Open url in Emacs with external browser
Here is some handy elisp function which use browse-url-generic to open the url in external browser (firefox, for example).
The key point is how to detect the url. If we are in w3m-mode, we will use the link under cursor or the URI of current web page. Or else, we will let browse-url-generic to detect the url.
(defun w3mext-open-link-or-image-or-url () "Opens the current link or image or current page's uri or any url-like text under cursor in firefox." (interactive) (let (url) (if (string= major-mode "w3m-mode") (setq url (or (w3m-anchor) (w3m-image) w3m-current-url))) (browse-url-generic (if url url (car (browse-url-interactive-arg "URL: ")))) )) (global-set-key (kbd "C-c b") 'w3mext-open-link-or-image-or-url)
To specify the external browser like firefox, add below code into ~/.emacs:
;; `C-h v browse-url-generic-program RET` to see the documentation ;; *is-a-mac* and *linux* is the boolean constants defined by me (setq browse-url-generic-program (cond (*is-a-mac* "open") (*linux* (executable-find "firefox")) ))