mozer

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mozer

introduction

A shellscript to open arbitrary urls or local documents in mozilla-like browsers (firefox, mozilla, netscape) from the command line.

Do you know this problem?
You are working at the command line deep inside the directory tree and want to look quickly into a html file in the current directory.
To open it with your favorite browser via the "File → Open" dialog and and clicking manually to the file is very cumbersome.

You could view the file with "lynx file.html", but then you won't have graphic Wouldn't it be great to have such a command to open the file in your favorite browser e.g. firefox?
This script makes it possible.

step by step

Save the shellscript mozer below to /usr/local/bin/mozer
Become root and make it runnable: chmod +x /usr/local/bin/mozer
Try it out with e.g.:
mozer somelocalfile.html or
mozer slackware.com

Thats all!

Contact me if you want to give me feedbak or if you want to help to improve this document.

source

#!/bin/bash
# CVS:     $Id: mozer,v 1.6 2005/06/17 11:22:05 becki Exp $
# Author:  Stefan Beckert  http://becki.skiclub-mitwitz.de
# License: Public Domain
# Description:
#   Use firefox, mozilla or netscape from the command line to display html
#   pages, text files or images (like 'less' for text files).
#   Each invocation of this script creates a new tab in your browser
#   (tabbed browsing).
#   If your browser is not running yet, it will be started.
# Examples:
#   mozer becki.skiclub-mitwitz.de         # opens webpage in new tab
#   mozer -s becki.skiclub-mitwitz.de      # opens webpage in same tab
#   mozer ~/.profile                       # opens local file in new tab
#   mozer ftp://url                        # opens ftp-url in new tab
#   mozer -s javascript:home()             # opens your homepage in same tab


#### CONFIGURATION (optional) #################################################
#
# customize path to browser startup script here if necessary:
# This script expects the path to your default browser in the environment
# variable $BROWSER
# You can set it with e.g.: "export BROWSER=firefox" in  ~/.profile
# If you don't want that, set the path to your browser manually here
# Examples:
#browser=firefox
#browser=/usr/bin/firefox
#browser=/user/bin/mozilla
#browser=/opt/netscape/netscape
#
###############################################################################


# default values:
usage="Usage: \"$(basename $0) [-s] url\" to open url in new [or same] tab of your browser"
debug='false' # do nothing instead of echo
same=0 # use new tab, not the same window

# for debugging only: (create a symlink called debugmozer -> mozer and call this
# script with 'debugmozer')
if [ $(basename $0) == debugmozer ]; then
    debug='echo'
fi

# get path to browser if not configured above:
if [ ! "$browser" ]; then
    if [ "$BROWSER" ]; then
	$debug "using environment variable \$BROWSER=$BROWSER" >&2
	browser=$BROWSER # use environment variable for browser locaton
    fi
else
    $debug "user has set \$browser=$browser" >&2
fi

# nothing set: try to detect browser:
if [ ! "$browser" ]; then
    if   which firefox 1>/dev/null 2>/dev/null; then
	browser=firefox
    elif which mozilla 1>/dev/null 2>/dev/null; then
	browser=mozilla
    elif which netscape 1>/dev/null 2>/dev/null; then
	browser=netscape
    fi
    if [ "$browser" ]; then
	echo "detected $browser, set \$BROWSER environment variable if you want to change this" >&2
    else
	echo "ERROR: Can't find your browser, set \$BROWSER environment variable!" >&2
	echo -e $usage >&2
	exit 1
    fi
fi

# get options:
while getopts ":s?" Option
do
    case $Option in
        s ) same=1 ;; # user doesn't want a new tab
        ? ) echo -e $usage >&2; exit 0 ;;
    esac
done
shift $(($OPTIND - 1)) # Move argument pointer to next.

# Test if instace of browser already exists:
$browser -remote "ping()" 2> /dev/null
off=$?

# Test number of remaining command line arguments:
if [ $# -ne 1 ]; then
    echo "ERROR: Wrong number of arguments!" >&2
    echo -e $usage >&2
    exit 1
fi
url=$1 # set default value of url, may be overwritten later

# Test if argument is a local file & exists:
if [ -e $1 ]; then
    $debug "$1 is a local file" >&2

    # Try to cd into specified directory:
    #   Mozilla etc. require the absolte pathname of the file.
    #   To cd into the specified directory is a workaround, because I don't know
    #   how to determine the absolute pathname directly.  Any suggestions?
    dirn=$(dirname $1)
    cd $dirn &> /dev/null

    if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
        url="file://$PWD/$(basename $1)"
    else
        echo "ERROR: Can't change into $dirn" >&2
        exit 2
    fi

# no local file => Test if argument is a fully qualified url:
elif [ $(expr substr $1 1 7) == 'http://' ]; then # 1st char has index 1 not 0!
    $debug "$1 is a http-url" >&2
elif [ $(expr substr $1 1 8) == 'https://' ]; then
    $debug "$1 is a https-url" >&2
elif [ $(expr substr $1 1 6) == 'ftp://' ]; then
    $debug "$1 is a ftp-url" >&2
elif [ $(expr substr $1 1 11) == 'javascript:' ]; then
    $debug "$1 is a javascript-url" >&2

# no file, no url: fallback to hypertext:
else
    url="http://$1"
    echo -e "$1 is neither a local file nor a fully qualified url\n\
 -> assuming $url" >&2
fi
#$debug "url: $url"

if [ $off -eq 0 ]; then # open url in running window:
    # We use remote control of unix mozilla here, see
    # http://www.mozilla.org/unix/remote.html
    if [ $same -eq 0 ]; then
        $debug "loading $url in new tab" >&2
        $browser -remote "openURL($url, new-tab)"
    else
        $debug "loading $url in same window" >&2
        $browser -remote "openURL($url)"
    fi
else # open mozilla with url:
    # If browser is not running yet, start browser.
    $debug "starting $(basename $browser) with $url" >&2
    $browser $url &
fi