Thanks to qutebrowser, I pretty much never have to use a mouse. Plus its integration with gopass including TOTP, extremely customizable config settings, and custom keybindings to integrate stuff like MPV for playing videos or opening magnet links with aria2, it’s incredible.
I’m not a very good salesman, and I don’t know much about Vivaldi, but for me what makes qutebrowser the best I’ve used so far is the extensiability and keyboard focused workflow. d_ listed a few possible uses, and really you can do anything you want with it.
I’m very much on board with vim-everywhere and git aliases.
One of my best “hacks” is to never discount the usefulness of text files. It’s easy to think that you need some funky tool to manage your data, but often text files, directories and command line tools are just as good and far more flexible.
As an example, I love pass as a password manager because it’s just text files + gpg + git. I’ve now moved my work to-do list (previously OneNote), personal to-do list (previously Trello), and diary (previously a private blog) into pass, too. Vim for desktop editing (with the gpg plugin) and the pass app for mobile editing, and I have everything I need, all encrypted and stored on infrastructure I control.
I’ve been using KeePass and when I think about how it’s used, efficiency doesn’t come into mind - its keyboard-only use is a bit clunky. I’ll give pass a try.
I’ve made good use of a lot of these, although I’d nitpick at creating git aliases via bash instead of using git’s native alias mechanism, since the latter preserves the ability to use tab completion and the former, as far as I know, doesn’t.
These things are mostly things I also do and enjoy variations of, so I’m not biased against these particular points. I do, however, question the actual value of it; it seems like you can spend some time setting this up, for what’s perhaps only a marginal gain – if any at all. This is fine if you like tinkering with your computer, installing and configuring stuff, but perhaps not if your goal is efficiency.
I feel like before you can state it with such confidence that these things improve efficiency, there should at least have been some attempt at measuring it. What feels right to any single person is an absurdly low bar of evidence.
Author here. In the case of all the efficiency hacks from the post, I’ve set all these things up at least a year ago and haven’t tinkered with them that much since - maybe I’ve added a new Git alias or two. When I think back - was setting up and learning how to use e.g. Gtile worth the time? For me, totally - all that mouse-reaching and window-dragging has a continuous cost (and leaves a bad taste).
But I do think work productivity itself is independent and can be reached on any system without hacks. For example, one of the most productive programmers - John Carmack - programmed breakthrough games using Borland C++ 3. Or environments are nowadays are, with efficiency hacks or without, much more efficient than that.
Though once you taste such improvements, it’s hard to go back, because they feel good.
Once upon a time I loved drop down terminals. Then I decided they were just a poor replacement for being able to quickly open a shell and very fast virtual desktop switching and combination.
After all, a drop down terminal is persistent. Switching tasks with it is hard.
I find it useful for executing quick and short commands such as running apt-get, cal etc. Opening a new terminal which executes the whole .bashrc script, takes, at least in my case, about 2 seconds, while re-opening a (previously opened) drop-down terminal is basically instantaneous.
There are also alternatives to using browsers like Firefox or Chromium with a vim plugin, personally I use qutebrowser as my daily driver.
While I have pi-hole, being unable to have uBlock Origin in my browser is what drove me away from qutebrowser.
Can you try to “sell” it to me, i.e. what are qutebrowser’s advantages over my current browser, Vivaldi?
Thanks to qutebrowser, I pretty much never have to use a mouse. Plus its integration with gopass including TOTP, extremely customizable config settings, and custom keybindings to integrate stuff like MPV for playing videos or opening magnet links with aria2, it’s incredible.
I’m not a very good salesman, and I don’t know much about Vivaldi, but for me what makes qutebrowser the best I’ve used so far is the extensiability and keyboard focused workflow. d_ listed a few possible uses, and really you can do anything you want with it.
I’m sure they means Emacs Everywhere right? :-)
I know you joke - but I have to say that I’ve only recently dug into org mode as a 7+ year Emacs user and oh my, the hype is real.
Emacs is one of the (sadly) few tools I use that has a positive return on the investment that I put in to it.
I’m very much on board with vim-everywhere and git aliases.
One of my best “hacks” is to never discount the usefulness of text files. It’s easy to think that you need some funky tool to manage your data, but often text files, directories and command line tools are just as good and far more flexible.
As an example, I love pass as a password manager because it’s just text files + gpg + git. I’ve now moved my work to-do list (previously OneNote), personal to-do list (previously Trello), and diary (previously a private blog) into
pass, too. Vim for desktop editing (with the gpg plugin) and thepassapp for mobile editing, and I have everything I need, all encrypted and stored on infrastructure I control.I’ve been using KeePass and when I think about how it’s used, efficiency doesn’t come into mind - its keyboard-only use is a bit clunky. I’ll give pass a try.
I’ve made good use of a lot of these, although I’d nitpick at creating git aliases via bash instead of using git’s native alias mechanism, since the latter preserves the ability to use tab completion and the former, as far as I know, doesn’t.
Tab completion works for git aliases via bash as well! See how I do it in this Gist.
To be clear: when I write
gco mas<TAB>, I getgco master.These things are mostly things I also do and enjoy variations of, so I’m not biased against these particular points. I do, however, question the actual value of it; it seems like you can spend some time setting this up, for what’s perhaps only a marginal gain – if any at all. This is fine if you like tinkering with your computer, installing and configuring stuff, but perhaps not if your goal is efficiency.
I feel like before you can state it with such confidence that these things improve efficiency, there should at least have been some attempt at measuring it. What feels right to any single person is an absurdly low bar of evidence.
Author here. In the case of all the efficiency hacks from the post, I’ve set all these things up at least a year ago and haven’t tinkered with them that much since - maybe I’ve added a new Git alias or two. When I think back - was setting up and learning how to use e.g. Gtile worth the time? For me, totally - all that mouse-reaching and window-dragging has a continuous cost (and leaves a bad taste).
But I do think work productivity itself is independent and can be reached on any system without hacks. For example, one of the most productive programmers - John Carmack - programmed breakthrough games using Borland C++ 3. Or environments are nowadays are, with efficiency hacks or without, much more efficient than that.
Though once you taste such improvements, it’s hard to go back, because they feel good.
Once upon a time I loved drop down terminals. Then I decided they were just a poor replacement for being able to quickly open a shell and very fast virtual desktop switching and combination.
After all, a drop down terminal is persistent. Switching tasks with it is hard.
I find it useful for executing quick and short commands such as running
apt-get,caletc. Opening a new terminal which executes the whole.bashrcscript, takes, at least in my case, about 2 seconds, while re-opening a (previously opened) drop-down terminal is basically instantaneous.That’s my point. My terminals open in moments. I hit Mod4-Enter and just start typing my command, and it works.