The global picture is that I want my Firefox X11 window to have its urgent flag set when (say) a new Gmail mail arrives.
I feel confident that I can produce the code to check Gmails arrival by reading some other Firefox extensions' code. What I can't figure out is how to get the Window ID of the webbrowser, so that I can call, say, an external program to raise the urgent flag (that is, setting the XUrgencyHint).
Any help appreciated; if my methodology (i.e. create an extension) is no good, don't hesitate to say so.
While you did not mention your programming/scripting language you where planning to use to find firefox's window to set, I found this answer on SO to your exact question (both questions are essentially the same: find ff window in x11).
Generally spoken, in firefox each 'container of tabs' is a window and each tab is a window (hence you can load firefox ui inside firefox ui). So you could search for firefox windows with a specific title or src/url.
But.. since you are after a open gmail-tab in firefox anyway.. why not think inside the box instead of outside the box.. (I know, feels strange right :) ?)
Why not craft a simple bookmarklet (called something like 'monitor new gmail') and add it to your bookmarks(-bar) (working around FaceFox's -yes I made this diss- insanity of not accepting web-standard javascript in the address-bar anymore..).
This bookmark should do:
make gmail check for new mail periodically (it'll be AJAX-like
anyway),
detect new mail (by comparing the contents of the first row
in the table that holds the mail-subjects or what ever you can hook)
and finally set window.getAttention() (for firefox)
OR (a little more cross-browser:) change document-title OR alternate/change blinking/non-blinking favicon..
See this and this topic on SO for some simple and nifty scripts on doing this.
Related
I know a small amount of web development but not enough to make it a career. I am working for an organization that is restricted to using internet explorer and one of the main sites that we use is constantly undergoing changes and always has bugs.
I'd like to see if I can try to see some of the code behind the bugs sometimes. When I use developer tools on the site, I can see that there are about 20 or more JavaScript files downloaded. Each file is a few hundred to a few thousand lines long. Is there any type of tool that I can use in Internet Explorer browser tools that can show me what JavaScript is being executed when actions happen on the webpage?
e.g.: I click a button and a form appears. I then click a button on that form and a snackbar appears, but it always appears in random places. Is there any way I can see the JavaScript that was executed to display the snackbar, rather than search line by line in the JavaScript?
Well the answer is yes, but for more complicated sites it will be a painful experience. Without concrete knowledge of the javascript framework/library used it will often be near impossible.
Having the sourcecode for the website would help greatly. When the website has minified javascript it's pretty much a must.
Sometimes an element like a button will have an onclick attribute which makes a function call. Other time some function is attached to an element from javascript by addressing it by it's id etc.
Searching through the scripts using the F12 tools in Internet Explorer is very limited.
You can of course download some of the javascript files so you can browse them in a text/code editor. They may improve you ability to search etc.
If you can find some entry point you could use breakpoints with the debugger and step through to see what happens and what gets called.
The gist: What's the best way to escape a Flash object's focus on a webpage?
Context:
I have a hotkey listener (an AutoHotKey script) running in my tray. If the script detects the command Alt+Shift+F6 while I am clicked into a Flash object on a webpage, it activates and sends key combinations to Flash to pull certain data logs. After this process completes, I want to call up a JavaScript file on that same browser tab that requests additional information from the user - basically, a tiny UI with additional text fields available in a third-party bug tracker. To do this, I want to send a javascript: command to the address bar using Ctrl+L and having AutoHotKey paste in the full call to the JS file.
A visualization of a possible environment:
The problem:
I need the user to be clicked INTO Flash in order to pull the data logs. However, I need the user to be clicked OUT of Flash for Ctrl+L to actually work - Flash appears to eat all keystrokes at the browser-level when one of its objects has focus.
A possible solution: The easiest way to go about this would be to simulate clicking on the stage, which borders my Flash object on every side. This should work, but I must assume the stupidest possible user. Such a user would somehow limit their current browser window to only be as big as the Flash object (if not smaller), click into it, and attempt to use the hotkey. In this case...I have no idea where I should click, because it could be outside the browser. Further, I don't believe I can assume that all browser address bars are similar amounts of pixels south from the top of the window.
