Cannot open firefox from link if it is already running

[Marc Schwartz]

On Thu, 2004-09-02 at 16:13, Brian J. Tarricone wrote:
> On 09/02/04 14:06, Chris Kacoroski wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I am sure there is way to fix this (I do not have the problem with KDE). 
> >    If I have a firefox window open and then I click on a link in 
> > another application (e.g. thunderbird, xffm, the panel, etc) I get the 
> > choose user dialog and cannot open the link unless I exit the existing 
> > firefox windows.  Other than this, I am completely sold on xfce as it is 
> > much simpler, easier, and more intuitive than kde or gnome. Thanks for 
> > your help.
> 
> this has nothing to do with xfce.  you need some kind of script that will
> launch firefox properly.  basically it needs to end up doing something like
> this:
> 
> firefox -remote "openURL(http://google.com,new-window)"
> 
> i believe there are much more functional anf featureful scripts floating
> around that will first check to see if firefox is running, etc.  google is
> your friend ^_^.


Here is one:

#!/bin/sh 

/usr/include/firefox/firefox -a firefox -remote 'ping()' 
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then 
#open a new window 
/usr/include/firefox/firefox -a firefox -remote "openurl($1,new-window)"
else 
#open new instance 
/usr/include/firefox/firefox $1 &
fi


The above had to be changed (lines 1 and 4) in the recent version of
Firefox, so be aware of that. The change entails the '-a firefox' part.

I use the above in a shell script that I put in ~/bin and then set any
HTML related application preferences (including htmlview) and the 'run
action' for ROX to that script.

If you would prefer to open a new 'tab' instead of a new window, change
'new-window' in the above to 'new-tab'.

HTH,

Marc Schwartz