If you've started using Pentadactyl from scratch (i.e., without any customization), you should be looking at this help page in a relatively bare-looking window. The menubar, navigation bar, and bookmark bars are hidden. In case you missed the notice in the intro, you can regain these by issuing the command
:set go+=mTB<CR>
where <CR> represents pressing the <Enter> or <Return> key. If you're a veteran Vim user, this may look familiar. It should.
However, in this author's opinion, the best way to get familiar with Pentadactyl is to leave these disabled for now. (The above action can be reversed with :set go&<CR>) You can look at the entry for 'guioptions' in options for more information on this.
Pentadactyl's power, like Vim's, comes from its modal interface. Keys have different meanings depending on which mode the browser is in. Pentadactyl has several modes, but the 2 most important are Normal mode and Command Line mode.
When Pentadactyl starts, it is in Normal mode by default. This is probably where you will spend the majority of your time.
The other core mode of Pentadactyl, Command Line mode, can be entered from Normal mode by typing a : (colon). You will frequently see Pentadactyl commands start with a :, indicating that what follows is a command.
To return to Normal mode from Command Line mode, type <Esc>. Pressing <Esc> will also return you to Normal mode from most other modes in Pentadactyl.
Vim is a great editor but it's not much of a web browser. So even seasoned Vim users will probably have to look at Pentadactyl's documentation sooner or later. Most of the documentation for Pentadactyl's features are easily found using the :help command. For example, you can find help on the :help command by typing
:help :help<CR>
Similarly, help on configurable options is available with :help '{option_name}'. (Note the single quotes around the option name as in Vim.) Information on all available options is, predictably, :help options.
And you can find out about the gt and gT mapping with
:help gt<CR> :help gT<CR>
Finally, in addition to the help system itself, :listcommands, :listkeys and :listoptions are useful quick-reference commands.
The efficiency of Pentadactyl, as with the legendary editor it was inspired by, relies on the user being able to keep his fingers on the keyboard where they can do the most good. While there are some areas where the mouse is clearly superior at, such as GUI design or some games, Pentadactyl acts on the assumption that a web browser doesn't have to be one of those.
Here are some areas where the mouse is typically considered indisposable, and how Pentadactyl challenges this preconception.
Scrolling the browser window is done with simple keystrokes:
Your standard buttons (<Up>/<Down>/<PageUp>/<PageDown>) will also work as expected.
History navigation (e.g., Back, Forward) are done similarly to scrolling.
Move between tabs using these keystrokes which may also be familiar to tabbing Vimmers.
To open a web page in a new tab, use the :tabopen {url}. To open a URL in the current tab, use :open. The Normal mode mappings t and o, respectively, map to these commands, so the following pairs of sequences are equivalent:
:open my.webmail.com<CR> omy.webmail.com<CR> :tabopen google.com<CR> tgoogle.com<CR>
So now you can navigate around in Pentadactyl. But wait… how do you open a page or tab linked in a web page? How do you click on all those links without your tailed friend?
The answer is hints. Activating hints displays a number next to every link Pentadactyl can find. To follow the link, simply type the number corresponding to the hint.
For text links, there's an additional shortcut; you can type some text contained in the link and Pentadactyl will search all the links it can find and only hint the matching links, further narrowing down the list. If the text you type uniquely identifies any given link, Pentadactyl will follow that link immediately without any further user input.
Whichever way you choose to indicate your target link, once Pentadactyl has highlighted the link you want, simply hit <CR> to open it.
To activate Hints mode, press either f or F. The lower-case f will open the resulting link in the current tab, while the upper-case F will open it in a new tab.
To test it, try this link: Pentadactyl Homepage. Activate Hints mode with f or F to highlight all currently visible links. Then start typing the text of the link. The link should be uniquely identified soon, and Pentadactyl will open it. Once you're done, remember to use <C-o> (History Back) or d (Delete Buffer) to return here, depending on which key you used to activate Hints mode.
Say you get half-way done typing in a new URL, only to remember that you've already got that page open in the previous tab. Your command line might look something like this:
:open my.partial.url/fooba
You can exit the command line and access the already loaded page with the following:
<Esc>
Once you get Pentadactyl set up with your desired options, maps, and commands, you'll probably want them to be available the next time you open Pentadactyl. Continuing the Vim theme, this is done with a pentadactylrc file.
To save your current settings and allow them to be loaded automatically next time you start Pentadactyl, issue the :mkp command.
This will create the file $HOME/.pentadactylrc containing your settings. It is a simple text file, just like a vimrc file and can be easily edited to suit your preferences.
Pentadactyl supports all of Vim's classic methods of exiting.
You might feel pretty disoriented now. Don't worry. This is still Firefox underneath. Here are some ways Pentadactyl allows Firefox to shine through. See the :help for these commands and mappings for more information on how to make the best use of them.
Feel free to explore at this point. If you use the :tabopen command, remember to use the gt/gT mappings to get back to this page. If using the :open command, use the history keys (e.g., H) to return. If you get hopelessly lost, just type :help<CR> and click the Tutorial link to return.
If you've given it a fair shot and determined … TODO
The Pentadactyl way to do this is with the command :addons. Issuing this command brings up the Firefox Add-ons dialog window; you can then remove it as normal, selecting Pentadactyl from the list and clicking (yes, clicking) Uninstall.
Alternatively, you can do this the old-fashioned way: re-enable the menubar, as above, with :set go+=m, and select Add-ons from the Tools menu.
Pentadactyl has an energetic and growing user base. If you've run into a problem that you can't seem to solve with Pentadactyl, or if you think you might have found a bug, please let us know! There is support available on the wiki or in the #pentadactyl IRC channel on OFTC.
If you have any feature requests or (even better) offers to help, we'd love to hear from you as well. Developers work on Pentadactyl whenever possible, but we are neither infinite nor omnipotent; please bear with us. If you can't wait for us to get around to it, rest assured patches are welcome! See the developer page for more information.