**What is Vimoperator ?

Vimperator is a Firefox browser extension with strong inspiration from the Vim text editor, with a mind towards faster and more efficient browsing. It has similar key bindings and you could call it a modal web browser, as key bindings differ according to which mode you are in. For example, it has a special Hint mode, where you can follow links easily with the keyboard only. Also most functionality is available as commands, typing :back will go back within the current page history, just like hitting the back button in the toolbar.

However, Vimperator does not try to be a 100% Vim clone, it rather brings Vim’s ideas to the 21st century. This means making use of new graphical capabilities but also of faster computers. Furthermore, great care is taken into making its command line interface more consistent and easier to use, while still being a powerful extension for advanced users.

The above information about vimoperator was copy & paste from the Vim Official Website.

Download :Get Vimoperator Extension for firefox

So you installed the firefox addons vimoperator and stucked how to use it.

After you install the vimoperator, You will find the following changes

  • Menu Bar is gone
  • Navigation toolbar is hidden
  • bookmarks Toolbar is hidden

See the words I used menu bar is totally is gone, they are for purpose. Navigation and bookmarks toolbar can be shown again.

Q. How to Show Navigation Toolbar ?

A. Right-click on the top-right section of the toolbar and select Navigation Toolbar.

Q. How to Show Bookmark Toolbar ?

A. Same as navigation toolbar but this time select Bookmark Toolbar.

Q. How to use Vimoperator ?

A. After you install vimoperator you will get a console at the bottom of the window. We use this console to send command to firefox for carrying out our required operations. Belive me you’ll find it quite interesting once you get used to it.

Like Vim, all commands start with colon(:) followed with some command.

I used [no-space] because my cms would convert : o to smily as :o.

[code]
:[no-space]o www.hotmail.com
[/code]

will open hotmail in your browser. [no-space-here] just remove that line

[code]
:emenu File.sa [Tab]
[/code]

will show some autocomplete options for save and file save as options.

There are many commands we can use with vimoperator To know about more commands Use

[code]
:help
[/code]

followed with the options you want to see help for, and you’ll get list of options that are available to you.

These are features of Vimoperator [Again from Vim Official Website]

  • Ex commands (:quit) with a proper command line
  • Tab completion available for all commands, showing suggestions while you type
  • Hint mode (start with f to follow a link)
  • Easily customizable GUI (easily hide all GUI elements with :set gui=)
  • Ability to :source JavaScript files, and to use a ~/.vimperatorrc file with syntax highlighting if you install vimperator.vim
  • Easy quick searches (:[no-space]open foo will search for “foo” in google, :[no-space]open ebay terminator will search for “terminator” on eBay) with support for Firefox keyword bookmarks and search engines

Conclusion

For those we are used to with keyboards and especially with vim, will find vimoperator very niffty tool. Since they already know most of the basics of vimoperator. For webdevelopers it is bit harder at begginning and for advanced users (extension developer) there is always place for improvement.

References: http://vimperator.org/vimperator