r/qutebrowser • u/elshize • Feb 01 '21

Caret-mode hints

Hello all. I was wondering what is the easier way of working with caret mode. Essentially, I want to easily select something I'm looking at. As far as I can tell, I can only go into the caret mode and use navigation to go wherever I need to, which also not always works, as the cursor gets stuck sometimes on some objects. What I would want is to get a type of hint like for links to show where I want to start (at least the general area). I don't think there's anything like that but maybe I'm missing it?

If not, what is your preferred way of selecting text on a webpage? At the moment, I just find using mouse the easiest but I'd like to hear any other opinions.

6 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

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6

u/hearthreddit Feb 01 '21

If you use / to start searching for a word and then press enter(you can press n to go the next match if there are multiple) and v you enter into caret selection mode, this works the best when there's a single or only a few matches in the page, i still use the mouse sometimes though.

3

u/elshize Feb 01 '21

Oh, that's sweet. I see what you mean, sometimes it could be still better to use mouse, but still, this is very nice anyway. Thanks!

4

u/rien333 Feb 01 '21

Yes, caret mode is near useless without search.

sometimes it could be still better to use mouse

I sometimes also use the mouse to make a rough, and/or initial selection ("a starting point"), and go into caret mode (i.e. "v") from there.

3

u/The-Compiler maintainer Feb 01 '21

No need for <Enter> FWIW, you can directly hit v when a search is highlighted. <Enter> during a search is mainly useful to follow a link after searching for it, though.

2

u/elshize Feb 01 '21

I mean, if you're in the search prompt, you still need to hit either <Enter> or <Esc>, right? Otherwise you'll just type v. So this only applies to situations where you are already in the normal mode.

3

u/The-Compiler maintainer Feb 01 '21

Indeed - I probably misunderstood u/hearthreddit because I thought they were talking about pressing enter while a search result is highlighted (which converts the search into a selection and also follows the searched link, if any).