wmnetselect version 0.85 released 8 August 2000.

Highlights of changes from previous version:

• Works with Mozilla! (Milestone 17 and newer).

• User selectable search engine (with command line switch -w).
  Choose from Google (default), Yahoo, Altavista, Raging, Excite, Hotbot, Lycos, Northernlight, or Alltheweb.

• Handles URLs with newlines and arbitrary whitespace.

• New command lines options for more flexibility.

• Automagically determines if selection is a local file.

• autoconfigure script for easy compilation on multiple architectures.

• RPMs for no compilation.

• Lots of bug fixes, more xpms, better documentation and a man page.

See the ChangeLog for additional changes.

Replace your Netscape (or Mozilla) docked appicon with my wmnetselect dock applet to add these exciting features:
(All occurrences of "Netscape" in this document can be substituted with "Mozilla" except where specifically noted.)

• Double click left mouse button launches Netscape.
  (Just like any docked window maker appicon).

• Single click middle mouse button sends X selection to
  browser.
  (Causes browser to go to URL represented by highlighted selection).

• Single click right mouse button sends X selection as queries to
  user-chosen search engine. (Defaults to Google).

• Ctrl-click middle mouse button causes browser to open
  the URL in a new window.

• Easily customized icons.

• Trims whitespace and newlines (carriage returns) from X selection.

• Short cuts for URLs to WindowMaker.org, Freshmeat, and Slashdot.

• GPL'd source code. (Some of the xpm's are MPL'd).

Middle Button Sends Selection to browser as URL

wmnetselect is a Window Maker dock applet that makes all text on your X display internet-aware, sort of. wmnetselect sends the X selection to your browser when you click on it. In other words, if you select this text:

            http://www.dpo.uab.edu/~grapeape/wmfaq.html

and click the middle mouse button on wmnetselect, it causes your browser to load the web page at this URL. If Netscape is not running, wmnetselect will launch Netscape, and cause Netscape to load the URL.

If you select the text: apathos @ bham.net and click the middle mouse button on wmnetselect, it will start the Netscape mail composer with the selected text in the "To:" field.

If Netscape has already been launched, you can open the URL in a new window by Ctrl-clicking the middle button (hold down the control key and click the middle button on wmnetselect).

Double Click Left Button to Launch Netscape

If you want to launch Netscape without sending it the X selection, double-click on wmnetselect with the left button, just like any other Window Maker docked appicon.

Ctrl-(Single Click Left Button) to Add a Bookmark

A single left button click while holding the Ctrl key will add the selected text as a bookmark if a Netscape window is open. For now, if Netscape is not open, the Ctrl-left button will open Netscape to the selected text, but add no bookmark. This is considered a bug, and hopefully will be fixed in a future version.

Right Button Sends Selection to Google.com as a Query

A single click of the right mouse button will send the selection as a query to the Google.com search engine (by default). You can specify a different search engine with the -w command line option. A Ctrl-right mouse button will open a new window with the results of the query. (Click near the middle of the icon. A right click in the edge of the icon brings up a Window Maker menu.)

For example, if you select Window Maker and click the right mouse button on wmnetselect, you will soon be seeing the first 30 "hits" for Window Maker found by the Google search engine in your Netscape browser window. wmnetselect's search engine queries were suggested by both Alan Jaffray and Jerome Auge.

wmnetselect was designed specifically for the Window Maker window manager, but should run on other window managers with varying degrees of success. I've personally tested it on Enlightenment, Sawfish, Fvwm2, and dtwm using CDE (running Solaris).

Other Features

wmnetselect has some other convenient features to enhance your surfing pleasure.

wmnetselect trims whitespace and newlines out of the X selection. Thanks to a patch from Dan Kreft (bigdan at kreft.net), wmnetselect now correctly handles URLs such as:

             http://the.kreft. n e t/
 or:

             http://the.kreft	.net/

 or even:

             http://the.
                kreft.
                  net/

This is very useful when receiving email with long URLs that wrap across lines.

wmnetselect has shortcuts for certain keywords. wmnetselect turns windowmaker into windowmaker.org, freshmeat into freshmeat.net, and slashdot into slashdot.org allowing you to select the word slashdot and view the slashdot home page with one click on wmnetselect. If you ever want to go to windowmaker.com for some bizarre reason, just select windowmaker.com instead of windowmaker. Of course you can select the full url, http://www.slashdot.org also, these are just shortcuts for common (non-dotcom) websites.

Netscape can act a local file browser using a file:/ URL. wmnetselect detects when the selection is a file (with pathname) and supplies the file:/ automatically. To view the local version this file using Netscape (assuming you untarred the distribution in /usr/local/src/), select:

            /usr/local/src/wmnetselect-0.85/README.html

and middle-click on wmnetselect.

