Feature Request: Label mode

[joshstobbs]

I realize that this might present some distinct changes to the ethos of Wooshy and on that alone feel free to reject this idea outright!

That said, one thing that I find interrupts my workflow is activating the input, typing what I want, and then navigating the focus to the desired element.

I find that using something like Vimium in my browser presents a more streamlined approach to navigating through click targets - that is activate label mode, find label for the desired link/target, press label and click the target. I'm wondering if it would be possible to alter the way Wooshy operates to offer a label mode that essentially labels all click targets on the screen and would click based on the activation of that label?

Honestly, at this point Wooshy is already a hyper efficient way to navigate so I'm probably splitting hairs, but I do think that it would be an interesting extension to the already existing navigation scheme.

Thanks! ✨

[godbout]

I realize that this might present some distinct changes to the ethos of Wooshy and on that alone feel free to reject this idea outright!

ok bye lol but yeah, see detailed explanation below.

That said, one thing that I find interrupts my workflow is activating the input, typing what I want, and then navigating the focus to the desired element.

yep, i totally understand that. Wooshy definitely requires MORE KEYSTROKES than if there were labels.

I find that using something like Vimium in my browser presents a more streamlined approach to navigating through click targets - that is activate label mode, find label for the desired link/target, press label and click the target. I'm wondering if it would be possible to alter the way Wooshy operates to offer a label mode that essentially labels all click targets on the screen and would click based on the activation of that label?

yeah so here's where Wooshy comes from. i was using Vimium myself, and Vimari. then i wanted a similar thing for the whole macOS and found Vimac. now i had two problems with Vimac 1) it was too slow for me 2) i was actually finding out that having arbitrary labels that i had to decipher before knowing where to click was friction to me. typing what my brain comes up with instead has much less friction. so i built Wooshy. so, at least with my own fucked up brain, more keystrokes doesn't matter, but not having to decipher something matters a lot.

Honestly, at this point Wooshy is already a hyper efficient way to navigate so I'm probably splitting hairs, but I do think that it would be an interesting extension to the already existing navigation scheme.

so yeah, not having hints is a deliberate decision to start with. then there's good competitors that do have hints. then i wanna keep my apps as small, simple and efficient as possible. and also i have other priorities (like stop stealing focus coz Apple is building more and more windows/inputs/etc. in macOS that disappear when you activate Wooshy).

for the competitors i'd recommend having a look at the README: https://github.com/godbout/Wooshy.docs#alternatives-to-wooshy

Thanks! ✨

my pleasure. thanks for taking the time to write down your thoughts. i know time and energy are limited! and sorry that's it's definitely not on the list. but who knows, maybe once i have Wooshy dealing with all the things i wanna deal with, maybe, i'll have a look at the hints. but currently that would definitely be the last item on the priority list.

[joshstobbs]

Totally makes sense to me! I can definitely understand the benefit to preloading the cognitive overhead.

Thanks again for all the hard work between this and the other apps, truly a pleasure to use.

[godbout]

That said, one thing that I find interrupts my workflow is activating the input, typing what I want, and then navigating the focus to the desired element.

the big next work on Wooshy is another kind of fuzzy matching. that may help with avoiding navigating. but there's still a lot of experimentation and tests to do because i have to avoid Target pollution also. too fuzzy and you end up with too many matches. not enough and you end up with no match. so i need to see if i can find a right balance.

Totally makes sense to me! I can definitely understand the benefit to preloading the cognitive overhead.

honestly if it does really feel better to use hints i'd recommend Homerow. hasn't been updated for a while but it works pretty well. one time purchase (although only one year of update, which is super confusing to me 😂️).

Thanks again for all the hard work between this and the other apps, truly a pleasure to use.

thank you! glad it brightens the day a little. ngl this is not work. it's pure self-expression, pure pleasure. which has some good sides—goofy smile all the time, meaning, motivation—and some bad—don't wanna implement stuff purely for business/customers reason. and i wanna keep it that way, because if it becomes a money/grab more customers thing, i know myself well enough, i'd rather give up the project 😅️

[godbout]

closing coz will not do.

