Setting the default Browser on OSX with Ruby

06 Jul 2007 22:39 - (0) comments

To combat my ADD I want to seperate my work and private browsing. So having two seperate workspaces sounds like a good idea.

I tried Virtue Desktop (and all the other ones) but they were useless to me, because all the virtual desktops show all running applications when switching application with Command+tab. I only want to see the ones in my current desktop.

Creating another user account isn't an option either because I want to access my mail for both work and private use.

So I need a browser switcher I can run from the commandline so I can schedule it with crontab.

The Objective C part

For the Objecive C part I create a SwitchBrowser directory.
In it I create a file called ~/SwitchBrowser/SwitchBrowser.h:

#import 
	
@interface SwitchBrowser : NSObject

{}

- (CFArrayRef) browsers;

- (void)setDefaultBrowser: (CFStringRef) newDefaultStr;

@end

... and a file called ~/SwitchBrowser/SwitchBrowser.m:
(Copied from Giant Mike's FavBrowse)

#import "SwitchBrowser.h"
	
@implementation SwitchBrowser
	
- (CFArrayRef) browsers {

    return LSCopyAllHandlersForURLScheme(CFSTR("https"));

}
	
- (void)setDefaultBrowser: (CFStringRef) newDefaultStr

{
	
	//Set the launch services settings for https:// and http://

	LSSetDefaultHandlerForURLScheme(CFSTR("https"), newDefaultStr);

	LSSetDefaultHandlerForURLScheme(CFSTR("http"), newDefaultStr);
	
	//Set the launch services setting for web sites discovered via Bonjour

	LSSetDefaultRoleHandlerForContentType(CFSTR("public.html"), kLSRolesAll, newDefaultStr);
	
	FSRef newDefaultBrowserFSRef;

	LSFindApplicationForInfo(kLSUnknownCreator, newDefaultStr, NULL, &newDefaultBrowserFSRef, NULL);

	_LSSetWeakBindingForType(kLSUnknownType, kLSUnknownCreator, CFSTR("xhtm"), kLSRolesAll, &newDefaultBrowserFSRef);

}
	
@end
	
void Init_switch_browser(){}

In the SwitchBrowser directory everything is compiled with the following command:

gcc -o switch_browser.bundle -bundle -framework Foundation -framework ApplicationServices -framework AppKit SwitchBrowser.m

The RubyCocoa Part

I use RubyCocoa for the scripting part.
After installing it, create a file called ~/switch_browser.rb:

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
	
require 'osx/cocoa'

require File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/SwitchBrowser/switch_browser'
	
new_browser = $*[0]
	
OSX.ns_import :SwitchBrowser

switcher = OSX::SwitchBrowser.alloc.init

browsers = switcher.browsers.collect{|b| b }
	
unless new_browser

  puts "Select browser number:"

  browsers.each_with_index{|b,i| puts "#{i} #{b}"}

  new_browser = browsers[gets.chomp!.to_i]

end
	
raise "#{new_browser} is not a valid browser." unless browsers.include? new_browser
	
switcher.setDefaultBrowser(new_browser)

puts "Switched to " + new_browser

Now you can do: ~/switch_browser.rb org.mozilla.firefox

I've added this to my crontab together with quiting my work applications on the end of my workday.
It's been a real improvement!