Click Firefox links with the apostrophe ‘ and Dragon

The auto scrolling bookmarklet prompted me to write this post, but the fix I’m going to describe applies to Firefox globally as well. I said earlier that the bookmarklet’s number key speed shortcuts conflicted with Mouseless Browsing, but even if you’re not using Mouseless Browsing, it also conflicts with the accessibility.typeaheadfind settings in Firefox’s about:config. So, if you say or type a number to finely adjust the speed (you can also, it turns out, just press the + or – as long as you’re not using Mouse Keys), your speed will adjust, but Firefox will focus on where that number appears. Therefore, chances are good you’ll lose your place in whatever you’re reading.

However, there is a way to access links reliably without either typeaheadfind or Mouseless Browsing turned on. Just press or say apostrophe. This will temporarily turn on the accessibility.typeaheadfind.linksonly setting, and you can say or type your link word, then press Enter. However, you may still wish to go into about:config and turn off the timeout setting if you’re a keyboard user and type slowly.

Compared to having the setting enabled automatically, this is a slightly clumsier process, especially if you have a keyboard on which the ‘ is a shifted key. It would be somewhat more bearable for Dragon users, though, especially if you could create an add-on command. Here is my Vocola command, taken from my list of Firefox commands:

[Click] Link <_anything> = “‘” $1 {Enter};

That was a basic clicking link, but if you want to account for opening a link in a new tab, here is the command:

[Open] Link <_anything> new tab = “‘” $1 {Ctrl+Enter};

Now you should be able to keep your place while you scroll. Also, you might want to use this command anyway, because even though Dragon will occasionally click a Firefox link for you, Dragon itself does not have a way to open a new tab when it clicks something.