[joshstobbs]

Just want to pop back in here, after trying out Homerow for a minute, I can thoroughly say I enjoy using the search + click method that Wooshy provides better than a label mode. Looking at the word foobar on my screen, invoking Wooshy, typing foob and getting the match highlight has been significantly faster than labelling.

Thanks for thinking though the hard things so I don't have to!

[godbout]

yeah. as said before, it's kinda personal. it's more typing, but for some people like me, less overhead. it's really about personal preferences and brain wiring i think. glad that some apps like Homerow try to implement multiple different workflow in an app, but yeah that's not my style. which might explain why i can't make a living of building apps 😂️😂️😂️

also, personally, every time i go on the Apple dev website to download the latest Xcode release i'm glad i can search coz i never find the download link 😂️😂️😂️

also bis, please lemme know if you have any idea to make the search even more powerful. i have a couple of things in the TODO but it's always tough to bet a good balance before reaching the exact target one wants, and target pollution. so i'm grabbing any idea i can hehe. thanks!

[clo4]

This comment is a bit ranty so feel free to ignore or hide this. Just my take on the state of this niche right now

I find myself mostly using Homerow specifically because of the labels mode, but I'd much rather be using Wooshy (especially since Homerow has now been stealth acquired without any announcement from Dexter or the new owner, and already it seems to have multiple paid tiers... no idea where that's going. What "paid features" are they talking about...).

• Wooshy doesn't support this because of personal preference, which honestly, fair. I get that. If I was maintaining an app that did this and I didn't think labels worked for me, I wouldn't either.
• Vimac hasn't been updated in ages because Homerow superseded it, and now it's also been transferred to the new owner.
• Shortcat hasn't been updated in almost as long, the interaction model still requires pressing enter, the screen is a lot more cluttered, and it feels noticeably slower than Wooshy or Homerow.
• Superkey doesn't have labels mode at all, it's only search.
• VimMotionApp is essentially archived, and moving my workflow to it makes me uncomfortable because when Apple inevitably breaks this somehow in a future macOS update I want to know that my workflow is safe.

(Are there any others I'm missing?)

The labels mode, to my own special kind of fucked up brain, is WAYY faster than searching because there's no translation step for me -- I'm just already looking where I want to click, so I just trigger the app and type two letters. That's a much lower cognitive load to me than trigger, type the thing, tab tab tab, enter. Same reason that in my browser I use Rango in keyboard mode, and why I use goto_word in Helix so much.

I'm explicitly not asking you to add this feature. Just recapping my general sort of displeasure at the state of the niche.

The only alternative that I can really think of, tbh, is buying an eye tracker so I literally don't have to do anything more than look where I want to click and hit a button on my keyboard to send a mouse1 input. But that's a bit extreme even for me, and I'm Mr. Too Many Keyboards. Maybe one day ;)

Thanks for maintaining Wooshy. Even though it's not 100% the perfect workflow for my brain, I hugely appreciate that you have such a strong vision for what you want the app to be. You're fucking killing it man, love your stuff.

[godbout]

This comment is a bit ranty so feel free to ignore or hide this.

SIR. if you're gonna text me i'm gonna answer 🤣️🤣️🤣️

I find myself mostly using Homerow specifically because of the labels mode, but I'd much rather be using Wooshy (especially since Homerow has now been stealth acquired without any announcement from Dexter or the new owner, and already it seems to have multiple paid tiers... no idea where that's going. What "paid features" are they talking about...).

wait. a lot to unpack here.

1. if Homerow does the labels (and well), why you'd rather be using Wooshy? (read about the "especially" part but i guess there's other reasons?)
2. wow didn't know about the change of ownership 🤣️ and i have an Homerow license (support 💪️). selling or transferring is fine but the silence yeah, not a fan either. had to check coz i didn't believe it at first and thought oh Robert is high af again
3. that being said the paid features have been there almost from the start, during Dexter's time, i'm pretty sure. or am i missing something?

seems Homerow is being taken over by Neil, who's the creator of superwhisper. this is good stuff. so i'm definitely expecting high quality stuff for Homerow coming. assuming some AI stuff too. maybe you'll get your eye tracking thing in there.

