There are some web sites that I visit often. Bookmarks are okay, but they are separate from the "Go to URL" dialog box, so I keep forgetting to use them. Also, when I visit a search engine home page, all I really want to do is enter a search term.

The following script allows me to type certain strings into the "Go to URL" dialog box, and it will convert them to the URL I actually want to visit. As a bonus, it allows me perform some searches on sites like Google without loading up the front page first.

function match (prefix, url)
    return string.sub (url, 1, string.len (prefix)) == prefix
end

function strip (str)
    return string.gsub (str, "^%s*(.-)%s*$", "%1")
end

function plusify (str)
    return string.gsub (str, "%s", "+")
end

function goto_url_hook (url, current_url)
    -- Google search (e.g. ,gg unix browsers).
    if match (",gg", url) then
        url = plusify (strip (string.sub (url, 4)))
        return "http://www.google.com/search?q="..url.."&btnG=Google+Search"

    -- Freshmeat search.
    elseif match (",fm", url) then
        url = plusify (strip (string.sub (url, 4)))
        return "http://www.freshmeat.net/search/?q="..url

    -- Dictionary.com search (e.g. ,dict congenial).
    elseif match (",dict", url) then
        url = plusify (strip (string.sub (url, 6)))
        return "http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?db=%2A&term="..url

    -- RPM search (e.g. ,rpm links).
    elseif match (",rpm", url) then
        url = plusify (strip (string.sub (url, 5)))
        return "http://www.rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/search.php?query="
                ..url.."&submit=Search+..."

    -- Netcraft.com search (e.g. ,whatis www.google.com).
    elseif match (",whatis", url) then
        url = plusify (strip (string.sub (url, 8)))
        return "http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host="..url

    -- LinuxToday home page.
    elseif match (",lt", url) then
        return "http://linuxtoday.com/"

    -- Weather forecast for Melbourne, Australia.
    elseif match (",forecast", url) then
        return "http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/wrap_fwo.pl?IDV10450.txt"

    -- Unmatched
    else
        return url
    end
end

By adding an extra snippet of code to the previous example, we can make ELinks expand pathnames such as ~/foo/bar and ~user/zappo, like in the shell and other Unix programs.

function goto_url_hook (url, current_url)
                .
                .

    -- Expand ~ to home directories.
    elseif match ("~", url) then
        if string.sub(url, 2, 2) == "/" then    -- ~/foo
            return os.getenv ("HOME")..string.sub(url, 2)
        else                                    -- ~foo/bar
            return "/home/"..string.sub(url, 2)
        end

                .
                .

Many web pages nowadays have columns to the left and right of the text, which are utterly useless. If you happen to be viewing the page in a 80x25 screen, the text you want to read ends up crammed into a tiny space in the centre. We use ELinks Lua support to manipulate the HTML before it reaches the parser.

-- Plain string.find (no metacharacters)
function sstrfind (s, pattern)
    return string.find (s, pattern, 1, true)
end

function pre_format_html_hook (url, html)
    -- Strip the left and right columns from Linux Today pages
    -- and change the font colour to white.
    if sstrfind (url, "linuxtoday.com") then
        if sstrfind (url, "news_story") then
            html = string.gsub (html, '<TABLE CELLSPACING="0".-</TABLE>', '', 1)
            html = string.gsub (html, '<TR BGCOLOR="#FFF.-</TR></TABLE>', '', 1)
        else
            html = string.gsub (html, 'WIDTH="120">\n<TR.+</TABLE></TD>', '>', 1)
        end
        html = string.gsub (html, '<A HREF="http://www.internet.com.-</A>', '')
        html = string.gsub (html, "<IFRAME.-</IFRAME>", "")
        -- emphasis in text is lost
        return string.gsub (html, 'text="#002244"', 'text="#001133"', 1)
    end

    return nil
end

function pre_format_html_hook (url, html)
                .
                .

    elseif string.find (url, "linuxgames.com", 1, true) then
        return string.gsub (html, "<CENTER>.-</center>", "", 1)

                .
                .

Sometimes documents come gzipped in order to save space, but then you need to uncompress them to read them with ELinks. Here is a recipe to handle gzipped files on a Unix system.

function pre_format_html_hook (url, html)
                .
                .

    -- Handle gzip'd files within reasonable size.
    if string.find (url, "%.gz$") and string.len (html) < 65536 then
        local name = tmpname ()
        local file = io.open (name, "wb")
        file:write (html)
        file:close ()
        html = pipe_read ("(gzip -dc "..name.." || cat "..name..") 2>/dev/null")
        os.remove (name)
        return html
    end

                .
                .

Printing a web page with ELinks usually involves quite a few steps: Save the current document onto disk. Run it through ELinks on the command-line (so it fits into 80 columns) to generate a plain text version. Remove the 80th column from the text version, as it will make printers wrap down to the next line. Finally, run the processed file through `lpr', then delete it.

The following functions allow you to print web pages directly from ELinks, using lpr' or `enscript'. Type `lpr() or enscript() in the Lua Console to run them. (In the hooks.lua, I have also made it so you can just type lpr or enscript.)

function pipe_formatted_to (program)
    local lp, errmsg = io.popen (program, "w")
    if lp == nil then
        error (errmsg)
    else
        lp:write (current_document_formatted (79))
        lp:close ()
    end
end

-- Send the current document to `lpr'.
function lpr ()
    pipe_formatted_to ("lpr")
end

-- Send the current document to `enscript'.
function enscript ()
    pipe_formatted_to ("enscript -fCourier8")
end

If you come across a brain-dead web page that is totally unreadable with ELinks, you'd probably want to open it with a graphical browser. The following function opens the current document in Netscape.

-- When starting Netscape: Set to `nil' if you do not want
-- to open a new window for each document.
netscape_new_window = 1

-- Open current document in Netscape.
function netscape ()
    local new = netscape_new_window and ",new_window" or ""
    execute ("( netscape -remote 'openURL("..current_url ()..new..")'"
             .." || netscape '"..current_url ().."' ) 2>/dev/null &")
end

Many people would like to have a bookmark system with categories (note that ELinks already supports that, marketing name Hierarchical bookmarks), and also to be able to view them and search for them in an HTML page. I have written an alternative bookmark system (for ELinks), which some people may like better than the standard bookmark system.