Instructions and the script for https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05wghiNzIj0 


EWW - Emacs' built-in browser is great for many things. Simple use cases include:

- Opening any file on GitHub/GitLab without having to download it
- Log investigation e.g., for GitHub Actions
- Reading PDF - link to a pdf doc opens it in pdf-tools (if installed)
- Bypassing a paywall

This script is about sending URLs from browser to Emacs. With little effort and scripting you can even do some other awesome things (they don't have to be EWW-related), a few ideas come to mind:

- Display the diff of changes (magit-diff) for a Pull Request URL
- Jump to email (from webmail interface) and open it in mu4e, notmuch, etc.
- Fetch the transcript for a YouTube video and show it in a buffer

And if you think about it, there's not only URL, you can collect more context and send it over to Emacs to deal with it.

So how do you send current URL from browser to Emacs?
Two ways come to mind: ~org-protocol~, and on a Mac, you can use a ~QuickAction~. This doc describes the latter. Share your ideas for the similar thing that works in Linux or Windows.

* Prerequisite
You need to be running Emacs in daemon mode, so you can use ~emacsclient~. See [[https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Emacs-Server.html][Emacs manual]] to learn more about using Emacs as a server.

* How to create a Quick Action?
- Open ~Automator~ app
- ~New~ -> ~Quick Action~ -> Select ~Run Applescript~ from the menu on the left 
- use the following applescript code:

Note that I use Brave Browser, you can either modify the =if= statement to include other browsers, or change it to the main browser of your choice.

#+begin_src applescript
on run {input, parameters}
  tell application "System Events" to set frontApp to name of first process whose frontmost is true

  if (frontApp = "Brave Browser") then           -- <- change this to your browser, e.g. Firefox
    using terms from application "Google Chrome" -- <- and this 
      tell application frontApp to set currentTabUrl to URL of active tab of front window
    end using terms from
    set argsString to "'(funcall-interactively (quote eww) \"" & currentTabUrl & "\" :new-buffer)'"
  end if

  set EC to "/usr/local/bin/emacsclient --no-wait -e " -- check emacsclient location on disk

  -- uncomment next line to troubleshoot, it will display exact command to run from shell (if something goes wrong)
  -- display dialog EC & argsString  
  do shell script EC & argsString
  tell application "Emacs" to activate

  return input
end run
#+end_src

- When you safe the workflow it should appear in ~services~ menu. ~Help -> Search -> Services~
- You can bind the key to it in ~System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts~