LuaKit, a Vim-style Ultra Speed Browser!

Luakit is a highly configurable web browser based on the WebKit engine and the GTK+ toolkit. It is very fast, extensible with Lua and licensed under the GNU GPLv3 license.

It is mainly aimed at advanced users, developers, users who want to evolve and better stick Vim/Neovim commands, and anyone who wants to have fine-grained control over their web browser’s behavior and interface.

Installation

It is possible to use LuaKit on several operating systems, such as: GNU/Linux, Windows, FreeBSD and OpenBSD.

To install LuaKit you can use your distro’s package manager, examples:

On Gentoo: emerge luakit
On Debian or Ubuntu: sudo apt luakit
In Arch Linux: pacman -S luakit
On FreeBSD: pkg install luakit
On OpenBSD: pkg_add luakit

And among others.

On Windows you will need to use WSL. Now it’s easier because to install anything in WSL, just use PowerShell using the command: wsl --install

You can also install on other Linux operating systems/distributions building from scratch, but first you will need to have the dependencies: Git, GMake, GCC, GTK3, WebKit2GTK, Lua 5.1/LuaJIT, Lua File System and SQLite3 .

After that, just clone the repository, enter it, build and install:

git clone https://github.com/luakit/luakit.git
luakit cd
make
sudo make install

Once properly installed, just look for LuaKit on your dashboard and open it, so that the home page is precisely LuaKit’s official website. Now let’s see some commands and tips for using LuaKit.

Commands and Shortcuts

LuaKit has the following modes: Command(by pressing ESC) and Insertion(by pressing the letter i, for example, to type in input, textarea and others) fields.

To navigate the command options press ESC to enter command mode and then press TAB to navigate down through the available command hints and Shift + Tab to go up through the options.
If you choose :help, for example, it will open the help page at luakit://binds/ in a new tab, you can switch between tabs by clicking at the top of each tab or simply hitting Ctrl + Tab.
To open a URL, run the command :open <url-name> or simply type the letter o google.com in command mode, it will open the URL in the TAB where you typed the command.
If you want to open a URL in a new tab, type: :tabopen URL or type t terminalroot.com.br
To open a new empty TAB (no URL), press: Ctrl + t or use the command: :tabopen without providing URL.
To close a TAB run the command :close or the key combination: Ctrl + w or just d
To reopen a closed tab, press u
You can navigate a page using the mouse or the arrow keys: k and j for up and down respectively and h and l for left and right respectively.

To go to the beginning of the page is identical to Vim, just type: gg, and to go to the end G .
You can also navigate between tabs by pressing Alt + <tab-order-number> and to reorder the position of the tabs, use > and <.
Pressing the letter f displays and numbers the links on the page and to click on the number you want to type it and then press Enter
To browse the history backwards press Shift + h and forward Shift + l
If you want to display the history, run the command :history or type the letter u in command mode. You can clear the history by clicking Clear All
Searching for some word or content is also the same as Vim, just press / and then type what you want to search, typing n it finds the next occurrence of what was typed.
To refresh a page press r which would be the F5 of conventional browsers.
Print a page or a document, use the command: :print
Bookmark a page run: :bookmark and to see your bookmarks use the same plural word: :bookmarks
To create snippets and run Lua commands, run: :lua
To inspect the DOM and run commands on the console, use: :in → console: alert("Hello, LuaKit")

Settings

Settings can be made by running the :settings command. It is possible to configure and define values for Lua metatables or just by clicking on the options. Actions such as:

Disable or re-enable :javascript
Enable save session as default
Install plugins in ~/.config/luakit/plugins, plugins can be developed by yourself or cloned from the repository: https://github.com/luakit/luakit-plugins

And among several other settings.

To exit Luakit, just run :quit or simply press Shift + z and then Shift + q. If you want to exit and save the session of open pages to be reopened as soon as you open again run the command: :wq or press Shift + z twice.

Conclusion

For more usage tips, commands and settings:

Access the official documentation at: luakit://binds or via the website: luakit.github.io/docs.
Or run in the terminal: luakit --help
Or using the manual with the command in the terminal: man luakit.

If you want a guide to the Lua Programming Language, go to: https://en.terminalroot.com.br/definitive-guide-to-lua-for-beginners/