Alexis Bauchu - On est pas des machines

The share-on-reader command is the first ubiquity command I've ever coded. I made it just to try ubiquity's command editor, but I wouldn't expect people to use it. It's basically a wrapper of Google Reader's bookmarklet that allows you to select (or not) text from a web page, and share it with a note on your Google Reader Shared Stuff Page (providing you've got a Google Account and activated Google Reader). It's that simple. You can subscribe to that command on that page. Here is the code:

CmdUtils.CreateCommand({
  name: "share-on-reader",
  homepage: "http://abauchu.net/",
  icon: "http://www.google.com/reader/ui/favicon.ico",
  author: { name: "Alexis Bauchu", email: "alexis.bauchu@gmail.com"},
  license: "MPL",
  description: "Shares content Google Reader's shared stuff page and allow you to add a note.",
  help: "This uses Google Reader, so you need a Google account to use this command.",
 
  takes: {"your selection": noun_arb_text},
  preview: function( pblock, selection ) {
    pblock.innerHTML = "Shares \"" + selection.html + "\" with Google Reader and allows to add a note";
  },
  execute: function(selection) {
   var cmd = "var b=document.body;var GR________bookmarklet_domain='http://www.google.com';if(b&&!document.xmlVersion){void(z=document.createElement('script'));void(z.src='http://www.google.com/reader/ui/link-bookmarklet.js');void(b.appendChild(z));}else{}";
   var doc = Application.activeWindow.activeTab.document;
   var body = doc.body;
   void (cript = doc.createElement('script'));
   void (code = doc.createTextNode(cmd));
   void (cript.appendChild(code));
   void (body.appendChild(cript));
  }
});

The code is rather long, because at the time there wasn't any command like CmdUtils.makeBookmarkletCommant(). I could have updated it, but I like it like that. You know, it's my first one.

But this command doesn't work with the https version of Google Reader (I should say the bookmarklet doesn't work, because I virtually didn't code anything). Someone commented about it in this blog: he uses the customizegoogle extension which automatically redirects the normal url to the secured one (https). And it breaks the command. So I tried some stuff, and came with a solution: in fact, on the https version of the website, Google provides ANOTHER bookmarklet, working this time. Simple! You can subscribe here. Here's the code:

CmdUtils.makeBookmarkletCommand({
  name: "share-on-reader-secure",
  url: "javascript:var%20b=document.body;var%20GR________bookmarklet_domain='https://www.google.com';if(b&&!document.xmlVersion){void(z=document.createElement('script'));void(z.src='https://www.google.com/reader/ui/link-bookmarklet.js');void(b.appendChild(z));}else{}"
});

This is just a reminder of the search command template. It allows you to create in no time what must be the most used feature of Ubiquity at the moment.

Use the command-editor command, and type the following code in the editor:

CmdUtils.makeSearchCommand({
  name: "your-function-name",
  url: "http://url-to-my-search-engine/?q={QUERY}",
  icon: "http://url-to-my-search-engine/favicon.ico",
  description: "Searches 'my-search-engine' for your words."
});

And just replace your-function-name and url-to-my-search-engine by your own new values. You may have to adapt the query url though.

An example, which searches cplusplus.com:

CmdUtils.makeSearchCommand({
  name: "c++",
  url: "http://www.cplusplus.com/query/search.cgi?q={QUERY}",
  icon: "http://www.cplusplus.com/favicon.ico",
  description: "Searches cplusplus.com for your words."
});

Just so you know: you cannot make Gmail handle your attachments from the desktop. That's not possible. Why am I writing about this? Because I spent quite some time looking for an answer about this problem, and people in the forums weren't sure if it was even possible or not. Finally, in a Google help group, I read "No, you can't". So now you know.

It is indeed possible to set Gmail to be your default email client. On Windows and Mac OS, you can use gmail notifier, I don't know about all GNU/Linux distributions, but I know some ways to do it on Ubuntu. Here's one:

• First set firefox to use gmail as the mailto handler. Just follow the procedure found on the official Gmail blog
• Then on your desktop, go to System->Preferences->Preferred Applications, and set your email client to firefox %s (or whatever browser you prefer).

That's it! Firefox will then process the mailto query and redirect you to a Gmail compose window, with the fields filled. Except the attachment field, unfortunately.

Note that there's a glitch though. With the command bzr send -mail-to email-adress from Bazaar, the query looks like mailto:///robert.smith@gmail.com which sets a wrong recipient in Gmail. I work around this by setting my preferred app to /path/to/myscript.sh %s with myscript.sh containing:

#!/bin/sh
 
query=$(echo $1 | sed s,///,,) 

firefox "$query"

It is a bit surprising to see that Gmail can't handle attachments, since any desktop client do that perfectly. They read the attach or attachment field of the mailto query as a file path, and load that file. It appears that it's not a standard behavior, as the The mailto URL scheme [RFC 2368] never refers to anything such as a attach or attachment parameter.