• Wooshy doesn't support this because of personal preference, which honestly, fair. I get that. If I was maintaining an app that did this and I didn't think labels worked for me, I wouldn't either.

just to be a little nit-picky: it's not like a "personal preference" that i'm trying to impose. it's just that i have to prioritize my time and energy. i'm very, VERY bullish on that. it's not just a "thinking" value, it's also an emotional one. if i start building something i don't really care about just for business or pleasing reasons, i know myself enough to know that it's the start of me losing interest. people don't like to hear it but as far as i'm concerned my apps are no different than my music or my paintings or my writings: they're little pieces of art. kinda useful ones but still. that makes some people weary that i wouldn't follow up and update them etc., but i also use daily what i build, and i'm also bullish on keeping my word, so, here we are.

• Vimac hasn't been updated in ages because Homerow superseded it, and now it's also been transferred to the new owner.

still usable tho no? and open source. could fork it. (albeit slow. which is why i started Wooshy in the first place.)

• Shortcat hasn't been updated in almost as long, the interaction model still requires pressing enter, the screen is a lot more cluttered, and it feels noticeably slower than Wooshy or Homerow.

yeah not sure what chendo is doing with Shortcat. maybe he's busy on his social network and services to empower sex workers. haven't had news for a while

• Superkey doesn't have labels mode at all, it's only search.

last time i tried Superkey it was doing OCR only but i've heard it does AX Elements too now. hmm thinking about it i've tried it but couldn't make it work. anyways

• VimMotionApp is essentially archived, and moving my workflow to it makes me uncomfortable because when Apple inevitably breaks this somehow in a future macOS update I want to know that my workflow is safe.

yep. fair. which is why both Wooshy and kV are subs. there's a lot of work, cleaning, testing and more done behind the scenes to keep the apps working and speedy with every macOS update.

(Are there any others I'm missing?)

lol. there's already a section for Alternatives in Wooshy's repo but i can't do all the work! 😂️😂️😂️

some more maybe tho:

• https://alternativeto.net/software/vimac/
• https://alternativeto.net/software/homerow/

The labels mode, to my own special kind of fucked up brain, is WAYY faster than searching because there's no translation step for me -- I'm just already looking where I want to click, so I just trigger the app and type two letters. That's a much lower cognitive load to me than trigger, type the thing, tab tab tab, enter. Same reason that in my browser I use Rango in keyboard mode, and why I use goto_word in Helix so much.

yeah i get what you mean. and that's where my brain is different. i think i've read that like 50% of people don't speak to themselves? when i see somewhere i wanna go the first thing my brain does is speak it out. which is why for me it's a much lower cognitive load to just type what my brains is telling me. it's slower than labels yes. it requires more keystrokes (although i combine this with kV and just have to keep my finder on j or k to navigate super fastly if there's several results, which is totally what i want because i spend my days with Vim motions). just saying, even with tab you should be able to press it once and keep it pressed to cycle through the results.

I'm explicitly not asking you to add this feature. Just recapping my general sort of displeasure at the state of the niche.

gonna reopen this issue tho because let's see. may reconsider in the future

The only alternative that I can really think of, tbh, is buying an eye tracker so I literally don't have to do anything more than look where I want to click and hit a button on my keyboard to send a mouse1 input. But that's a bit extreme even for me, and

i'd wait a bit. let's see what Neil comes up with Homerow. also seems Apple is updating the Accessibility Framework on iPadOS to bring eye tracking. may come to macOS later maybe? that would bring apps like Wooshy irrelevant. except if you like to practice your typing on a keyboard.

I'm Mr. Too Many Keyboards.

oh. the IKEA monitor thing! 😍️😍️😍️

Thanks for maintaining Wooshy. Even though it's not 100% the perfect workflow for my brain, I hugely appreciate that you have such a strong vision for what you want the app to be. You're fucking killing it man, love your stuff.

i'm just focused on living my own best life lol. but thanks. hopefully everybody is doing the same. life's not granted and pretty short. glad if what i do is useful or gives a smile.

