macOS cocoa app that gets url passed from Safari/Firefox

[deadeyes]

Hi all,

I do not have alot of experience in programming (and no experience with Cocoa).
It seems that Cocoa is the way to go for programming on Mac OS X.

To getting a tool to work that we use at our company I should have a small app.
The app is launched on clicking a url from a certain protocol from Firefox or Safari(as an example, the functionality for starting itunes when clicking a link). This app launching works.

However I need to know how I can get the url that is clicked. For now I see only -psnxxxxxx is passed to the application.

Can anyone provide a small piece of working code that just does this?
So a url that is passed from a browser. The app then writes the url to file for example(it doesnt matter if it is proto://name or just name).

Help would be very appreciated.
I am dealing with this problem for a few weeks now and it seems that we might have to give up on Mac.

 

[kainjow]

Custom URLs are handled through Apple Events:

See the "Installing a Get URL Handler" and "Implementing the Get URL Handler" sections here:
http://developer.apple.com/mac/libr...dleAEs.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20001239-SW10

Also see here:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/...-cocoa-application-as-the-default-web-browser

 

[deadeyes]

I tried this but I dont get any response.

//
//  TestAppAppDelegate.m
//  TestApp
//
//  Created by gvm on 5/11/10.
//  Copyright 2010 __MyCompanyName__. All rights reserved.
//

#import "TestAppAppDelegate.h"

@implementation TestAppAppDelegate

@synthesize window;

- (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(NSNotification *)aNotification {
	// Insert code here to initialize your application 

	NSAppleEventManager *em = [NSAppleEventManager sharedAppleEventManager];
	[em 
	 setEventHandler:self 
	 andSelector:@selector(getUrl:withReplyEvent:) 
	 forEventClass:kInternetEventClass 
	 andEventID:kAEGetURL];	
}

- (void)getUrl:(NSAppleEventDescriptor *)event 
withReplyEvent:(NSAppleEventDescriptor *)replyEvent
{
	// Get the URL
	NSString *urlStr = [[event paramDescriptorForKeyword:keyDirectObject] 
						stringValue];
	
	//TODO: Your custom URL handling code here
	NSString *path = @"/Users/auser/testfile";
	[urlStr writeToFile:path];
}


/*
- (void)registerMyApp
{
	[[NSAppleEventManager sharedAppleEventManager] setEventHandler:self andSelector:@selector(getUrl:withReplyEvent:) forEventClass:kInternetEventClass andEventID:kAEGetURL];
}

- (void)getUrl:(NSAppleEventDescriptor *)event withReplyEvent:(NSAppleEventDescriptor *)replyEvent
{
	NSString *url = [[event paramDescriptorForKeyword:keyDirectObject] stringValue];
	// Now you can parse the URL and perform whatever action is needed
	
	NSString *path = @"/Users/auser/testfile";
	[url writeToFile:path];
}
*/

@end

Note that I tried it 2 times. Both compile and execute, however it does not seem like the method is actually being called.

//
//  TestAppAppDelegate.h
//  TestApp
//
//  Created by gvm on 5/11/10.
//  Copyright 2010 __MyCompanyName__. All rights reserved.
//

#import <Cocoa/Cocoa.h>

@interface TestAppAppDelegate : NSObject <NSApplicationDelegate> {
    NSWindow *window;
}

@property (assign) IBOutlet NSWindow *window;

@end

Help would be appreciated.
What I am trying to do is something written to a file as that shows it is calling the method.

(the app is starting when I open this protocol in a browser or a using "open protocol://url")

 

[kainjow]

Did you modify your Info.plist as the Apple docs in the first link describe?

 

[deadeyes]

Did you modify your Info.plist as the Apple docs in the first link describe?

It is working now...
The links were mentioning putting some part of the code in the initialization.

- (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(NSNotification *)aNotification {
	// Insert code here to initialize your application 

	NSAppleEventManager *em = [NSAppleEventManager sharedAppleEventManager];
	[em 
	 setEventHandler:self 
	 andSelector:@selector(getUrl:withReplyEvent:) 
	 forEventClass:kInternetEventClass 
	 andEventID:kAEGetURL];	
}

I thought this method would be executed by Cocoa.

I searched on the internet for an initialization method and found an example(using a method called init).
It seems that this gets called.
I will put the code here later today(I am on another OS now).

I am still struggling with executing a command line with passing an argument that is saved in a variable.

I tried using system(); but I don't know how I can use an objective C string in it. (NSString test=@"testscript.sh &"; system(test); does not work, also not without the &).
I also tried with NSTask but I wonder if the program then waits for this to exit.
I want to execute a script that keeps running also after this application exits(the script gets credentials from a database, then opens a terminal and connects to ssh or rdp depending on the OS/switch).
So in the end it should be possible to have for example 3 open script (for example 2 ssh and one rdp).