EditorKicker.app

$Release: 0.2.2 $

Overview

EditorKicker.app is a small macOS application to handle texteditor:// URL schema. This application invokes any your favorite editor when you clicked 'texteditor://' URL (for example texteditor://open?url=file://&line= ) in your browser.

This is very useful for web application development as you can open and edit program files in your favorite editor with just one click in your browser.

EditorKicker.app is implemented in AppleScript and shell script, therefore it will work on any macOS version and any CPU architecture.

Install

Download zip file from download page and unzip it.
Control-click (or Right-click) Setup.command script and select 'Open'. Confirmation dialog will be displayed, then click 'Open' button.
Move EditorKicker.app to '/Applications' folder.
Double click EditorKicker.app under '/Applications' folder. This will generates $HOME/.config/EditorKicker/command file.
Open $HOME/.config/EditorKicker/command file and edit it to select text editor command.
Install command line tool of your favorite editor. See the next section for details.
Run open texteditor://open?url=file://<filepath>&line=<number> in Terminal.app and confirm that your favorite text editor will open the file. For example, open texteditor://open?url=file:///Applications/EditorKicker.app/README.md&line=21.

Command Line Tool for Editor

To use EditorKicker.app, you must install command line tool of your favorite text editor into /usr/local/bin. For example, if you like VS Code, you must install /usr/local/bin/code command.

The following sections show how to install command line tool for each text editor.

VS Code

See: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/setup/mac#_launching-from-the-command-line

Or:

[Terminal]$ sudo ln -s "/Applications/Visual Studio Code.app/Contents/Resources/app/bin/code" /usr/local/bin/
[Terminal]$ which code
/usr/local/bin/code

TextMate

Menu: TextMate > Settings...
Select 'Terminal' icon tab.
Press 'Install' button.

Or:

[Terminal]$ sudo ln -s "/Applications/TextMate.app/Contents/MacOS/mate" /usr/local/bin/
[Terminal]$ which mate
/usr/local/bin/mate

Sublime

See: https://www.sublimetext.com/docs/command_line.html#mac

Or:

[Terminal]$ sudo ln -s "/Applications/Sublime Text.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl" /usr/local/bin/
[Terminal]$ which subl
/usr/local/bin/subl

PyCharm

See: https://www.jetbrains.com/help/pycharm/working-with-the-ide-features-from-command-line.html

Or:

[Terminal]$ sudo ln -s "/Applications/PyCharm CE.app/Contents/MacOS/pycharm" /usr/local/bin/
[Terminal]$ which pycharm
/usr/local/bin/pycharm

Emacs

[Terminal]$ sudo ln -s "/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/bin/emacsclient" /usr/local/bin/

MacVim

[Terminal]$ sudo ln -s "/Applications/MacVim.app/Contents/bin/mvim" /usr/local/bin/
[Terminal]$ which mvim
/usr/local/bin/mvim

CotEditor

See: https://coteditor.com/cot

Or:

[Terminal]$ sudo ln -s "/Applications/CotEditor.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/cot" /usr/local/bin/
[Terminal]$ which cot
/usr/local/bin/cot

Zed

Menu: Zed > Install CLI

Or:

[Terminal]$ sudo ln -s "/Applications/Zed.app/Contents/MacOS/cli" /usr/local/bin/zed
[Terminal]$ which zed
/usr/local/bin/zed

Custom URL Schema Format

EditorKicker.app supports the following URL format.

texteditor://<filepath>?line=<number>
texteditor://open?file=<filepath>&line=<number>
texteditor://open?url=file://<filepath>&line=<number>

Examples:

texteditor:///Applications/EditorKicker.app/README.md?line=21
texteditor://open?file=/Applications/EditorKicker.app/README.md&line=21
texteditor://open?url=file:///Applications/EditorKicker.app/README.md&line=21

Internal Details

EmacsKicker.app just runs shell script /Applications/EmacsKicker.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/emacskicker. You can customize this script as you like.

How to Create a Hander App in macOS

In Finder: 'Applications' > 'Utilities' > 'Script Editor.app'.
Menu: 'File' > 'New...'
Write the AppleScript program to invoke shell script (see below).
Menu: 'File' > 'Save...'. Enter 'Name', select 'File format' as 'Application', and press 'Save' button.
Create shell script <YourApp>.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/<script> and make it executable by chmod command.
Edit <YourApp>.app/Contents/Info.plist and register custom URL schema (see below).
Copy '.app' to 'Applications' folder.

AppleScript:

--
-- please replace '<script>' with your script name
--
on open location input
	set appdir to POSIX path of (path to current application) as string
	set scriptfile to appdir & "/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/<script>"
	do shell script scriptfile & " " & (quoted form of input)
end open location

Shell script:

#!/bin/sh

set -eu

if [ $# = 0 ]; then
  echo "Usage: <script> foobar://open?url=file://<file>&line=<number>"
  exit 1
fi

link="$1"
file=$(echo $link | sed -E 's/foobar:\/\/open\?url=file:\/\/([^&]+)&.*/\1/')
line=$(echo $link | sed -E 's/foobar:\/\/open\?[^&]+&line=([0-9]+).*/\1/')

code -g "$file:$line"    # VS Code (for example)

Make the script executable:

[bash]$ chmod +x <YourApp>.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/<script>

Info.plit: (add the following to the top of <dict>)

	<key>CFBundleURLTypes</key>
	<array>
		<dict>
			<key>CFBundleURLName</key>
			<string>YourApp URL</string>
			<key>CFBundleURLSchemes</key>
			<array>
				<string>foobar</string>
			</array>
		</dict>
	</array>

License and Copyright

$License: MIT License $

kwatch/EditorKickerApp