53 lines
2.2 KiB
Markdown
53 lines
2.2 KiB
Markdown
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# Opening links
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A link in a task or a note opens in whichever browser your system opens links in.
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**Settings → Links** can try to change that — and the honest description of what it
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does is *try*.
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## What a web page cannot do
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Two things, and they set the limits of this feature:
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- **It cannot see which browsers are installed.** The list is deliberately closed:
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it would be a fingerprint, distinctive enough to follow somebody from site to
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site.
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- **It cannot ask the system to use a particular one.** A link goes to the default
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browser, and there is no API that says otherwise.
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The only handle that exists is the URL schemes browsers register for themselves —
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`firefox://open-url?url=…`, `googlechrome://…`, `microsoft-edge:…` — and there is no
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way to ask whether one exists. You can only try it.
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## So the setting is an attempt
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Pick Safari, Chrome, Firefox or Edge, or write your own scheme. When you click a
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link, that scheme is tried first; if nothing has happened within about half a
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second, the link opens the ordinary way.
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The fallback is the whole reason this is safe to turn on. Without it, a setting
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that works on your phone would leave links doing nothing on your desktop.
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In practice: **it works on a phone**, where browsers register these schemes, and
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**rarely on a Mac or a PC**, where Chrome and Firefox do not. Edge on Windows is
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the usual exception. There is a **Prøv det** button for exactly this reason — you
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cannot ask whether a scheme exists, so it is better to find out on example.dk than
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on a link you meant to follow.
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## Writing your own
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Three placeholders, because browsers disagree about the shape they want the address
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in:
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| --- | --- |
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| `{url}` | The address as it is — `x-safari-https://example.dk` |
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| `{encoded}` | The address as a parameter value — `firefox://open-url?url=https%3A%2F%2F…` |
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| `{stripped}` | The address without the `https://` — `googlechrome://example.dk` |
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## It belongs to the machine, not the account
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The choice is kept in the browser you are sitting at, not on your account — the
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same rule the sidebar's width follows. `firefox://` works on the phone and does
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nothing on the Mac, so a choice that followed the account would be wrong in one of
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the two places every time.
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