Using URLs with Find-File

Hyperbole always recognizes URLs within buffers when the Action Key is pressed on them. But sometimes it is useful to enter a URL at a prompt and have it displayed. Hyperbole can recognize s/ftp and www URLs given to the find-file command (or any other find-file-* commands). But because there is added overhead with this feature, it is not enabled by default.

To enable the feature, use the Hyperbole menu item Cust/Find-File-URLs (or Find-File-Accepts-URLs on the Hyperbole/Customize pulldown menu). Either of these toggles acceptance of URLs. When enabled the string, URLs, appears in the parenthesized minor-mode section of the modeline.

To enable this feature each time you start the editor, add the following to your personal initialization file after initializing Hyperbole: (hpath:find-file-urls-mode 1).

Both full URLs and abbreviated ones, like www.gnu.org, are recognized. filename completion does not work with URLs; you have to type or paste in the entire URL. This feature will work only if you have the builtin Tramp Emacs Lisp package; if you don’t have Tramp, an error message will be displayed when you try to enable find-file URLs.

The web browser used to display URLs may be set with the minibuffer menu Cust/URL-Display {C-h h c u} or with this Hyperbole menubar menu.

Image B.4: URL Browser Menu