Open a page in the default browser

If you get an error like this:

Unable to launch /home/bruce/Projects/myproject/tmp/capybara/capybara-201110311210111407691101.html 

... update your launchy gem. It failed for us in version 0.4.x. We could fix the issue by upgrading to 2.0.5.

If you are on a Linux shell and want to open a file with whatever default application is configured for that type, this often works:

xdg-open Quote.odt
xdg-open invoice.pdf
xdg-open index.html

Pro Tip

Make an alias so you ...

When you run code inside a $watch expression that forces a repaint (e.g. by computing an element's width, or running something like...

I found a nice script on crazylittlehacks and modified it slightly. Put the attachment to /usr/local/bin, chmod +x and run it like this:

tab

You m...

When using gnome-open (i.e. double-clicking a file, telling to browser to open a download, etc.) on Ubuntu you may get this error:

The location is not a folder.

It's due to the exo-utils package which [does not play nice with gnome-open]...

Use Socket.gethostname. So for a machine whose hostname is "happycat", it will look like this:

>> Socket.gethostname
=> "happycat"

That should work right away for your Rails application. For plain Ruby, you first need to do:

requi...

The Visual Viewport API enables developers to access the actually visible area of the page. This differs from the normal viewport if:

• the user has pinch-zoomed
• the on-screen ...

In order to navigate through the browser history. you can manipulate the window.history object via javascript like follows:

When /^I go back in the browser history$/ do
  page.evaluate_script('window.history.back()')
end 

For further...

The rubyforge gems model may not be perfect, but damnit people, when there’s a gem update I know that it has actually been tested somewhat and it’s not just whatever random point HEAD happens to be at, at that point in time, by some random Joe who...

This is super stupid:

• In the Thunar file manager, select the file
• Go to File / Properties / Open With (WTF!)
• Select the preferred application from the list and hit "Set default"

This setting will apply to all files with that extension.