Changing the xpm icons.

wmnetselect provides feedback by displaying a different icon while it is processing a request. You can easily change the icons wmnetselect uses. How to do this is discussed in the file NewXPMs.txt

Command line options

wmnetselect has many command line options to override the default behavior. None of these options are required. The default options should be acceptable to most users.

Note: many of the options have changed since the last version. Most options now require a y or n for yes or no. This is to make the meaning more explicit. The previous options were getting too confusing.

-a <y | n>   or   -ask <y | n>

When the X selection is blank or is all spaces, wmnetselect pops up the Netscape open URL dialog allowing you to type in a URL. Supplying the -a n option suppresses this behavior and just beeps if there is no selection. (Use the -q y option to "quiet" the beep.) Defaults to y.

-d <display>   or   -display <display>

Use an alternate X Display.

-e <program>   or   -executable <program>

Use the -e option to specify an executable name other than the netscape, (such as mozilla) or to specify the full path name of an executable not in your search path:

            wmnetselect -e /usr/local/src/package/mozilla

If you want to pass parameters to the executable put them in quotes:

            wmnetselect -e "netscape -no-about-splash"

Defaults to netscape.

-h  or  -help

Displays a short summary of the command line options.

-i <y | n>   or   -infer-protocol <y | n>

wmnetselect uses a heuristic that supplies the protocol of the URL when none is provided. For example, if the selection contains a @ and doesn't contain any slashes (/), it is interpreted as an email address, and wmnetselect opens the Netscape mail composer with the selected text in the "To:" field. See the ChangeLog file for more details. The -i n option suppresses this behavior and supplies the selection to netscape unaltered. Defaults to y.

-p <[+|-]x[+|-]y>   or   -position <[+|-]x[+|-]y>

Positions wmnetselect at a specific x y location on your display. This option is not really needed for Window Maker, it's mostly there for other window managers. To position wmnetselect near the top right corner of a medium size display, use:

            wmnetselect -p +800+40

Defaults to +0+0

-q <y | n>   or   -quiet <y | n>

There are a few instances when wmnetselect uses an audible beep to signify an error condition. Use the -q y option to suppress the audible error indication. Defaults to n.

-r <y | n>   or   -raise <y | n>

Use -r n to prevent your browser from being deiconified when the X selection is passed to it by wmnetselect. (In other words, if it is iconified, if stays iconified.) The option is useful for CDE users to prevent the browser from becoming "sticky". Defaults to n.

-s <y | n>   or   -start <y | n>

This option starts netscape (by default) or the executable named in the -e option when wmnetselect is started. This can be used to start Netscape when your window manager is started. This allows wmnetselect to better emulate a docked Netscape appicon. Defaults to n.

-w <search engine>   or   -where <search engine>

Overrides the default search engine used on a right button click. Options include: google, altavista, yahoo, excite, hotbot, lycos, northernlight, alltheweb, or raging. Defaults to google. Misspellings will also get you google.

-v  or  -version

Displays the release version.

Installing wmnetselect

For quick Install instructions see the file: README.Install

RPM Install

The i386 RPM was created on Redhat 6.2. The sparc RPM was created on a sparc 20 running Redhat 6.2. Install the RPM like any other RPM file. As root type:

            rpm -Uhvv wmnetselect-0.85-1.i386.rpm

Installs in /usr/bin by default. Documentation will be in /usr/doc/wmnetselect-0.85

Source Install

wmnetselect now has a configure script. It should compile without errors on almost any Unix-type OS. The configure script will verify that you have dependencies required by wmnetselect [not many]. You will need to have the XPM library in your library path. xpm-3.4k can be found at ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/libraries/xpm-3.4k.tar.gz, but there may be newer versions. Most likely you already have some version of the XPM library installed.

To untar the source of wmnetselect-0.85, cd to a convenient directory where you have write permission and type:

tar xfvz wmnetselect-0.85.tar.gz

or

gzip -dc wmnetselect-0.85.tar.gz | tar xfv -

Now cd to the directory wmnetselect-0.85 to make wmnetselect:

./configure

Then:

make

To try it out type:

./wmnetselect

Select slashdot with your mouse and middle click on wmnetselect's icon. You should see a netscape window displaying the slashdot main page. If not, verify that an executable called netscape is in your path. [If which netscape does not return an error, it should be in your path.] Once you are satisfied that it works, type make install as root, and wmnetselect will be installed in the /usr/local/bin directory. You can override this location with the configure script. ./configure --help displays the many configure options, or see the INSTALL file.

Acknowledgements

wmnetselect was improved by patches from Jerome Auge, Benjamin Holzman, and Daniel Kreft, and suggestions made by Morten Gulhaugen, Michael G. Henderson, Alan Jaffray, Sureshkumar Kaliannan, Andrea Mistrali, and Gert Scholten. The original BSD port was submitted by David McNett.

Send bugs and bugfixes to Patrick Hill, apathos @ bham.net

The latest version of this documentation is located at http://members.home.net/happycorgi/apathos/wmnetsel.html

TODO list.