YJL

I think this post’s title might confuse you. Let me give you some backgrounds first. I had said this:

Vimperator enables you to use bookmark’s keyword (which Chromium’s bookmarks do not have such property, you could enter the keyword in Firefox address bar, that is a fast way to use bookmark). I have gm for Gmail, gr for Google Reader, etc. Every time, I need to read emails, I just type (I don’t have to move cursor to anywhere) ogm, five keystrokes send me to my mailbox, it’s quick and fast. But now, I still couldn’t do that in Chromium.

Eight months of Chromium use, I still couldn’t find a good resolution to having a quick bookmark opening as in Vimperator, I am certain that Chromium would not add a keyword property in bookmark database, therefore some Vimperator-flavor Chrome extensions could not be possible to implement that kind of opening method. Why I think in that way, take a look at this bookmark separator issue, the Chromium developers definitely have their own style to say the least.

There does a way to get around this: Using Search Engines keyword. For example, you can add a search engine, URL: http://example.com/?dummy=%s, keyword: foo. You press: Ctrl+L, foo, Tab, x (just any character), Return. It will bring you to that link. But it’s not perfect, because when you type foo, this search engine may not be the highlighted item, you will have to scroll. Not perfect.

So, I came up with an idea, take a look at the following screenshot first:

In this screenshot, I had pressed Mod4+Space, t, Return, g. You can see those items start with g having g underlined. If I then press Return, Google Analytics would be brought up; if I then press r, Return, Google Reader would be brought up.

Why use window manager’s (Fluxbox) menu to open a link? Because it’s faster than move your mouse to bookmark toolbar or search in address bar in Chromium. If I want to check my email, I press Mod4+Space, t, Return, gm, Return. Seven keystrokes, it only takes a second at most for me to type. Moving mouse and click on right item would take a lot of efforts. You need to keep looking at where your mouse cursor is.

Since I found out this Fluxbox menu type-and-search feature about a half years ago after using Fluxbox almost a year, I relied on it more and more. Now, I finally put it into a greater use. It still use too many keystrokes, in Vimperator, t (tabopen command), gm, Return, only four keystrokes needed.

Here is code for Fluxbox menu configuration:

[submenu] (t)
  [exec] (b    [Blogger Dashboard]) {xdg-open http://draft.blogger.com/home} <~/.fluxbox/icons/b.png>
  [exec] (f    [Flickr]) {xdg-open http://flickr.com} <~/.fluxbox/icons/f.png>
  [exec] (fr   [Flickr Recent]) {xdg-open http://www.flickr.com/photos/} <~/.fluxbox/icons/f.png>
  [exec] (fb   [Feedburner]) {xdg-open http://feedburner.google.com} <~/.fluxbox/icons/fb.png>
  [exec] (ff   [FriendFeed]) {xdg-open http://friendfeed.com} <~/.fluxbox/icons/ff.png>
  [exec] (ga   [Google Analytics]) {xdg-open http://www.google.com/analytics/} <~/.fluxbox/icons/g.png>
  [exec] (gad  [Google Adsense]) {xdg-open https://www.google.com/adsense/login/en_US/} <~/.fluxbox/icons/g.png>
  [exec] (gae  [Google App Engine Dashboard]) {xdg-open https://appengine.google.com} <~/.fluxbox/icons/g.png>
  [exec] (gaed [Google App Engine Python Docs]) {xdg-open http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/python/overview.html} <~/.fluxbox/icons/g.png>
  [exec] (gcal [Google Calendar]) {xdg-open https://www.google.com/calendar/render} <~/.fluxbox/icons/g.png>
  [exec] (gd   [Google Docs]) {xdg-open https://docs.google.com/} <~/.fluxbox/icons/gd.png>
  [exec] (gdy  [Google Dictionary]) {xdg-open https://www.google.com/dictionary} <~/.fluxbox/icons/g.png>
  [exec] (gg   [Google Groups]) {xdg-open https://groups.google.com/} <~/.fluxbox/icons/g.png>
  [exec] (gm   [Google Mail]) {xdg-open https://mail.google.com/mail} <~/.fluxbox/icons/gm.png>
  [exec] (gn   [Google News]) {xdg-open http://news.google.com} <~/.fluxbox/icons/gn.png>
  [exec] (gr   [Google Reader]) {xdg-open https://www.google.com/reader/view} <~/.fluxbox/icons/gr.png>
  [exec] (gs   [Google Sites]) {xdg-open https://sites.google.com} <~/.fluxbox/icons/gs.png>
  [exec] (gt   [Google Translate]) {xdg-open http://translate.google.com} <~/.fluxbox/icons/gt.png>
  [exec] (yt   [YouTube]) {xdg-open http://youtube.com} <~/.fluxbox/icons/yt.png>
[end]

Since it will open link in new tab, just like the tabopen command in Vimperator, so naming sub menu t seems to be the right choice. My Fluxbox menu uses monospaced font, so I added few spaces to align the link names. I use xdg-open, you can just replace with your favorite browser if you don’t have BROWSER=command set in your bashrc or bash_profile properly. XDG requires a normal Desktop Environment, if you don’t have one running like me, you need to set the environment variable BROWSER.

I think people who use dmenu might achieve same thing, though I never used it before only saw a few screenshots. It could be an independent option to WM or DE.

This method to me is a perfect resolution and more interesting thing is I got this idea when I was showering sleepily after I just got up. I wasn’t thinking of anything, it just came up from nowhere.

You never know when inspiration would hit you!