Enable or Disable all frames by a shortcut

Vimium C supports command URLs for switching exclusion keys dynamically, exclusions keys only for hooking and global shortcuts:

• It handles URLs like vimium://status <enable|disable|toggle|reset> specially
  • enable will make Vimium C enabled (just like no exclusion rules matched), on all iframes of a current tab
  • disable does conversed actions (just like Keys in exclusions is empty)
  • such status are temporary, and will be cleared when a tab gets reloaded / visits another URL
• Its Keys in exclusion rules can be used to specify an allow list of usable key mappings
  • if keys starts with ^ , then following keys means an allow list
  • if not, the keys means a list of "composed keys", separated by space characters
• It provides some global shortcuts (those on chrome://extensions/shortcuts or Firefox's about:addons), and their function can be configured arbitrarily
  • shortcut userCustomized1 command="openUrl" url="..." (in custom key mappings) means to open a new tab when the shortcut User Customized 1 gets triggered.

The 3 above are able to satisfy most needs to switch Vimium C statuses.

Explain 3 statuses

On a page, Vimium C can be in one of 3 working statuses:

1. enabled: all key mappings can be triggered, and no pass keys are bound to the page
2. partially disabled: in normal mode, only a limited list of keys can work as the first key to trigger commands or other actions
   • if there has been a prefix key, like a number or g in the default mappings, then following keys won't be limited by pass keys
3. disabled: no keys (even <esc>) can work in a normal mode, unless you have used vimium://status to force a small allow list

The disabled status has some extra effects:

• if a page has been disabled when it loads (by the Excluded URLs and keys table), then Vimium C will uninstall its listeners on keyboard and document events
  • so a page will run almost as fast as there's no Vimium C on it
• if this status is entered from vimium://status, then it may has a small allow list, in order to allow users to trigger an allowed key to make Vimium C switch into another status

Normally, different frames in a same tab may have different statuses, but a forced status entered from vimium://status will make all frames share a same status (and pass keys).

How to toggle "pass keys"

For example: map <f7> openUrl url="vimium://status/toggle/^\u0020<f7>" in key mappings

Explain:

• openUrl means to execute specified URL / URLs, and following url= is a JSON-encoded URL
• the url above can also be written as vimium://status toggle ^ <f7> (replace some / with \u0020, a space character)
• vimium://status means to switch / setup working status of Vimium C for a current tab
• toggle means to switch among enabled, disabled and reset
• ^ <f7> means that, when a next status is disabled, Vimium C will still hook <f7> and trigger commands.
  • you may also write multiple keys here, like ^ <f7> <f8> <c-i> (joined using \u0020
• for a URL of vimium://status/toggle/silent/[...keys], it will not show HUD on changing status

Expected effect: you can press <f7> and then Vimium C will turn off on a current tab; while a second <f7> will re-enable Vimium C.

Vimium C also supports vimium://status reset, which is used to clear temporary status and apply exclusion rules again.

How to switch between two statuses

Since v1.87.0, Vimium C adds support for:

• vimium://status toggle-disabled can toggle between a default status and the disabled status
• vimium://status toggle-enabled can toggle between a default status and the enabled status
• vimium://status toggle-next can toggle among a default status, the enabled status and the disabled status

And then, if you don't want an enabled status before switching to disabled, then you may use map <c-i> openUrl url="vimium://status/toggle-disable/^\u0020<c-i>" and it's only for "default“ and "disabled".

A 2-step way using the popup dialog

When you happen to want to disable Vimium C for a while, you can turn off it by clicking the Vimium C icon at the top-right corner of your browser window. Then it will show a popup dialog, and just click Disable for once (X) to make Vimium C completely disabled.

The disabled status will be kept on a current tab and until the tab is closed / refreshed. As for new iframes in the tab, they will inherit status of the top frame, and keep disabled.

When a page is disabled, you can also open the popup again and click Enable for once (or Reset) to re-enable Vimium C.