New Project: bm (WIP)

As described in the blog entries about browser-base, I ended up working on some browser-related projects this month due to usability issues after a Firefox upgrade. I decided to go ahead and implement a new version of a browser home page that I used to use many years ago, browser-base. The page displays whenever you open a new tab, and you can use the keyboard to quickly open links or perform searches. Unfortunately, Firefox no longer supports custom “new tab pages” and extensions that provide the necessary functionality have many usability issues due to limitations imposed by Firefox for security purposes, so I aborted the project.

Since Firefox can no longer do what I want, I decided to write a program that works outside of the browser. bm is a program that can open bookmarks and search queries from the command line. I can use it in my terminal, from within Vim (:!bm ...), as well as with dmenu.

Bookmarks and search queries are configured in a YAML configuration file. Here is an excerpt from my configuration file:

---

command: firefox

args:

  - keyword: ddg
    url: https://duckduckgo.com
    query:
      action: https://duckduckgo.com/

  - keyword: nix
    url: https://nixos.org/
    args:
      - keyword: manual
        url: https://nixos.org/manual/nix/stable
      - keyword: os
        url: https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/stable
      - keyword: pkgs
        url: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs
        args:
          - keyword: manual
            url: https://nixos.org/manual/nixpkgs/stable

The command used to open links defaults to general commands according to the operating system (Linux, Windows, macOS). It can optionally be set in the configuration file. As shown above, I set my configuration to use firefox directly (instead of xdg-open) because it is faster.

The program usage is (currently) as follows:

Usage: bm [-c|--config CONFIG] [-t|--trace] ARG [ARG ...]
  open bookmarks and search queries from the command line

Available options:
  -h,--help                show this help text
  --version                show version and exit
  -c,--config CONFIG       config file (default: $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/bm.yaml)
  -t,--trace               show trace output for debugging
  ARG [ARG ...]            arguments

With this configuration, running bm ddg opens DuckDuckGo in a new tab. Prefixes are supported, and the first matching prefix is used, so bm d does the same thing. The Nix section demonstrates how bookmarks can be organized into hierarchies. Running bm nix pkgs opens the nixpkgs repository in a new tab, while running bm n p m opens the nixpkgs Manual in a new tab.

Notice that a query is also defined. Running bm ddg haskell LambdaCase opens a new tab with a search for “haskell LambdaCase”. The parameter name as well as additional parameters can be specified when required. I configure a keyword named / in my configuration with my default search engine so that I can search by running bm / haskell LambdaCase. The keyword is one character, and I will not have to change habits if I change my preferred search engine.

The --trace option is just used for debugging. Here is an example:

$ bm -t n p m
[firefox]
<nix>
<pkgs>
<manual>
firefox https://nixos.org/manual/nixpkgs/stable

This project is a work in progress. (You can see my TODO list in the develop branch.) I hope to make a first release next week.