Web browsing is one of the few computer-based activities for which I usually
do not use emacs. Of course, there are of emacs-based browsers like w3m,
which is pretty good. But for the 21st-century web, a text-mode browser is a
bit limited. There are some efforts underway to integrate a graphical web
browser experience in emacs (e.g., using
Xembed), but it will take a whilebefore that is ready.
The next best thing to web browsing with emacs, is a browser that is
inspired by emacs. Such a browser exists: it's called conkeror (not to be
confused with KDE's Konqueror).
conkeror is a Mozilla-based browser thatbrings an emacs-like experience to web browsing. I've been using it for more
than a year now as my primary browser, and I am quite happy with it.
Conkeror is a user-interface for the normal Mozilla/Firefox engine
(
xulrunner); this means that all those websites that work with Firefox, workjust as well in
conkeror, including things like ad-blockers, Java, Flashetc. and many plug-ins. This is a very important point for me.
If you like emacs, you'll probably also like conkeror. For starters, it uses
many of the same key bindings –
C-x C-f will open a url in a new buffer(tab),
C-x 5 2 will open a new window (frame), I can inspect a key-bindingwith
C-h k… and so on. Some of the single-key shortcuts are the same asthose in
w3m, like g to go to a webpage, or B to go back. Conkeroris fully keyboard-driven; it allows you do almost anything on the web without
using the mouse – it can overlay numbers on items in a webpage so you can
interact with them by their number. Of course, you can still use a mouse if
you want, too.
The conkeror wiki gives many more examples. It also discusses installation in
quite some detail, which makes life a bit easier for me :) Instead, I will
just list a couple of the customizations I have made and encourage you to try
for yourself.
configuration
Like emacs, conkeror is very configurable. The big difference is that
conkeror uses Javascript instead of Elisp for the configuration; however,
the concepts and naming should be familiar for emacs-users. Conkeror's
equivalent of
~/.emacs is ~/.conkerorrc. Below are some snippets from mysetup, that can hopefully help you to create your Perfect Browser ™; all
examples below are based on the latest development version of Conkeror, as
per end of November 2010.
First, some basics:
//allow for 'contrib' stuff
load_paths.unshift("chrome://conkeror-contrib/content/");
// teach me something whenever I start my browser
homepage = "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random";
// give me new tabs; open buffers (tabs) in the background
require("new-tabs.js");
require("clicks-in-new-buffer.js");
clicks_in_new_buffer_target = OPEN_NEW_BUFFER_BACKGROUND;
clicks_in_new_buffer_button = 1; // midclick links in new buffers with
// auto completion in the minibuffer
minibuffer_auto_complete_default = true;
url_completion_use_history = true; // should work since bf05c87405
url_completion_use_bookmarks = true;
modeline customization
As in emacs, you can customize the modeline. Also in good emacs tradition,
this is far from intuitive…
require("mode-line.js");
// funky icons in the modeline
require("mode-line-buttons.js");
mode_line_add_buttons(standard_mode_line_buttons, true);
// we'd like to see the # of buffers being loaded
add_hook("mode_line_hook", mode_line_adder(loading_count_widget), true);
// we don't need a clock
remove_hook("mode_line_hook", mode_line_adder(clock_widget));
bookmarks
Plain-old bookmarks are easy to add with
define_webjump – and you can justbind them to a short string. You can then 'jump' to the corresponding website by
pressing
g and then this short string. For example, to go to Emacs-Fu, youcould type
g efu RET. No mousing around needed.// some bookmarks
define_webjump("conk", "http://conkeror.org");
define_webjump("efu", "http://emacs-fu.blogspot.com");
define_webjump("lkml", "http://lkml.org");
define_webjump("ew", "http://emacswiki.org");
// ...
smart links
Smartlinks are just like normal bookmarks, which the one difference that
they contain an
%s-parameter which will be replaced by whatever you typeafter the name of the bookmark. Thus,
g imdb grande bouffe RET wouldtake you to the IMDB-page about the movie La Grande Bouffe.
Some examples:
define_webjump("so", "http://stackoverflow.com/search?q=%s");
define_webjump("yts", "http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%s&aq=f");
define_webjump("imbd", "http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=%s");
// ...
integration with emacs
Another useful feature in
conkeror is the ability to interact with Emacs(or any other text editor), so you can use emacs for writing text in web
pages; for example, when you're using emacs-daemon (you should), you could
can add the below, and
C-i will then take you to emacs whenever you are ina text field in a web page.
editor_shell_command = "emacsclient -c";
adding your own functions
It's fairly easy to add your own functions; admittedly, I'm still at the
beginning stages with that, but it's not too hard to combine the internal
function, and assign them to key bindings. Some examples:
// copy url with C-c u
interactive("copy-url",
"Copy the current buffer's URL to the clipboard",
function(I) {
var text = I.window.buffers.current.document.location.href;
writeToClipboard(text);
I.window.minibuffer.message("copied: " + text);
}
);
define_key(default_global_keymap, "C-c u", "copy-url");
// reload conkerorrc with C-c r
interactive("reload-config", "reload conkerorrc",
function(I) {
load_rc();
I.window.minibuffer.message("config reloaded");
}
);
define_key(default_global_keymap, "C-c r", "reload-config");
It's not necessarily so easy to find the exact functions / objects you need
to accomplish what you want. There's a certain learning curve – just like
when using emacs.
integration with org-mode
The integration with emacs can go further than merely editing text fields
though; it's possible to integrate
conkeror with org-mode in emacs; Ihave the following in my
.conkerorrc (this requires emacs-daemon), basedon the code in WOrg:
// org-protocol stuff
function org_capture (url, title, selection, window) {
var cmd_str =
'emacsclient \"org-protocol:/capture:/w/'+url+'/'+title+'/'+selection+'\"';
if (window != null) {
window.minibuffer.message('Issuing ' + cmd_str);
}
shell_command_blind(cmd_str);
}
interactive("org-capture", "Clip url, title, and selection to capture via org-protocol",
function (I) {
org_capture(encodeURIComponent(I.buffer.display_uri_string),
encodeURIComponent(I.buffer.document.title),
encodeURIComponent(I.buffer.top_frame.getSelection()),
I.window);
});
// capture with C-c c
define_key(content_buffer_normal_keymap, "C-c c", "org-capture");
Then, on the emacs-side (in your
.emacs), you should have a capturetemplate for this; for example:
;; ;; the 'w' corresponds with the 'w' used before as in:
;; emacsclient \"org-protocol:/capture:/w/ [...]
(setq org-capture-templates
'(
("w" "" entry ;; 'w' for 'org-protocol'
(file+headline "www.org" "Notes")
"* %^{Title}\n\n Source: %u, %c\n\n %i")
;; other templates
))
Now, when in
conkeror, you can select some text, push C-c c ('capture');emacs will offer you to save this text, including a link to the source, the
date and so on, and saves it for later retrieval. I really love this
feature!
so…
These were just a couple of the many things you can do with
conkeror;there's so much potential here. I haven't discussed many of the other
powerful features, such as the page-specific modes, that give special
features to specific websites, be it GMail or Wikipedia.
I've been using this fine browser for a year or so now, and I really like
it. There are a few rough edges here and there, but it's quite amazing what
the small development team has accomplished. I heartily recommend it – for
web-browsing the emacs-way, there's simple no better alternative.
Finally, if you're using
conkeror already, and have some clever tricksyou'd like to share, feel free to do so in the comments.
