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Recently I started learning to use keyboard shortcuts almost for everything I'm doing on the laptop (os win7) but soon enough after I started, I bumped into the problem of being unable to highlight (select) simple text in the Stack Exchange sites (where I stay almost all the time). I did some research and I couldn't find any solution to my problem. Have I missed an already answered question that is the same like mine or if not what solution can you suggest in order to achieve the results I want without touching mouse or touchpad or any cursor moving device?

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Assuming that you are currently using a GUI based browser (Chrome, IE etc.), you probably want to switch to using a keyboard based browser (such as Conkeror). To quote the web page:

About Conkeror

Conkeror is a keyboard-oriented, highly-customizable, highly-extensible web browser based on Mozilla XULRunner, written mainly in JavaScript, and inspired by exceptional software such as Emacs and vi. Conkeror features a sophisticated keyboard system, allowing users to run commands and interact with content in powerful and novel ways. It is self-documenting, featuring a powerful interactive help system.

I have added the italics to highlight why it could meet your needs. It works on most OSes, including Windows.

Here is a tutorial on how to copy text, in Conkeror, from the MIT Conkeror Tutorial

Copying Text

Gecko has a feature called caret browsing that gives you a blinking cursor that you can move and select document text with the keyboard. To enter caret browsing mode in Conkeror, first press C-M-q to enter content-buffer-quote-input-mode. All of your keystrokes until you press ESC will bypass Conkeror's key handling and be passed directly to Gecko. In content-buffer-quote-input-mode you can enter caret browsing mode by pressing F7. Move the caret with up, down, left, right, and so on. Select text by holding shift while moving the caret. Exit caret browsing mode by pressing F7 again. Press ESC to exit content-buffer-quote-input-mode. Press M-w to copy the selection to the clipboard.

Hope this helps.

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  • I'm searching for solutions working with chrome but your post helped indeed a friend of mine who is also interested in using mostly his keyboard, so thanks! Anyway if you know any extension for chrome that would help me achieve what I want I'm open to suggestions.
    – ZenVentzi
    Commented Jan 18, 2015 at 11:20

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