URL Link by Neil Bird

URL Link has been wholly re-written to be a WebExtension. The version here will not work on Thunderbird as it requires a minor tweak for that which cannot be uploaded here. Please see the separate Thunderbird add-ons site instead: https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-GB/thunderbird/addon/url-link/


The force-submenu option does not yet do anything as menus cannot currently be recreated on-the-fly (Firefox issue).


Explanation of required permissions

• Access your data for all websites — installs a “content script” into visited pages in order to better analyse the current selection.
• Input data to the clipboard — copies file:/// URLs to the clipboard for pasting (in lieu of automatic access).
• Access browser tabs — open new windows and tabs.

For emails, it reconnects links in emails which have been broken across several lines, and also replaces spaces with the URL character code %20 so that you may follow emailed network 'file:' links (which it auto-detects from Windows "X:" or \\servdir references).

For web pages, it also allows you to select textual links/URLs in web pages or edit boxes, and follow them as if they were real links. It will also let you use actual links, and analyses mailto: links as well.

It analyses 'mailto:' links (converts, e.g., mailto:someone@somesite.com to http://www.somesite.com) and can also 'follow' javascript: links that would otherwise generate a pop-up (e.g., http://www.kelkoo.co.uk/).

There are currently more translations than I care to keep listing here (thanks to the guys at http://www.babelzilla.org/)! Unfortunately, Babelzilla has retired due to the new format of Firefox add-ons. If you would like to provide new translations, or fix existing ones, please email me, add them to a feature-request issue on GitHub, or add them in a GitHub fork for me to pull in.


URL Link has a preferences dialogue allowing customisation of the 'not a proper URL' sub-menu which converts, e.g., "sometext" to "www.sometext.com", so that locale-specific conversions can be added (like 'www.*.co.uk').

Nicknames can be applied to the entries (such that the nickname appears in the menu, not the conversion string) by using a bar '|', e.g.:

"In Google|http://www.google.com/search?q=*&source-id=Mozilla%20Firefox&start=0"

It also allows separators to be added to the custom menu by using entries made up of hyphens, e.g. "--".

Hold down Shift when opening a link in the current window to instead open in a new window.

Either hold down Control when opening a link, or add |p to the end of a custom menu entry to make that entry always open in a private window.

You can also set up custom search and replace strings (e.g., convert Windows driver letter to some file:///mnt/smb/ path for Linux users).

If you have problems with file: or network (\\server\share) links, especially in Thunderbird emails, see the following page:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Links_to_local_pages_do_not_work#Firefox_1.5.2C_SeaMonkey_1.0_and_newer

However, note that Firefox currently does not allow add-ins to acess file:/// URLs at all. Until they cater for this, I am providing a work-around that copies the required file:/// URL to the clipboard, and prompts you to paste-and-go into a new tab.