Additional complicating factors:
I want this to work for the user's default browser. (IE, Chrome, Firefox, Safari are my big targets.)
AHK does not provide any native DOM or COM hooks to anything except IE.
Ctrl+Tab and Alt+Tab shenanigans do not appear to work. That can get me to other tabs/windows, but returning to the tab/window with the Flash object still causes Flash to 'eat' further keyboard input.
While I'd be open to using another scripting language than AHK if it could overcome this Flash focus hurdle, I do not know how to create a keylistener that sits in the users tray until activated by a hotkey.
I have no access to the Flash object's code, and it contains no logic to interpret a key combination as a way to break focus or launch a script.
Would it be possible to use WinMaximize to maximize the size of the window? If you do that it should be easier to set up the script to avoid clicking outside the browser.
Perhaps look at ControlFocus and/or ControlSend (using the "edit1" control in IE and FF -- unfortunately, Chrome doesn't expose the "address bar" as a "control" this way but if you test for Chrome first, you can implement your "click outside the Flash box" method for that case).
I'm trying to development an applet (https://github.com/lestcape/Global-AppMenu) to be used in the Cinnamon desktop. My intention is not modify or create any other code than not be cjs (javascript code). All that i do is:
Connect my applet to the com.canonical.AppMenu.Registrar and the Gtk
Dbus API.
Get all object path from the muffin windows manager (a fork of
mutter).
Read and ask things over Dbus and then show the result of
that. I used all patches of Unity desktop, as I'm a user of Ubuntu 14.04.
Nemo, Nautilus, File-Roller, gnome-terminal, VLC, SMPlayer, Evince, are examples of applications that currently are working. At the moment, I only have a problem with one application, and this application is Firefox.
I'm pretty sure that i do something wrong, just i don't have any idea of what could be.
Firefox called the com.canonical.AppMenu.Registrar service perfectly, i also can trigger the Alt key and firefox don't try to show the menubar inside the window, but after some time (a minute), he emit a layout change signal without menu items, and will show the menubar to the user inside the main window, as is "normally".
My idea is that: this could be, because i'm missing to call some aboutToShow, or because firefox require a confirmation that i receive the menubar, and he required really that this will be done for the same GDBus Connection where he exported the menu bar, but i can not be sure who internally will be handled in that way, as i'm on javascript.
Any way the firefox behavior, apparently is a behavior with an know cause, and what i try to find is the cause of that behavior, to then I will try to find a solution.
Thanks and regards.
Firefox and thunderbird require a returned confirmation value from the Dbus connection, as i say in the question. This value is not returned in the default cinnamon code, i force to return the value and now the problem is resolved. Thanks anyway.
Try to look at the about:config page and search for the "ui.use_unity_menubar" entry. As I know, this setting toggle between using unity global menu or normal menu. Maybe this could help you.
Good luck with your applet, I'm waiting for more stable release and then I will give it a try.
I am stuck with a little problem from few days now.
There is some solution over internet but they don’t match what I need.
I’m on a Spring web application, using flex. For some reasons I need to load a new windows (or tab) in background.
For now I manage to write some JavaScript script that put the focus on the main window when the child one is created but when the main window get the focus back it select the whole text and so the user loose all his work.
It’s why the new window MUST NOT take the focus at any time.
I also tried to create a link and simulate the middle click on it so the tab is created in background, but it only work on Chrome, beside I see that on Internet Explorer the tab is sometime created in background sometime in foreground (even if the setting option: “Always switch to new tabs when they are created” is NOT setted on, i must miss something).
Of course like in a lot of company the main browser is IE, so the solution must work for it, i can specify some setting to make the thing work as every user get the same env.
i've also tried to set the registry to make no application take focus but on 7 or 2008 RT it's not really usefull.
