Introduction

BrowseWith is an application which allows the user to select a web browser before opening a URL from an application, such as clicking on a URL in an email client. Alternatively it can be also placed on the taskbar so the user can choose which browser to use.

Table of contents

• Requirements
• Usage
• Configuration
• Roadmap

Requirements

BrowseWith is written in Rust and cross-compiled to run on different operative systems. Check below for your, operative system requirements.

Linux/BSD

• GTK v3
• xdg-utils

Windows

All required DLLS are provided with the ZIP file

Usage

BrowseWith supports the arguments below. If executed without any arguments it will display the main window with the detected browsers.

URL: The URL to open after selecting a browser.

--install: Installs BrowseWith by copying the files to the appropriate locations and register itself as a handler for the HTTP and HTTPS protocols. If --install is executed with elevated privileges then it is installed for all users.

--uninstall: Removes BrowseWith from the system all and its files, including the configuration file.

Note the install and uninstall arguments can be run as a privileged user or as normal user. If running as a privileged user then BrowseWith will be installed for all users on the system; if running as normal user then it will affect only the current user.

--set-as-default-browser: Configures the system to use BrowseWith as the default browser. This is a per user setting. On Windows this will open the Default apps application, you can then set BrowseWith as the default web browser; alternatively you can click on Choose default apps by protocol and associate BrowseWith with certain protocols only (HTTP and HTTPS for example).

--status: Displays the current default web browser and where the application files are/will be installed and the location of the configuration file.

Configuration

BrowseWith will create the configuration file when it runs, if the configuration file doesn't exist at the required location, ~/.config/browsewith/config.json for Linux/BSD, %userprofile%.browsewith\config.json on Windows.

Default configuration

{
  "settings": {
      "homepage": "about:blank",
      "host_info": true,
      "buttons": {
          "width": 180,
          "height": 70,
          "spacing": 5,
          "per_row": 3,
          "show_label": true,
          "show_image": true,
          "image_position": "left"
      },
      "window": {
          "always_ontop": true,
          "position": "center"
      },
    "charset_policy": {
      "utf8": "Allow",
      "utf16": "Warn",
      "utf32": "Warn"
    }
  },
  "browsers_list": []
}

Main settings

• homepage: URL to open if no URL is passed as argument.
• host_info: [true, false] Displays the URL that will be opened.

Buttons settings

• width: Button width in pixels.
• height: Button height in pixels.
• spacing: Number of pixel to separate each button.
• per_row: Number of buttons per row.
• show_label: [true, false] Show or hide the title of each button.
• show_image: [true, false] Show or hide the icons for the buttons.
• image_position: [left, top, bottom, right] where to display the icon in relation to the label.

Application Window settings

• always_ontop: [true, false] Make BrowseWith to be always visible on top of other windows.
• position: [none, center, mouse] Initial placement of the window, none decided by the OS, center centre of the screen, mouse cantered on the mouse pointer.

Charset Policy

The Charset Policy determines how BrowseWith will handle urls that contain from different character sets. By default BrowseWith will display a warning if an url has UTF16 or UTF32 characters.

Supported actions per character set:

• Allow: No action taken.
• Warn: Displays a warning message prompting before continuing.
• Block: Displays an error message and terminates the program.

Browsers

BrowseWith will try and detect the browsers installed on the system; this is only done if the configuration file isn't present. So if another browser is installed then it needs to be manually added to the browser_list section in the configuration file.

BrowseWith displays the browsers in the application in the same order they are in the browser_list.

"browser_list": [
  {
    "title": "_Brave",
    "executable": "C:\\Program Files\\BraveSoftware\\Brave-Browser\\Application\\brave.exe",
    "arguments": "",
    "icon": "C:\\Program Files\\BraveSoftware\\Brave-Browser\\Application\\brave.exe,0",
    "auto_launch": [
      "https://duckduckgo.com/"
    ]
  }
]

• title: Label to be associated with the button. You can use an underscore (_) to associate an hotkey with the button. For example if the title is set to "Hello W_orld" pressing ALT+o would activate the button.
• executable: Full path to the application executable file.
• arguments: One or more arguments to the passed to the application.
• icon: Full path to the location of the icon to associate with the button.
• auto_launch: A list of URLs, regular expressions allowed, that BrowseWith will open automatically with the browser.

Roadmap

• Support for MacOs
• Rescan browsers
• Add URL history
• Allow copy/edit URL
• Change URL font
• Allow single '\' in config.json