landonb/dubs_web_hatch

Open browser tab to search or define selected text

Dubs Vim — Web Hatch

Simple URL opener with search and word definition options.

At its core, opens a location in the default browser.

Can also search the web or try to define something.

Usage

Command	Description
gW	Akin to Vim's builtin gf command, but for URLs (think: Go Web). Opens a new browser window with the location of the URL under the cursor.
g!	Like gW, but opens location in an incognito (aka private) browser window.
<Leader>W	Opens a new browser window and searches (Google) for the word under the cursor (normal or insert mode), or for the selected text (visual mode).
<Leader>D	Opens a new browser window and loads the definition of the word under the cursor (normal or insert mode), or for the selected text (visual mode).

The gW and g! commands work from normal mode, and the leader commands from normal and insert modes, and on selections.

Configure

Default Browser

On Linux (Debian), this plugin call sensible-browser --version to determine which browser to use.

• Use the $BROWSER environ to set your default browser.

  • E.g., include this in your ~/.bashrc if you prefer Chrome:

    export BROWSER=/usr/bin/google-chrome
    

  • For the best documentation on sensible-browser, see the source, which you might find at:

    /usr/bin/sensible-browser
    

On macOS, this plugin reads the user's LaunchServices property list looking for the default browser to use.

• Run the browser you want to be the default, and look for an option within the browser to set it as the default.

Please feel free to open a pull request to add support for additional OSes.

Tab or Window

By default, each command opens a new browser tab in new window.

• To instead prefer opening a new tab in an existing window, set the following global variable to nonzero, e.g.,:

  g:dubs_web_hatch_use_tab = 1
  

User Profile

By default, when Chrome is opened, the default user profile is used.

• To instead open a window using the most recently used profile, set the following global variable to nonzero, e.g.,:

  g:dubs_web_hatch_mru_profile = 1
  

Supported Browsers

This plugin works with the following browsers:

• On Debian: Google Chrome, Chromium, and Mozilla Firefox.
• On macOS: Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Apple Safari.

Note that Safari does not accept command line arguments, so it does not respect tab vs. window, nor can it open a location in incognito mode.

Please feel free to open a pull request to add support for additional browsers.

Install

Installation is easy using the packages feature (see :help packages).

To install the package so that it will automatically load on Vim startup, use a start directory, e.g.,

mkdir -p ~/.vim/pack/landonb/start
cd ~/.vim/pack/landonb/start

If you want to test the package first, make it optional instead (see :help pack-add):

mkdir -p ~/.vim/pack/landonb/opt
cd ~/.vim/pack/landonb/opt

Clone the project to the desired path:

git clone https://github.com/landonb/dubs_web_hatch.git

If you installed to the optional path, tell Vim to load the package:

:packadd! dubs_web_hatch

Just once, tell Vim to build the online help:

:Helptags

Then whenever you want to reference the help from Vim, run:

:help dubs-web-hatch