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@mayoff
Created September 1, 2011 04:49
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Emacs Lisp to reload a URL in Chrome (using AppleScript)
(defun mayoff:open-url-in-chrome (url)
"Open URL in Google Chrome. I use AppleScript to do several things:
1. I tell Chrome to come to the front. If Chrome wasn't launched, this will also launch it.
2. If Chrome has no windows open, I tell it to create one.
3. If Chrome has a tab showing URL, I tell it to reload the tab, make that tab the active tab in its window, and bring its window to the front.
4. If Chrome has no tab showing URL, I tell Chrome to make a new tab (in the front window) showing URL."
(when (symbolp url)
; User passed a symbol instead of a string. Use the symbol name.
(setq url (symbol-name url)))
(do-applescript (format "
tell application \"Google Chrome\"
activate
set theUrl to %S
if (count every window) = 0 then
make new window
end if
set found to false
set theTabIndex to -1
repeat with theWindow in every window
set theTabIndex to 0
repeat with theTab in every tab of theWindow
set theTabIndex to theTabIndex + 1
if theTab's URL = theUrl then
set found to true
exit
end if
end repeat
if found then
exit repeat
end if
end repeat
if found then
tell theTab to reload
set theWindow's active tab index to theTabIndex
set index of theWindow to 1
else
tell window 1 to make new tab with properties {URL:theUrl}
end if
end tell
" url)))
(defvar mayoff:open-in-chrome-url nil
"*The URL that the mayoff:open-in-chrome function will send to Google Chrome.")
(defun mayoff:open-in-chrome (arg)
"Open or reload a file in Google Chrome. If you give me a prefix argument, I get Chrome's currently-displayed URL and save it for the future. If you don't give me a prefix argument, I send the previously-saved URL to Chrome for reloading."
(interactive "P")
(cond
(arg (setq mayoff:open-in-chrome-url (do-applescript "tell application \"Google Chrome\" to get window 1's active tab's URL")))
((not mayoff:open-in-chrome-url) (error "You haven't set a URL for me to send to the browser."))
(t (save-buffer)
(mayoff:open-url-in-chrome mayoff:open-in-chrome-url))))
(global-set-key (kbd "<f5>") 'mayoff:open-in-chrome)
@dcj
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dcj commented Jan 31, 2014

This is great, thanks for publishing it!

AFAICT, the URL should be specified without the "http://", when I initially set the URL that way, it always opened a new tab, presumably because "theTab's URL" doesn't include it, is that correct?

In your blog describing all this, you mention that you can set the URL via C-u F-5, but I don't believe you have a keybinding for that...

Thanks again

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