AI brings massive productivity gains. Or maybe it doesn’t.
You know what really boosts developer productivity? Spending hours tweaking your computer setup so you never have to touch your mouse.
How it started
I bought a ZSA Moonlander keyboard a few years ago. It’s awesome!
The big change in keyboard layout inspired me to use my mouse less. Here are a few tools that have helped me along the way.
Homerow
Vimimium inspired navigation for your whole computer
Download: https://www.homerow.app
I remember being obsessed with the Vimium browser extension way back when Firefox was the newest browser in town.
Homerow brings that same magic to your entire computer. You can scroll pages with J + K, and when you activate its shortcut, it overlays 2-3 letters on every clickable element on your screen. Type those letters and voilà—you’ve clicked something without touching your mouse.
Is this app safe? Read more
I’d be hesitant to recommend apps that might be spyware. I’ve been monitoring Homerow in Proxyman for a few days, and it seems relatively innocent.
It only seems to send “Application Open” and “Application Backgrounded” events to PostHog when you view settings.
Alternatives
Hyper Key
Unlock more keyboard shortcuts
My Moonlander lets me program a “Hyper” key. It’s a single key that presses all four modifiers at once: ⌃⌥⌘⇧.
This unlocks tons of new two-key shortcuts throughout your system.
If you don’t have a programmable keyboard, the Hyperkey app can turn your Caps Lock key (who actually uses that?) into a Hyper key.
Download: https://hyperkey.app
If you’re a Raycast user, there’s also a built-in setting for this (more on Raycast below).
MetaJump and MetaGo (VSCode Extension)
Fast cursor moving/selecting/deleting commands in your code editor.
Tools like Homerow are great for clicking around your screen, but they won’t help you navigate within code files.
I watched a co-worker demo his Vim setup and was amazed by how quickly he could jump around his codebase. I had to find something similar for VSCode.
Enter MetaGo.
MetaGo is actually a bundle of several cursor and text manipulation plugins.
Download MetaGo: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=metaseed.metago
Because I’m terrible at learning new shortcuts, I only use Meta Jump—and literally just one command from it.
I’ve mapped metaGo.goto Smart to HYPER+J. That’s all my brain can handle (although I really want to dig into MetaGo’s bookmark features).
Download MetaJump: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=metaseed.MetaJump
Raycast
A snazzy application launcher
I could write an entire blog post about Raycast (and probably will someday).
The short version: Raycast lets you launch apps, resize windows, and do roughly 5,523 other useful and mouse-free things.
One of my favorite “mouse-free” features is the ability to search through your current app’s menu bar.
Download Raycast: https://www.raycast.com
Wrapping up
I hope these tools inspire you to try going mouse-free more often!