wslopenbrowser

Inside WSL2 opens a html file in the browser that is in Win10. The local file path is transformed between Linux and Win10 notation.
repository; version: 2021.823.702 date: 2021-08-23 authors: Luciano Bestia

Try it

Install it from crates.io and add 2 symbolic links and one env variable:

```bash cargo install wslopenbrowser sudo ln -sf "/mnt/c/Program Files/Mozilla Firefox/firefox.exe" /usr/bin/browserinwin export BROWSER='/usr/bin/wslopenbrowser'

I like to use the short command www to open a browser

ln -sf "/usr/bin/wslopenbrowser" www

go to a directory that contains a subdirectory with index.html

cd ~/rustprojects/wslopenbrowser www docs/index.html

or

www docs

or go inside the directory that contains index.html

cd docs www .

or simply

www

if you want to open an URL

www rust-lang.org ```

Congratulations! You have just opened a windows browser from WSL2.

Motivation

Inside WSL2 I want to open a html file in the browser. But the browser is in Win10.
This is useful in Rust for the documentation:

bash cargo doc --open

or for simply open a file in a browser from bash:

bash www index.html

Open URL in Win10 Browser (first attempt)

I prepared a symbolic link to the firefox exe.

```bash ln -s "/mnt/c/Program Files/Mozilla Firefox/firefox.exe" /usr/bin/browserinwin

now I can open a page like this

browserinwin http://github.com

I want to open it with xdg-open

xdg-open is the "Open any file" for linux

export BROWSER='/usr/bin/browserinwin'

now I can use

xdg-open http://rust-lang.org ```

This works great for URL, but it does not work for local files, because Linux and Windows see the same file with different paths.
The command ln -sf is permanent and persistent. It makes a file that stays there forever.
But export BROWSER= is NOT persistent. You need to add this command to ~/.bashrc that runs it on every start of terminal.

Open local file in Win10 Browser

For example:
Linux: /home/luciano/index.html
Win10: \\wsl$\Debian\home\luciano\index.html
OR:
Linux: /mnt/c/Users/Luciano/Downloads\index.html
Win10: c:\Users\Luciano\Downloads\index.html

I need a way to transform the path prior to call the browser.
Let's make a Rust CLI for that.

Development

This is a simple binary. For good habit I separated the lib from the bin.
Use cargo auto to run automation tasks: build, release, doc, copytousr_bin,....
After cargo auto copy_to_usr_bin we can now open the browser like this:

bash wsl_open_browser http://rust-lang.org wsl_open_browser /home/luciano/index.html wsl_open_browser /mnt/c/Users/Luciano/Downloads/index.html wsl_open_browser docs/index.html

Open with xdg-open

But I want to use xdg-open.
xdg-open is the "Open any file" for linux.
For that I need to set the environment variable BROWSER.
To make it persistent, copy this line to ~/.bashrc.

bash export BROWSER='/usr/bin/wsl_open_browser'

Finally we can open the browser like this:

bash xdg-open http://rust-lang.org xdg-open /home/luciano/index.html xdg-open /mnt/c/Users/Luciano/Downloads/index.html

and the Rust documentation works fine:

bash cargo doc --open

simply: www docs or www .

I am still not satisfied.
I want to open the browser from Debian bash terminal with this simple syntax:

bash www docs www . www rust-lang.org

I will make another alias:

bash ln -sf "/usr/bin/wsl_open_browser" www

The command ln -sf is permanent and persistent. It makes a file that stays there forever.