Add chrome:// prefix to Open Link

PopClip Extensions
1

I would like the built-in “Open Link” plugin to also recognize URLs to Chrome’s settings (chrome:// prefix) and offer to open them. This is especially useful because for security reasons, the browser disables the clickability of such links, probably to prevent deception and scam:
chrome://history
Therefore, an option to select the address and open it in the browser instead of manually copying it to a new tab, would be useful.

2

Hi @ShlomoCode , welcome to the forum.

You can configure PopClip to recognise strings starting chrome: as links by running the following command in Terminal:

defaults write com.pilotmoon.popclip OtherURLSchemes -array-add chrome

then Quit and restart PopClip.

I will also add this by default into the next version of PopClip.

1 Like
3

Thanks, I ran the command and restarted PopClip, but I get this error:

CleanShot 2024-06-08 at 22.06.26@2x
CleanShot 2024-06-08 at 22.06.26@2x520×652 39.8 KB

I click “Choose Application” and select Chrome, but the next time I select a link, the error appears again. what can we do?

By the way, there is also the edge:// prefix. And note that the edge browser also handles URLs with a chrome prefix.

4

That’s a macOS dialog. PopClip has asked macOS to open the URL and it doesn’t know what do tdo with it. So it seems Chrome has not actually registered itself as a handler for chrome: URLs.

Instead, we can create a custom extension to open such URLs in Chrome:

// #popclip
// name: ChromeLink
// language: javascript
const url = popclip.input.data.nonHttpUrls.find((url) => url.startsWith("chrome:"));
popclip.openUrl(url, { app: "com.google.Chrome" })

(The above block is an extension snippet — select it then click “Install Extension” in PopClip.)

1 Like
5

Thanks, I changed the extension name to “:link:” to get a similar look to the built-in extension
Is this something that will be built into PopClip in the future?

1 Like
6

I think it’s a little too specific to build it in.

7

With these changes the button looks exactly like the original, and will only appear when the text contains a chrome link instead of always appearing:

// #popclip
// name: Chrome links Opener
// icon: symbol:link
// regex: "chrome:"
// language: javascript
const url = popclip.input.data.nonHttpUrls.find((url) => url.startsWith("chrome:"));
if (!url) return;
popclip.openUrl(url, { app: "com.google.Chrome" })
9

The previous version required adding chrome to OtherURLSchemes, which caused 2 icons to appear, the original and the snippet’s one. Here is a fixed version:

// #popclip
// name: Chrome links Opener
// icon: symbol:link
// regex: "chrome:\\/\\/[a-zA-Z0-9\\/\\-?=%]+"
// language: javascript
popclip.openUrl(popclip.input.matchedText, { app: "com.google.Chrome" })

By the way, the popclip.input.data.nonHttpUrls property is not listed in the documentation

2 Likes
10

Brilliant. It’s funny, after I posted last night (as I’ve was going to bed) I thought, oh tomorrow I need to let that guy know how to make a better icon and also to use a regex so we don’t have to put chrome: in URL scheme detector. But you’ve done it :+1:

1 Like
11

I’m assuming when I omitted it from the docs, I had an intuition that it probably wasn’t the best idea to actually use it for anything :wink: