Here is what We expect to achieve. Every command starts with Ratpoison’s prefix + ‘f’ like in C-t f:

**Command**     **Action**

    f           Facebook
    y           Youtube
    r           Reddit
    g           Github
    o           Open a new tab
    w           Open a new window
    s           Search for the current content in the clipboard
    /           Jump to the tab with url mathing a user input
    l           Open a new tab with the lyrics of the currenlty playing song (mpd)

This does a bit more than what you’re probably thinking. Take for instance the f command with the “Facebook” action, it will afford you this:

No matter where you are, which window has the focus, or even if Firefox is currently running or not. Firefox will be started (if needed) and acquire the focus, then all your tabs will be parsed (starting from the last one), and if a Facebook tab is found then jump to it, if there is no Facebook tab then start a new one.

The same is extended to any of the other sites available (The list can be extended to suit you needs).

The o commands is self-explanatory, the only advantage of this one is the ability to quickly get a new tab no matter where you are, which window has the focus, or if Firefox is running or not.

The s command is quite nice, imagine this:

You’re trying to compile some code, but the compiler complains with a cryptic message, so you use tmux to copy the error message, then issue the key sequence C-t f / and BANG!, you get a new Firefox tab in front of you with the search engine results for the error message. And this is applicable to any content in your clipboard as well!

The / command prompts the user for a query and jumps to the tab with a URL that contains the query as a substring.

The l command will take the name of the currently playing song in MPD, search for it, and open the first result for the song lyrics in a new tab.

How to

So you’re sold, let’s make it happen. The main dependencies are:

• Firefox
• Mozrepl
• Ratpoison
• Expect

You can install them all with the system package manager, except for Mozrepl which you can get from Firefox addons.

This also depends on a Ratpoison script introduced in a previous post, so make sure to get that first.

Some extra ~/.ratpoisonrc is needed for the new mappings:

newkmap firefox
definekey firefox f exec ~/.scripts/ratpoison/firefox.sh select_tab facebook
definekey firefox y exec ~/.scripts/ratpoison/firefox.sh select_tab youtube
definekey firefox e exec ~/.scripts/ratpoison/firefox.sh select_tab evirtual
definekey firefox r exec ~/.scripts/ratpoison/firefox.sh select_tab reddit
definekey firefox g exec ~/.scripts/ratpoison/firefox.sh select_tab github
definekey firefox o exec ~/.scripts/ratpoison/firefox.sh new_tab
definekey firefox w exec ~/.scripts/ratpoison/firefox.sh new_window
definekey firefox s exec ~/.scripts/ratpoison/firefox.sh clipboard_search
definekey firefox l exec ~/.scripts/ratpoison/firefox.sh search_lyrics
definekey firefox slash exec ~/.scripts/ratpoison/firefox.sh search_tab
bind f readkey firefox

Most of the magic is performed by Mozrepl. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get it to load an external script, though Expect is needed for the communication with it anyways, so let’s use it to hand the script line by line.

The select_tab.js script is on charge of parsing the tabs to find one that matches the query and jump to it.

function selectTab(page) {
    var numTabs=gBrowser.browsers.length;
    var url="";
    for(i=numTabs-1; i>0; i--) {
        url=gBrowser.browsers[i].contentDocument.location.href;
        if(url.search(page) != -1) {
            gBrowser.tabContainer.selectedIndex=i;
            return true;
        }
    }
    return false;
}

Use Expect and the select_tab.expect script to perform the telnet communication with Mozrepl and send the script and commands as well.

#!/usr/bin/expect
set page [lindex $argv 0]
set port 4242

set file [open "select_tab.js"]
set content [split [read $file] "\n"]
close $file
spawn telnet localhost $port
foreach line $content {
    send "$line\r"
}
send "selectTab(\"$page\");\r"
expect "repl2> "
expect {
    "true" {
        exit 0
    }
    "false" {
        exit 1
    }
}

Now the firefox.sh script, invoked from Ratpoison, will glue it all together.

#!/bin/bash

URL=""
function set_url {
    case "$1" in
        'facebook')
            URL="www.facebook.com"
            ;;
        'youtube')
            URL="www.youtube.com"
            ;;
        'reddit')
            URL="www.reddit.com"
            ;;
        'github')
            URL="www.github.com"
            ;;
        'evirtual')
            URL="evirtual.ucuenca.edu.ec"
            ;;
    esac
}

function select_tab {
    cd ~/.mozrepl/
    expect select_tab.expect "$1" > /dev/null
    if [[ $? != 0 ]]; then
        set_url "$1"
        if [[ "$URL" != "" ]]; then
            firefox --new-tab "$URL"
        fi
    fi
}

function search_tab {
    query=`ratpoison -c "prompt [Tab] >  "`
    if [[ "$query" == "" ]]; then exit 0; fi
    select_tab "$query"
}

function clipboard_search {
    search=$(xclip -selection clipboard -o)
    if [[ "$search" == "" ]]; then
        exit 0
    fi
    search=$(echo "$search" | sed 's/ /+/g')
    google_url="https://www.google.com/search?q=$search"
    firefox --new-tab "$google_url"
}

function search_lyrics {
    search=$(mpc | head -n 1)
    if [[ "$search" == "" ]]; then
        exit 0
    fi
    search+=" lyrics"
    search=$(echo "$search" | sed 's/ /+/g')
    curl -A 'Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i586; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/31.0'\
        "https://www.google.com/search?q=$search"\
            > /tmp/google_search_result.html
    url=$(sed 's/>/>\r\n/g' /tmp/google_search_result.html\
        | grep -m 1 '<a href="http:.*".*>'\
        | sed -e 's/.*href="\([^"]*\)".*/\1/')
    firefox --new-tab "$url"
}

case $1 in
    'select_tab')
        ~/.scripts/ratpoison/app_select.sh firefox
        select_tab $2
        ;;
    'search_tab')
        search_tab
        ;;
    'new_tab')
        ~/.scripts/ratpoison/app_select.sh firefox
        firefox --new-tab "http://www.google.com"
        ;;
    'new_window')
        ratpoison -c "nextscreen"
        firefox --new-window "http://www.google.com"
        ;;
    'clipboard_search')
        ~/.scripts/ratpoison/app_select.sh firefox
        clipboard_search
        ;;
    'search_lyrics')
        ~/.scripts/ratpoison/app_select.sh firefox
        search_lyrics
        ;;
esac

You can find all those scripts and configuration bits in my Dotfiles.