# Caret browsing!

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caret-browsing/437414>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [February 13, 2008, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caret-browsing/437414 "2008-02-13T05:43:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2008, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caret-browsing/437414/1 "2008-02-13T05:43:47Z")

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Why the hell didn’t any of you guys tell me about this before? [Caret navigation!](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caret_browsing) I didn’t know that was possible in a web browser!

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**Author:** ![Br\_er\_Lapin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e79b87/32.png) [@Br\_er\_Lapin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Br_er_Lapin)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2008, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caret-browsing/437414/2 "2008-02-13T08:47:57Z")

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Neat! That’ll come in handy the next time my mouse bites the dust and I’m too lazy to go out and buy a new one right away.

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**Author:** ![scout1222](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/34f0e0/32.png) [@scout1222](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scout1222)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2008, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caret-browsing/437414/3 "2008-02-13T16:25:16Z")

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Dude, you didn’t know that?!?!?!?!?!

[sub]Okay, neither did I.[/sub]

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**Author:** ![Mindfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mindfield/32/19759_2.png) [@Mindfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mindfield)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2008, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caret-browsing/437414/4 "2008-02-13T17:40:26Z")

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That’s been possible in browsers since pretty much forever. Nobody uses it though because it’s a pain in the ass; tabbing over to the link or box you want can often take forever on pages that have a lot of clickable elements. However, it has come in handy at times when I’ve been troubleshooting a computer when it can’t use the mouse (such as in safe mode with some USB mice on systems without legacy USB support.)

You can navigate Windows this way, too.

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**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2008, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caret-browsing/437414/5 "2008-02-13T17:46:40Z")

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[QUOTE=Mindfield]  
That’s been possible in browsers since pretty much forever. Nobody uses it though because it’s a pain in the ass; tabbing over to the link or box you want can often take forever on pages that have a lot of clickable elements.  
[/QUOTE]  
The number of clickable elements doesn’t matter in caret browsing.

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**Author:** ![Mindfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mindfield/32/19759_2.png) [@Mindfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mindfield)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2008, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caret-browsing/437414/6 "2008-02-13T18:17:47Z")

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[QUOTE=Priceguy]  
The number of clickable elements doesn’t matter in caret browsing.  
[/QUOTE]

AH – now I see, having turned on Caret browsing in Firefox. However, it’s not that intuitive; caret browsing doesn’t work well in div layers/iframes as they’re treated a bit like their own pages, so moving right to the end of the line in a div layer simply returns it to the beginning of the next line in the same div layer; to switch layers you have to move up and out of that layer.