25, 2009 5:35 PM

So, the j and k keys can be used to jump between posts or comments, which is neat, except I already have those keys bound to scroll down and scroll up in my browser. Would it be possible to let users customize or disable nav keys, or do I just need to User JS it?
posted by The Pusher Robot to Feature Requests at 5:35 PM (23 comments total)

We recently added j and k to the nav script because we had a lot of requests for it. Is j and k used to scroll by default in Opera, or is that something you set up?
posted by pb (staff) at 5:44 PM on March 25, 2009

I set it up.
posted by The Pusher Robot at 5:46 PM on March 25, 2009

I guess I'm saying: maybe we could disable it for Opera users if it's a default for the browser, but I can't see adding a preference for the nav keys when this problem only affects a small number of users.
posted by pb (staff) at 5:47 PM on March 25, 2009

oh yeah, then I think this follows our standard Greasemonkey line of thinking: if you're customizing things on your end then you're blazing your own trail.
posted by pb (staff) at 5:48 PM on March 25, 2009

Okay, fair enough.
posted by The Pusher Robot at 5:50 PM on March 25, 2009

Is the scrolling you have set up different than just using the up/down arrow keys or the page up/page down keys? Seems kinda weird to set up custom keys to scroll through a browser.
posted by dead cousin ted at 6:23 PM on March 25, 2009

"." works for scrolling down to next comment / post also, and "," scrolls up, if you are just looking for an alternative.
posted by mrzarquon at 6:26 PM on March 25, 2009

> Is the scrolling you have set up different than just using the up/down arrow keys or the page up/page down keys? Seems kinda weird to set up custom keys to scroll through a browser.

It snaps to the next post/comment, instead of whatever % of scroll bar your browser/os is configured to do.
posted by mrzarquon at 6:30 PM on March 25, 2009

Ah, gotcha.
posted by dead cousin ted at 6:34 PM on March 25, 2009

Is the scrolling you have set up different than just using the up/down arrow keys or the page up/page down keys? Seems kinda weird to set up custom keys to scroll through a browser.

I configured Opera such that j/k act like the down/up keys, since they're more convenient, and that's what vi (my preferred text editor) uses. MeFi uses Javascript to make them do what mrzaquon describes. Having them do both at once is less useful.
posted by The Pusher Robot at 6:50 PM on March 25, 2009

Color me impressed. Nice work.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:07 PM on March 25, 2009

Nifty!
posted by deborah at 8:23 PM on March 25, 2009

I had no idea. Cool.
posted by rtha at 8:44 PM on March 25, 2009

I keep forgetting about this feature.
posted by grouse at 8:55 PM on March 25, 2009

Huh. I don't think I'd object to having them bound to the arrow keys. Or the spacebar. Scrolling by message makes pretty much infinitely more sense than scrolling by line, in this place.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:20 PM on March 25, 2009

The Pusher Robot: I configured Opera such that j/k act like the down/up keys, since they're more convenient, and that's what vi (my preferred text editor) uses.

Ah. Now I see your problem.

You should be using emacs.
posted by koeselitz at 7:48 AM on March 26, 2009

Everyone should be using emacs.
posted by Crabby Appleton at 8:18 AM on March 26, 2009

Yeah, fuck ewindows.
posted by dersins at 8:39 AM on March 26, 2009 [2 favorites]

And nuck vi.
posted by Crabby Appleton at 9:56 AM on March 26, 2009

When the hell did this happen? Neato!
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 10:07 AM on March 26, 2009

As tempted (as a vi zealot) as I am to start flaming, perhaps I'll suggest the following: the j and k keys make the site more like Rogue
posted by 7segment at 10:14 AM on March 26, 2009

7segment: ... (as a vi zealot)...

On a completely unrelated point, I think that we should probably change the skip down/skip up shortcuts to control-v and escape-v, respectively.

Of course, that would mean we'd have to replace the 'paste' shortcut, but it seems to me that control-y works better for that anyway.
posted by koeselitz at 10:38 AM on March 26, 2009

Of course you're correct, koeselitz, but you're not thinking big enough. Clearly what we need is a Javascript-based implementation of emacs lisp in MetaFilter to make it fully customizable. You're looking at a week or two to get that up and running, right, pb?
posted by Crabby Appleton at 10:53 AM on March 26, 2009