Suggestions for Copy URL From Active Browser

Questions & Suggestions
1

Sometimes I run Safari, sometimes Brave, sometimes Firefox. Yeah, I have a problem. Any at rate, what I want to create is a macro that copies the URL from the active tab of the most recently active browser and pastes it in whatever text editor I am writing in at the moment.

So if I happen to have Safari open next to a text editor and am typing, a hotkey will grab the URL from there and paste it in where I am currently typing. If it is Brave, it will do the same. The extra tricky bit is sometimes I may have both Safari and Brave running, but I want it to be smart enough to copy the URL from the most recently active browser, which is likely to be the one I have next to the text editor and am copying from.

Of course I could make separate macros for each browser then give them the same hotkey so a palette pops up prompting me to pick the one I want. But if possible I'd like to make the macro smarter than that and automatically pick the most recently active browser. Can anyone suggest any ideas to do this?

2

Untested, but here's the first thing that came to mind:

LAST_BROWSER
LAST_BROWSER1036×1458 111 KB

Then when you are in your text editor and want to figure out which was the most recent browser, you can refer to the KM variable LAST_BROWSER.

Then you'd basically just need a macro which said:

if LAST_BROWER = /Applications/Safari.app then activate Safari
else
if LAST_BROWER = /Applications/Brave.app then activate Brave
else
if LAST_BROWER = /Applications/Firefox.app then activate Firefox

once the browser has activated (pause until -> front window exists),

  • send the keystroke ⌘L which will get you to the URL field
  • pause 0.5s
  • send keystroke ⌘A (select all)
  • pause 0.5
  • send keystroke ⌘C (copy)
  • pause 0.5

Then activate your text editor.

You could have the macro paste for you too, if you wanted, once your text editor is activated.

p.s. -

  1. I don't have Firefox installed, so I tested with Chrome, but you get the idea.

  2. My macro has a second action of sending a notification, which you would only want to do for debugging this initially to make sure it's working ok. Otherwise it would get annoying very quickly.

3

I second TJ's idea of using one macro to track the last used browser in a variable, and using that variable in a separate macro used for pasting URLs. His suggested workflow should work fine for Firefox, but for Safari and Brave, KM's built-in %FrontBrowserURL% token simplifies and speeds things up considerably, letting you do something like this:

Example Macro.kmmacros (4.1 KB)

image
image1168×1956 258 KB

1 Like
4

I knew there was something like that in Keyboard Maestro but could not find it in my too late/too sleepy trip to the forum last night.

Definitely better to use that when available.

Actually I was also thinking that window.location.href should work, but it doesn't work in Firefox either so I would just use %FrontBrowserURL%

5

Thank you, both of you. Your workflows works perfectly. I appreciate the help.

One problem with using %FrontBrowserURL% for Safari is it no longer copies unicode, which is a nice feature Safari (and as far as I know, only Safari) supports. That is, if I copy a url that includes unicode in it (a url with Japanese characters, for example) it will paste the ascii code for that character instead of the character itself, whereas if I use the keystrokes method, it copy/pastes the unicode version. As result I am only using %FrontBrowserURL% for Brave, and using the keystroke method for Safari.

Incidentally, Gabe, it's good to see you here. I think we haven't talked in several years. Are you still kicking around Japan?

1 Like