[godbout]

reopening coz see reason above

[godbout]

@clo4 also i'm super curious why people would choose Wooshy over Homerow. it used to be that Wooshy was text searching, while Homerow was labels only, but now Homerow has text searching too. it's way faster than Vimac, which was the reason why i started Wooshy in the first place. so i'm not sure. the only thing i could think of is 1) Wooshy is heavily updated and in constant development 2) i'm very approachable and answer people quickly. but that's me judging with my own values. so yeah, not sure. the rather rough feedback i get is that subs are evil, and the lack of labels is a turn off. so still kinda curious 🤔️

[clo4]

hell yeah essay style responses are my JAM let's GO

1. if Homerow does the labels (and well), why you'd rather be using Wooshy? (read about the "especially" part but i guess there's other reasons?)
2. wow didn't know about the change of ownership 🤣️ and i have an Homerow license (support 💪️). selling or transferring is fine but the silence yeah, not a fan either. had to check coz i didn't believe it at first and thought oh Robert is high af again
3. that being said the paid features have been there almost from the start, during Dexter's time, i'm pretty sure. or am i missing something?

seems Homerow is being taken over by Neil, who's the creator of superwhisper. this is good stuff. so i'm definitely expecting high quality stuff for Homerow coming. assuming some AI stuff too. maybe you'll get your eye tracking thing in there.

Good to hear that you have some faith then. I'll use that as a proxy because I've never heard of the guy before 😂 and it's entirely possible that I'm tripping about the multiple paid tiers thing, maybe that has always been there.

I'd rather be using wooshy for a few reasons, partly because of the subscription actually. When Apple could break the tool I essentially use as an accessibility feature at a moment's notice, I'd much rather be actively contributing to someone to keep it updated than have a set-it-and-forget-it type of license. Yearly sub would be nice though too. I also like your attitude in general - how you see what a free trial is, the knobs you give people to tweak, etc. It also seems very performance conscious which is very nice. I think wooshy is a well crafted app. That's not to say Homerow isn't, but at time of writing you're still actively working on wooshy and Homerow hasn't been updated in a while + occasionally feels slow.

it's not like a "personal preference" that i'm trying to impose. it's just that i have to prioritize my time and energy.

Appreciate the nitpickiness! In the same spirit- that's what I was trying to express but failed in my choice of language.

lol. there's already a section for Alternatives in Wooshy's repo but i can't do all the work! 😂️😂️😂️

I've already got all of those downloaded so I was just hoping that you might know of one that I haven't stumbled across yet ;)

which is why for me it's a much lower cognitive load to just type what my brains is telling me

I've also got a narrator stuck between my ears so unfortunately I'm intimately familiar with this :P there's a tiny step to have brain voice read the letters then turn those letters into finger movements, the same step is involved for typing the text I see in a button. I elided the mention of brain voice because tbh I forgot that this isn't universal.

For me the slowest part is when it generates a combination of letters that you have to press with the same finger, eg. bv in colemak-dh

but if you can say, no, only use keys that are on my home row + some on the top row for the longer fingers, then that problem is entirely eliminated (although then it takes fewer labels to start generating 3 character labels, which is a tradeoff I'm willing to make to eliminate row skips, or worst of all, same-finger row skips).

let's see what Neil comes up with Homerow

🙏 will wait and see!

also seems Apple is updating the Accessibility Framework on iPadOS to bring eye tracking. may come to macOS later maybe? that would bring apps like Wooshy irrelevant. except if you like to practice your typing on a keyboard.

The announcement had me very excited! Doubt macOS will get this, at least any time soon, because of the wide range of quality of cameras. Maybe MacBook laptops specifically? Smaller clickable elements on screens further from you with worse sensors is like, a worst case scenario. So if by some miracle it did come to macOS I'm not convinced it'd be accurate enough to convince anyone to use it haha

(and I'd already own an eye tracker if I had the money but, unfortunately, see earlier image.......)

1) Wooshy is heavily updated and in constant development 2) i'm very approachable and answer people quickly. but that's me judging with my own values. so yeah, not sure. the rather rough feedback i get is that subs are evil, and the lack of labels is a turn off. so still kinda curious 🤔️

yes, yes, nope I actually like to support people when they make a thing I use hundreds of times a day that could also possibly break in a minor release of macOS, and yes. IMO subs make sense when the app is either a "service" that you're paying for, or when it's a tool that can be broken by the platform vendor. If it's just like, some local-only app that I don't need updates or support for, then yeah that makes more sense as a once-off purchase, but wooshy/homerow aren't that. Like, if MonitorControl started charging me a subscription to change the brightness on my monitor, I'd probably just change it manually.

