Browser profiles

[alyraffauf]

Technically possible, but would require manually parsing every possible place a browser could be installed, both for Flatpak apps and non-Flatpak apps. It would likely be a brittle hack, so I don't see a way to do this at this time.

[mary-ext]

does the rules mechanism allow for passing command line arguments? I wonder if I could jerry-rig something up in the meantime, by explicitly declaring which profile to run them in

[alyraffauf]

Do you mean specifying browsers with CLI flags? not yet so far. I do want to create a more robust CLI, though. This could also be a good fit for the URI scheme.

I think for now if you're in the realm of jerry rigging it might make more sense to just clone a desktop file and change the parameters in Exec= to open a certain profile, Switchyard should detect it as a different browser (provided you change the name of the desktop file from e.g. org.mozilla.firefox -> org.mozilla.firefox-work)

[mary-ext]

yeah, desktop files is definitely a solution I could look into

does it check if it's set to hidden? would be nice since I wouldn't have to litter my application search for it (although it's not exactly a deal breaker)

[alyraffauf]

Actually detectBrowsers() doesn't return browsers that are hidden...made sense at the time but this use case is a rly good fit for axing that. There's also a built-in Switchyard hide feature now that is distinct from hidden desktop entries.

[alyraffauf]

#22

[mary-ext]

This worked well, just realized I had to set the correct MIME type on the .desktop file

[Xananax]

I have two Firefox profiles (on top of the default); only the default one ("Firefox") and another one ("Firefox [name]") show; but not my other custom profile.

They both have Desktop entries, that show in my launcher; I also use Browsers, a similar app to Switchyard, and it does detect my profiles correctly. How can I help diagnose this?

[alyraffauf]

I have two Firefox profiles (on top of the default); only the default one ("Firefox") and another one ("Firefox ") show; but not my other custom profile.

They both have Desktop entries, that show in my launcher; I also use Browsers, a similar app to Switchyard, and it does detect my profiles correctly. How can I help diagnose this?

Hey there! Do you mind sharing how you installed Firefox (Flatpak, system package, nix, etc) in this situation, plus the desktop files?

[Xananax]

Sure!

I use Arch, Firefox is installed through the official package (Pacman).

I create profiles through the old profile manager firefox -P and then I generate desktop files for profiles with a little script, which I save in ~/.local/share/applications/.

Both desktop files I currently use are created through the same one-liner, which copies the original Firefox desktop files and does a search and replace.

Here's the script:

FIREFOX="thing" && \
	cp \
	/usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop \
	~/.local/share/applications/firefox-$FIREFOX.desktop && \
	sed -i \
	"s/^Name=.*/Name=Firefox $FIREFOX/; s|^Exec=\([^ ]*\).*|Exec=\1 -P \"${FIREFOX}\" %u|" \
	~/.local/share/applications/firefox-$FIREFOX.desktop && \
	echo "✅ done!"

Here are the files generated this way:

• firefox-work.desktop
• firefox-xananax.desktop

As you see they are strictly identical (except of course the profile name and the title). I also confirm both have strictly the same attributes:

The desktop file firefox-work, which runs my work profile, does appear in the list; but the profile firefox-xananax, which I use for my personal stuff, doesn't.

The default Firefox profile, which is neither of these desktop files, does show in the list, as do all my other browsers.

I installed Switchyard through Bazaar, and I installed it for all users.

If you'd rather I open a separate issue for this, tell me; and if you need me to investigate more, I can of course!

[JohnLGalt]

Going along with @Xananax's post, I have multiple profiles in multiple browsers. I have 14 in Chrome, 6 in Firefox / Firefox Nightly, and 4 in Zen / Zen Twilight. However, I no longer use shortcuts / links to direct profiles.

I prefer to use the profile managers of Firefox / Nightly, Chrome, and Zen / Twilight whenever I open them so I can pick an appropriate profile for my task at hand. Especially in Chrome, where I have multiple profiles for (independent) logins to various (independent) systems, including numerous Google Workspace accounts for administration purposes - I never want those automatically loading. (In Windows, Microsoft Edge did not allow for that, and it was extremely frustrating, as I don't want to just load the last profile automatically, then take the time to load a new profile - I prefer to choose as needed.)

Is there a way to allow the end user of Switchyard to simply set the browsers to load as if they were loading the browser from the desktop? That would allow all my browsers (sans Edge) to pop up the profile manager whenever a link is passed, and I can pass it to the right profile. Naturally, if I had a few profiles, the current SOP would be fine, but I don't think I want a 24 icon Switchyard - especially with some profiles being linked to administrative purposes lol.