ask dr. lj: adding dispatch actions to Thunderbird/Firefox for highlighted text?

[topaz]

Here's something I find myself doing often, on my GNOME and OSX desktops: copying, say, a ticket number from an email message or a web page, and then dropping it into a search form to bring up more information about that ticket.  I already have bookmark shortcuts like "b ####" to bring up a Bugzilla page about a given ticket number.

It would be ten kinds of awesome if I could right-click on a highlighted region and have options like "Bugzilla lookup", "Siebel lookup", "RT lookup", etc., which would just pass that highlighted text to an appropriate keyword bookmark, and cut out one of those steps.

(Being able to do this from any app at all, like an xterm or an editor window, would be even better, but seems less likely to be feasible in either GNOME or OSX.)

Has anyone done anything like this with an XUL or Greasemonkey extension, or the like?  Seen anything similar?

Comments

[randysmith]

I made a few choice curses after digging in and discovering that I couldn't do this inside of Mac Mail. That leads on to some more choice curses about the lack of any meaty UI customizability within the Macintosh interface; they've got Applescript and automator and they actively appear *not* to want you to customize the user/computer communication.

Which is just to say: Yes, this would be an awesome thing to have, and I can't believe it's not hackable in the world of free software, but I have no idea how hard it'd be to do.

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

I've never tried to do this - though I've wanted it - but isn't there a whole Contextual Menu framework that would cover this ability?

I've just figured that no one's actually tried to implement things I'm wanting to do.

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

Yeah, given that there's "Search in Spotlight", "Search in Google", "Look Up in Dictionary" already in the contextual menu in Mail.app, it seems to me it should be doable.

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

http://free.abracode.com/cmworkshop/ ?

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Hey, that looks awesome! I'll try it out. If it works, it's just another nail in the coffin for trying to use Linux as any kind of useful desktop...

[randysmith]

Awesome; thank you!

[randysmith]

Glanced at this, and it looks like it's just for finder. Am I confused?

[rwx.livejournal.com]

addins can do this. in ff2.x, there was on that did this but i couldn't find it in a quick search.

it took a list of display names and urls with a variable representing the url encoded selected text.

[points.livejournal.com]

Look into GCM - Gnome Clipboard Manager - I believe it allows for contextual actions to be brought up at the point of the mouse, if the text under it matches a regexp.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Interesting, I'll look into that -- thanks!

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

Or klipper under kde.

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

Timing:
http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/Lec4FiHYOvg/how-can-i-search-google-from-any-application

[ctseawa.livejournal.com]

You might also find jumpcut (http://jumpcut.sourceforge.net/) useful. I haven't tried it but a few of my co-workers here love it.