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89fd7efa3a
Be more strict about the format accepted by the ELinks specific extension to the -remote URL syntax. That is, commands must begin with a nonempty sequence of ASCII alphabetic characters followed by optional whitespace and an opening parenthesis. Also, document the syntax. Fixes bug 830.
89 lines
3.9 KiB
Plaintext
89 lines
3.9 KiB
Plaintext
Managing remote ELinks instances
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Some programs provide the ability to pass URIs to external programs. When
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stumbling upon a reference to a page you want to see, it is sometimes a kludge
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to copy and paste it into ELinks. This is where -remote can be a nifty
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solution.
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When invoking ELinks with the -remote argument, it does not start a new
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instance, but instead connects to an already running ELinks, making it
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possible to control that ELinks instance. The -remote command line switch
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takes a command consisting of the action to invoke and any parameters to the
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action. Commands must begin with a nonempty sequence of ASCII alphabetic
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characters followed by optional whitespace and an opening parenthesis. They
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must end with a closing parenthesis optionally followed by whitespace. Here is
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an example for opening freshmeat.net in a new tab:
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$ elinks -remote "openURL(http://freshmeat.net/, new-tab)"
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When running this command in a terminal, you will see a small delay before
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ELinks returns. If no running instance was found, it will return with the
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error message:
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ELinks: No remote session to connect to.
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All URLs passed to the openURL() commands can be URL prefixes, so the command
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above could have simply used ``openURL(fm, new-tab)''.
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Limitations and outstanding issues
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Remote control is implemented using the intercommunication socket created in
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~/.elinks/, so the command has to be run on the same machine as the instance
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you want to control; or put differently: the two ELinkses need to share a file
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system that supports socket files, which rules out usage of -remote over NFS.
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This also implies that the ELinks instance you want to control should be
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started without passing -no-home nor -no-connect.
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The built-in -remote support is to some degree compatible with the one Mozilla
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provides (http://www.mozilla.org/unix/remote.html), but with some homebrew
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extensions added and few unsupported features. All the supported actions are
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documented below.
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Under some circumstances, use of the -remote control can cause ELinks to
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become unresponsive. This is cause by the current key press and mouse focus
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being redirected to new tabs or dialogs opened by the -remote action.
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Remote Actions
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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The command syntax is case-insensitive. For readability, we use the casing in
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the listing of supported commands.
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.Mozilla `-remote` compatible commands.
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`-------------------------------`----------------------------------------------
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Command Description
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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ping() Checks for existence of a remote instance. \
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Makes it possible for scripts to query if \
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remote controlling is possible.
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openURL() Prompts for a URL in current tab by opening \
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the Goto dialog.
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openURL(URL) Open the passed URL in current tab.
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openURL(URL, new-tab) Opens the passed URL in new tab.
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openURL(URL, new-window) Opens the passed URL in new window.
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xfeDoCommand(openBrowser) Opens an ELinks instance in a new window. \
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This ELinks instance will connect to the \
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already running one.
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.ELinks extensions.
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`-------------------------------`----------------------------------------------
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Command Description
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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addBookmark(URL) Bookmarks the passed URL.
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infoBox(text) Show text in a message box.
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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`-remote` can also take a list of URLs without an explicit action, in which case
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the URL arguments will be opened in new tabs in the remote instance. For
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example, by running:
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$ elinks -remote slashdot.org fm g:elinks
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new tabs containing `slashdot.org`, `freshmeat.net` and a Google search of elinks
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will be opened.
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