The year-of-updates model is maybe (?) a way you can appease both crowds, since it isn't technically a subscription, but if they don't renew they don't get new updates but aren't also a drain on your resources. anecdotally people are generally on board with that style of thing since it explicitly frames the recurring purchase as paying for potential updates instead of paying to use the thing. Sublime Text does this now too

Another reason that's definitely more of a taste thing, but I like the voice that Wooshy is written with. Has more personality!

[godbout]

Good to hear that you have some faith then. I'll use that as a proxy because I've never heard of the guy before 😂 and it's entirely possible that I'm tripping about the multiple paid tiers thing, maybe that has always been there.

started dealing with him because some users of kV asked better support for superwhisper. been in touch. superwhisper is high quality, and he seems to be shitposting too. so same spirit as me. that's all i can say for now.

pricing is not from him yeah. been there a while. personally not a fan, as i'll explain down below.

I'd rather be using wooshy for a few reasons, partly because of the subscription actually. When Apple could break the tool I essentially use as an accessibility feature at a moment's notice, I'd much rather be actively contributing to someone to keep it updated than have a set-it-and-forget-it type of license.

are you interested in becoming a Wooshy evangelist? 🤔️🤣️🤣️🤣️ but yeah, people don't realize. tbh they don't even have to. as far as i'm concerned, or i pay for a software if it makes my day to day life better, or i build my own. i don't wanna spend hours arguing why it should be cheaper, or not a sub, or blah blah blah. i never know how hard it is down there.

Yearly sub would be nice though too.

any reason why? i've had a few requests about this, and usually it's for tax reasons lol. it's in my TODO list, but not top priority. first coz i like the idea that people can walk right away if they find a better tool for them. second because with yearly sub i'm expecting to have to deal with way more admin shits like refund requests etc. would be better for me money wise coz i'd pay one 0.5USD transaction fee rather than 12 ones, but i'd have to deal with admin stuff and i really don't want to lol. but most probably it will still come.

how you see what a free trial is

AHHAHAHAHHAHAHA MOST PEOPLE HATE IT HAHAHHAHAHHA

It also seems very performance conscious which is very nice

yes. i use my own apps daily. if it's slow to use then it's not even worth using at all

That's not to say Homerow isn't, but at time of writing you're still actively working on wooshy and Homerow hasn't been updated in a while + occasionally feels slow.

definitely way better crafted than his father Vimac. started Wooshy coz Vimac was too slow. maybe Dexter got some pressure from Wooshy hahhahhahahhahahah

I've already got all of those downloaded so I was just hoping that you might know of one that I haven't stumbled across yet ;)

nah. i haven't even paid attention tbh. just focused on building my own apps the way i want them. so self centered!

For me the slowest part is when it generates a combination of letters that you have to press with the same finger, eg. bv in colemak-dh but if you can say, no, only use keys that are on my home row + some on the top row for the longer fingers, then that problem is entirely eliminated (although then it takes fewer labels to start generating 3 character labels, which is a tradeoff I'm willing to make to eliminate row skips, or worst of all, same-finger row skips).

wait. Homerow can do that right? i think there's a setting to let it know what letters to use to generate the labels

The announcement had me very excited! Doubt macOS will get this, at least any time soon, because of the wide range of quality of cameras. Maybe MacBook laptops specifically? Smaller clickable elements on screens further from you with worse sensors is like, a worst case scenario. So if by some miracle it did come to macOS I'm not convinced it'd be accurate enough to convince anyone to use it haha

maybe they're gonna do like the Continuity Camera thing? you can use your iPhone as a webcam? no idea. tbh i don't really follow. i LOVE to type on a keyboard. and i want to get better and better at it. so for me it's keyboard all the way.

yes, yes, nope I actually like to support people when they make a thing I use hundreds of times a day that could also possibly break in a minor release of macOS, and yes. IMO subs make sense when the app is either a "service" that you're paying for, or when it's a tool that can be broken by the platform vendor. If it's just like, some local-only app that I don't need updates or support for, then yeah that makes more sense as a once-off purchase, but wooshy/homerow aren't that. Like, if MonitorControl started charging me a subscription to change the brightness on my monitor, I'd probably just change it manually.

yah. same. even Alfred. i got a mega lifetime license a long ago but i pay again every time they release a paid version coz i wouldn't use a Mac without it.

