[TAG] 2c Tip: Launching Firefox 0.9

[Ben Okopnik]

On Mon, Jun 21, 2004 at 10:28:47AM +0530, Raj Shekhar wrote:
> Hello
> 
> I had used the following script for launching Firefox (earlier named 
> firebird)  (See my article Mozilla Firebird - A review 
> (http://linuxgazette.net/issue97/shekhar.html) to see how you can use this).
> ``
> #!/bin/sh
> /usr/lib/mozilla-firebird/MozillaFirebird  -remote "openURL($@, new-tab)" ||
> exec /usr/lib/mozilla-firebird/MozillaFirebird "$@";
> ''
> 
> However, with the 0.9 release (the latest one, which is even more slick 
> and fast), this stopped working. Instead of launching the new tab, the 
> Profile Manager UI pops up. This was reported as bug 
> http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=246168 in the Mozilla Bugzilla.
> 
> The reason for this is the change in the format of calling the remote 
> command. The new way of doing this is the
> ``
> firefox -a firefox -remote openURL(<url>,new-tab)
> ''
> 
> Note that there should be no space between the the comma and the command 
> after the url (new-tab in this case, you can also use new-window to 
> start a new window) or you get a  "Error: Failed to send command: 509 
> internal error".
> 
> So the script to launch firefox becomes
> ``
> #!/bin/sh -x
> /usr/lib/firefox/firefox -a firefox  -remote "openURL("$@",new-tab)" ||
> exec /usr/lib/firefox/firefox "$@";
> ''

I just had the same problem with the new Mozilla upgrade; the trouble is
in the brain-dead URL parser at the end of the wrapper script. Although
I fixed it, it very quickly became useless: I downloaded Mozilla 1.7
from http://mozilla.org, and its wrapper script works fine.

Oh, and since you brought this issue up: just yesterday, I was reading
about Mozilla's "remote" methods in order to fix the above problem - and
still forgot, completely, that there's a "native" way to test if Mozilla
is running or not.

Wonder if I can trade this brain in for a newer model?

```
mozilla -remote "ping()" 2>/dev/null &&
mozilla -remote "openurl($1,new-window)" ||
mozilla $1
'''


* Ben Okopnik * okopnik.freeshell.org * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette *
-*- See the Linux Gazette in its new home: <http://linuxgazette.net> -*-