Operating systems allow applications to register a custom URL scheme (as opposed to, e.g., https://
). Applications (including the Web Browser) can use this to deep-link into and perform actions in other desktop applications
Some popular productivity applications supporting URL schemes:
Using a Custom URL Scheme
To use a custom URL scheme, you can use the @pixiebrix/browser/open-tab
brick just like with a normal URL
Depending on the application, you may need to specify a different encoding for spaces URL query parameters using the spaceEncoding
. For most cases, the default %20
encoding is what's expected. But you may need to use +
in some cases.
Advanced: Disable Browser Confirmation
When you try to navigate to a link with a custom URL scheme, Chrome will prompt you to open the application:
If you're trying to trigger a lot of actions, that can become tedious. Here are some steps for disabling the confirmation in Chrome.
MacOS
- Open the terminal
- In the prompt, enter the following with the URL scheme for the application you're using. For example, the Drafts URL scheme is
drafts://
, so we'd enter: - Restart Chrome
defaults write com.google.Chrome URLAllowlist -array-add 'drafts://*'