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.

But Vimperator is more than just a simple command interface to Firefox — it is a complete development environment as well. If you are a web developer, you can enjoy an interactive JavaScript shell — even with completion support. Or if you want to extend Vimperator, you can easily do that by just dropping a JavaScript file in its plugin directory. Browse through our wiki pages for nice tips to customize Vimperator and for frequently asked questions. If you have more questions, you can visit us on IRC, in #vimperator on freenode.

Credits

Vimperator was initially written by Martin Stubenschrott and has found many invaluable contributers who helped out fixing bugs and adding new features. We also owe Vim and Conkeror a great debt for their inspiration, and the latter especially for early cross pollination.

If you appreciate the work on Vimperator and want to encourage us working on it more, you can send us greetings, patches, or donations:

If you rather prefer getting some nice products for your money, you can also support us by buying some cool merchandise like t-shirts or mugs. Of course, as we believe in free, open source software, only support us financially if you really like Vimperator and the money doesn't hurt — otherwise just use it, recommend it and like it :)

Download

Note: Vimperator hides the menu bar and toolbar for the complete Vim experience in its default configuration. If you want them back, just type :set guioptions+=mT.

Features

• Vim-like key bindings (h, j, k, l, gg, G, 0, $, ZZ, <C-f>, etc.)
• Ex commands (:quit, :open www.foo.com, ...).
• Tab completion available for all commands with support for 'longest' matching when :set in 'wildmode'
• Extensions! Yes, you can extend Vimperator's functionality with scripts just like you can extend Firefox with extensions.
• Explore JavaScript objects with :echo window and even context-sensitive tab completion.
• Hit-a-hint like navigation of links (start with f to follow a link).
• Advanced completion of bookmark and history URLs (searching also in title, not only URL).
• Vim-like status line with a wget-like progress bar.
• Minimal GUI (easily hide menu bar and toolbar with :set guioptions=).
• Ability to :source JavaScript files, and to use a ~/.vimperatorrc file with syntax highlighting if you install vimperator.vim
• Easy quick searches (:open foo will search for "foo" in google, :open ebay terminator will search for "terminator" on eBay) with support for Firefox keyword bookmarks and search engines.
• Count supported for many commands (3<C-o> will go back 3 pages).
• Beep on errors.
• Marks support (ma to set mark 'a' on a webpage, 'a to go there).
• QuickMarks support (quickly go to previously marked web pages with go{a-zA-Z0-9}).
• :map and :command support (and feedkeys() for script writers).
• :time support for profiling.
• Move the text cursor and select text with Vim keys and a visual mode.
• External editor support.
• Macros to replay key strokes.
• AutoCommands to execute action on certain events.
• A comprehensive :help, explaining all commands, mappings and options.
• Much more...

Screenshots

• 
  Hints make it easy to follow links with the keyboard
• 
  Vimperator's completion system
• 
  Exploring the DOM of the web page

Scripts

While Vimperator offers already plenty of featurs on its own, we can't, nor do we want to, include every feature in the core. For that reason, we provide a plugin mechanism much like Firefox's addon mechanism. We host many of these plugins at our Google Code project, and many more are provided elsewhere at repositories like this one.

Install these plugins by copying them to the ~/.vimperator/plugin/ directory (or %HOME%\vimperator\plugin on Windows) unless noted differently. If you have written a cool plugin which is useful to a wider audience, please submit it.

If you don't care about features but just use Vimperator for the sexy looks, you can also theme that by using color schemes. You can install them by copying them to the ~/.vimperator/colors/ directory (%HOME%\vimperator\colors on Windows) and use it with :colorscheme <name>. You can also submit your own color scheme.

Bugs