The year-of-updates model is maybe (?) a way you can appease both crowds, since it isn't technically a subscription, but if they don't renew they don't get new updates but aren't also a drain on your resources. anecdotally people are generally on board with that style of thing since it explicitly frames the recurring purchase as paying for potential updates instead of paying to use the thing. Sublime Text does this now too

https://github.com/nchudleigh/homerow/issues/111 😂️😂️😂️

but nah. even as a tech person, and a DEVELOPER, it took me ages to understand what was the "lifetime license -> one year of update" thing. i think it's shit. as a consumer of tools i want them fast, up to date, compatible with newest OS etc. without having to waste time figuring shits out myself. that's what i'm paying something for. so that's how it works for kV/Wooshy. pay a coffee a month, or build your own lol. 99% of what i did in the past 15 years is open source, free. but kV/Wooshy require constant work, and i want them to be useful to people without them having to fork a project, or pressuring me (read me pressuring myself) into adding something for free.

Another reason that's definitely more of a taste thing, but I like the voice that Wooshy is written with. Has more personality!

yeah. taste. subjective. not good for business, but so good for life hahhahahahaha

[alex35mil]

Sorry, I didn't read all these essays lol, so it might already be mentioned, but.

I've been using pounce.nvim for navigation in Neovim for a long time. This plugin combines ideas of Woosh'ism and Label'ism. Ie, I can type out the text I want to jump to, and if the target is the first or only match - I hit enter to jump; otherwise, it shows labels on the targets, so I can hit a capitalized char to jump to it. It works great for adepts of Woosh'ism who have accepted and come to terms with the imperfections of this world.

[joshstobbs]

Hello again...this seems to have garnered quite the audience. For what it's worth - I still think label mode is cool, though not entirely necessary for what Wooshy ultimately is setting out to do.

More importantly, I'd also like to throw my hat in the ring and say if you ended up implementing yearly pricing you'd have an automatic sub from me (on both this and kV). 🙃

[godbout]

the current situation is: a big thing i wanna bring to Wooshy is stop stealing focus. i'm not sure which direction Apple is gonna go with the next macOS version, but the previous ones tended to add panels that disappear when you activate Wooshy. now if i get Wooshy to not take focus, it means all the macOS normal input moves won't work. i'd have to reimplement them. which is ok in itself (doing the work), but i think will give a weird feel to users (no blinking caret. can't click to position the caret etc.). this is the heaviest argument that makes me consider Labels instead of search. coz the UX would then appear way more natural.

[alex35mil]

FWIW I'd much prefer labels to be a complement to the search (or a fallback mechanism) rather than a replacement. Eg, when the search fails or there are too many search results.

[godbout]

FWIW I'd much prefer labels to be a complement to the search (or a fallback mechanism) rather than a replacement. Eg, when the search fails or there are too many search results.

your answer is actually really worth. thank you. i'm at a stage where "improving" some part of Wooshy means 1) or making big changes on Wooshy's UX 2) or going down a rabbit hole trying to make something overcomplicated and not fun that doesn't feel worth.

[alex35mil]

NP! FWIW 2, I prefer Wooshy exactly because of the search. It just feels much more natural and productive to type out the target text since I already know it, instead of wasting time reading into random symbols.

[godbout]

NP! FWIW 2, I prefer Wooshy exactly because of the search. It just feels much more natural and productive to type out the target text since I already know it, instead of wasting time reading into random symbols.

very good to know, thanks. i'm in the same boat but it seems we're a minority. which is fine in itself. i'm just pondering what to do because i really want to get Wooshy to be available in every window and popup, but it's gonna be very tricky to get a good UX for typing and modifying one's text. anyways, thanks for letting me know. very useful.

[godbout]

Yearly sub would be nice though too

done in Wooshy 26: https://github.com/godbout/Wooshy.docs/releases/tag/26