I’m looking for a solution in javascript, flex/AS or even html to create that tab without interrupting the user. If the main window loose the focus 1 sec but I manage to not select the whole text in flex it will be good too.
Thanks in advance.
I am looking for a way to improve the workflow in a PHP based CMS. There is a lot of switching between the editor mode and the preview mode of the page. The editor mode is huge to load, and so I would like to open the preview mode in a different window.
I don't want to use new windows or an iframe within the current window to keep the workflow simple and to avoid confusion.
Is there a way to explicitly open a new tab (not window), and to jump to that tab from a document, in Firefox? The number of users is limited, so there is the possibility to set up the client with the necessary extensions / permissions.
I know Firefox can be forced to open all links in tabs, but I think that won't cut it, as I still can't address and focus the newly opened window.
Thanks for all the great answers everyone. I have now enough material to decide whether I'll take the greasemonkey approach, rely on the user to set up "open in tabs" and address the window by name, or use a "inline" HTML solution as so many of you suggested. I am accepting the answer that I feel went most effort into.
There is no way to force a window to open as a tab. It's all dependent on the user's preference settings.
I second the answers that say you should do this in HTML using Javascript. Then it can work in all browsers that support JS.
I would put two divs on the page and show/hide each div depending on which tab is selected. If you are clever about this you could trap the click on the tab and determine if the user left-clicked or middle-clicked. If they left click you load that tab on the page. If they middle-click you let the browser open a new tab/window (according to the user's prefs, don't try to force it), and leave the current window unchanged (that is, don't switch to the new tab). The action for clicking on the tab would be to use AJAX to load the contents of the remote document and put it into the tab. Use Javascript to modify the URL before submitting the AJAX request so that the server knows to send a web page fragment instead of the whole page.
The advantage of this dual-natured solution is that the tabbed approach will work the way you want it to work for the majority of cases, but for users with, say, two screens, or who prefer switching between browser tabs, they will still have the flexibility to work in multi-window mode. This can all be done without any browser extensions and it should work equally well in IE as well as Firefox, Opera, etc. Avoid locking yourself into one browser, even one as excellent as Firefox. One day a customer will need to use Opera or Safari and you'll be stuck.
You say you don't want to use an iframe to avoid confusion. Now I don't know about the layout of your website, but I've been using the approach that the editor opens in its own div right next to the content being edited and the content is being live updated as you edit. No need to change tabs.
(If the window is too narrow there are HTML tabs Edit and Preview)
It does not seem to add confusion to the user and for me this approach works really well. Maybe it's worth considering in your case.
What about using iframes and JavaScript?
I know you said you want to avoid 'confusion using iframes', but in my opinion if you really need to load different pages at the same time this is the best option.
In theory, you could create your own tab system using javascript or even better, using jQuery, because its UI module offers pretty cool tab control.
For every tab you could load separate "headerless-footerless" version of your specific admin page inside <iframe> element. If user wanted to modify something different, he will simply click on the tab and bring different iframe.
All this could also be done using AJAX, but iframe solution is quite easy as you just need to load ready page and all postbacks are already handled by original page and separated from master-admin-page.
You might also need to play a little bit to set correct height of your iframe to fit all the content without scrollbars, but this again, is just bit of javascript.
Nope, there's no way to force the opening of a new tab, simply because this would be unsupported by un-tabbed browsing
You can only set it to open a new window, not a new tab.
Greasemonkey springs to mind - a quick google gives open in tabs on left click. I think you could modify that so it only runs on one particular page, and you'd be up up and away.
This question made me wonder if HTML 5 allows that sort of specification, and it doesn't (nothing in one of the other hyperlink attributes, either). A new browsing context is a new browsing context, there's no way to express a preference for tab over window or foreground over background.
You can't force a tab, but if you use a target with a specific name, like target="my_cms_window", many browsers will open this as a new tab. Additionally, they will remember the name and if you use the target repeatedly, put the contents in the same tab. I have found that this works pretty well in the real world.