mirror of https://github.com/rkd77/elinks.git
91 lines
4.0 KiB
Plaintext
91 lines
4.0 KiB
Plaintext
Managing remote ELinks instances
|
|
--------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Some programs provide the ability to pass URIs to external programs. When
|
|
stumbling upon a reference to a page you want to see, it is sometimes a kludge
|
|
to copy and paste it into ELinks. This is where -remote can be a nifty
|
|
solution.
|
|
|
|
When invoking ELinks with the -remote argument, it does not start a new
|
|
instance, but instead connects to an already running ELinks, making it
|
|
possible to control that ELinks instance. The -remote command line switch
|
|
takes a command consisting of the action to invoke and any parameters to the
|
|
action. Commands must begin with a nonempty sequence of ASCII alphabetic
|
|
characters followed by optional whitespace and an opening parenthesis. They
|
|
must end with a closing parenthesis optionally followed by whitespace. Here is
|
|
an example for opening freshmeat.net in a new tab:
|
|
|
|
$ elinks -remote "openURL(http://freshmeat.net/, new-tab)"
|
|
|
|
When running this command in a terminal, you will see a small delay before
|
|
ELinks returns. If no running instance was found, it will return with the
|
|
error message:
|
|
|
|
ELinks: No remote session to connect to.
|
|
|
|
All URLs passed to the openURL() commands can be URL prefixes, so the command
|
|
above could have simply used ``openURL(fm, new-tab)''.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Limitations and outstanding issues
|
|
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|
|
|
|
Remote control is implemented using the intercommunication socket created in
|
|
~/.config/elinks/, so the command has to be run on the same machine as the instance
|
|
you want to control; or put differently: the two ELinkses need to share a file
|
|
system that supports socket files, which rules out usage of -remote over NFS.
|
|
This also implies that the ELinks instance you want to control should be
|
|
started without passing -no-home nor -no-connect.
|
|
|
|
The built-in -remote support is to some degree compatible with the one Mozilla
|
|
provides (http://www.mozilla.org/unix/remote.html), but with some homebrew
|
|
extensions added and few unsupported features. All the supported actions are
|
|
documented below.
|
|
|
|
Under some circumstances, use of the -remote control can cause ELinks to
|
|
become unresponsive. This is cause by the current key press and mouse focus
|
|
being redirected to new tabs or dialogs opened by the -remote action.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Remote Actions
|
|
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|
|
|
|
The command syntax is case-insensitive. For readability, we use the casing in
|
|
the listing of supported commands.
|
|
|
|
.Mozilla `-remote` compatible commands.
|
|
`-------------------------------`----------------------------------------------
|
|
Command Description
|
|
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
ping() Checks for existence of a remote instance. \
|
|
Makes it possible for scripts to query if \
|
|
remote controlling is possible.
|
|
openURL() Prompts for a URL in current tab by opening \
|
|
the Goto dialog.
|
|
openURL(URL) Open the passed URL in current tab.
|
|
openURL(URL, new-tab) Opens the passed URL in new tab.
|
|
openURL(URL, new-window) Opens the passed URL in new window.
|
|
xfeDoCommand(openBrowser) Opens an ELinks instance in a new window. \
|
|
This ELinks instance will connect to the \
|
|
already running one.
|
|
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
.ELinks extensions.
|
|
`-------------------------------`----------------------------------------------
|
|
Command Description
|
|
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
addBookmark(URL, title) Bookmarks the passed URL and set title.
|
|
infoBox(text) Show text in a message box.
|
|
reload() Reload the document in the current tab.
|
|
search(string) Search for the string in the current tab
|
|
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
`-remote` can also take a list of URLs without an explicit action, in which case
|
|
the URL arguments will be opened in new tabs in the remote instance. For
|
|
example, by running:
|
|
|
|
$ elinks -remote slashdot.org fm g:elinks
|
|
|
|
new tabs containing `slashdot.org`, `freshmeat.net` and a Google search of elinks
|
|
will be opened.
|