Installation

1. Clone and copy (or symlink) this repo inside your userscripts dir (See Dir structure below).
2. Make quterofi/open, quterofi/quteromarks, quterofi/switch_engine and quterofi/common executable if needed.
3. Declare your engines and quteromarks in quterofi.toml (See Quterofi.toml section below).
4. Update your config.py file (See Config section below).

See the Dequterofi section for a script you can use to translate quterofi.toml files into regular python search engines. This is useful if you decide to switch back after trying quterofi for a while. It can also be used to declare search engines generated from a quterofi.toml file, without having to clone/download/install/use quterofi at all.

Dir structure

.
├── config.py
├── quickmarks
├── quterofi.toml
└── userscripts
    └── quterofi 
        ├── common
        ├── open
        ├── quteromarks
        └── switch_engine

Usage

Quterofi provides users with the open, quteromarks and switch_engine userscripts (common is a module providing utility functions to the other scripts)

Usage of the open userscript

quterofi/open is a replacement for the :open menu

quterofi/open [--newtab] [--string <arg>] [--invert] [--engines] [--history] [--quteromarks] [--autoaccept]

• Call with --newtab to use :open -t by default (It's also possible to switch later between open and open -t using -kb-custom-2)

• Call with --string <arg> to start writing with string ARG already set

• Call with --invert to treat the last word as a search engine alias. If your search string is hello world ddg, the underlying command will be :open ddg hello world, if and only if there is a search engine with alias ddg declared in your quterofi.toml file. This behavior is for -kb-accept-entry, you can also accept your entry with -kb-custom-2 for your string to be interpreted verbatim (:open hello world ddg).

• Call with --engines to open the engines menu directly (You can also enter this menu using -kb-custom-5 in the main menu)

• Call with --history to open the history menu directly (You can also enter this menu using -kb-custom-6 in the main menu)

• Call with --quteromarks to open the quteromarks menu directly (You can also enter this menu using -kb-custom-7 in the main menu).

• Call with --autoaccept for the search engine menu to automatically submit the :open comand instead of setting the search engine alias in the search string of the main menu.

Available keys when using the open menu

1. -kb-accept-entry (Any of Ctrl+j,Ctrl+m,Return,KP_Enter):

   • If you call quterofi/open with --invert, the last word in the search string will be used as a search engine (if and only if there is one with such alias). For example, if your search string is hello world ddg, the underlying open command will be :open ddg hello world. Alternatively, you can accept your entry with -kb-custom-1 for your string to be interpreted verbatim (:open hello world ddg)
   • If you call quterofi/open without --invert, -kb-accept-entry will :open your search string, verbatim.

2. -kb-cancel (Any of Escape,Control+g,Control+bracketleft):

   • Exit menu

3. -kb-custom-1 (Alt+j):

   • Accept entry as normal, without inversion. ddg hello -> :open ddg hello

4. -kb-custom-2 (Ctrl+o):

   • Switch between :open and :open -t without closing the menu or clearing user input.

5. -kb-custom-3 (Alt+o):

   • Set search string to be the current url. This is the same as calling spawn -u quterofi/open --string {url:pretty}

6. -kb-custom-4 (Alt+u):

   • Close menu, open the regular :open menu and set search string: :open <search_string> (search string is set verbatim, without inversion)

7. -kb-custom-5 (Alt+e):

   • Open submenu listing all search engines, pick one to be set in your search string. The choosen alias will be set at the end or beginning of your search string, depending on whether you are using --invert or not, and indepently of cursor position. If there is already a valid search engine set, quterofi will replace it instead of stacking a new one.

8. -kb-custom-6 (Alt+h):

   • Open submenu listing history items.

9. -kb-custom-7 (Any of Alt+q, Alt+m):

   • Open submenu listing quteromarks.

Usage of the quteromarks userscript

Call quterofi/quteromarks to open a menu allowing to use, create, update and delete quteromarks.

quterofi/quteromarks [--delete_no_confirmation] [--string <arg>]

• Call with --delete_no_confirmation to proceed deleting quteromarks without asking the user for confirmation.

• Call with --string <arg> to start writing with string ARG already set

The ^ automatically set on the input field is for the item list to filter out any item not starting with the text provided by the user after ^. You can leave it or remove it if you want the item list to include any item having your input present in any position of the item's name or url. If you keep it, quterofi/quteromarks will later ignore it, so using any of ^hello or hello will create a quteromark named hello.

Available keys when using the quteromarks menu

1. -kb-accept-entry (Any of Ctrl+j,Ctrl+m,Return,KP_Enter):

   • Open the selected/highlited quteromark .

2. -kb-custom-1 (Alt+d)

   • Delete the selected/highlighted item in the quteromark list. Text written in the user input field is irrelevant when using this menu to delete existing quteromarks.

3. -kb-custom-2 (Alt+r)

   • Rename the selected/highlighted item in the quteromark list. Text written in the user input field is irrelevant when using this menu to rename existing quteromarks.

4. -kb-custom-3 (Alt+c)

   • Create a new quteromark for the current url, using the written user input (the filter, in rofi terminology) as name/alias. If there is no filter/written user input, the selected/highlighted item is used to overwrite/update the existing quteromark.

Important note

Python's standard toml lib (tomllib) does not supports writing [source]. For this reason, quterofi/quteromarks uses regexes to delete, rename and overwrite quteromarks. This supports some weird cases like in the following example, but it's not meant to be bulletproof. Inside each individual [[quteromarks]] block empty lines are supported but lines with nothing but comments are not.

[[quteromarks]]

  alias  =  "foo"  # fooalias

  url  =  "https://foo.com/"  # foourl
  
  
[[quteromarks]]

  url  =  'https://bar.com/' # barurl
  # A COMMENT HERE IS NOT SUPPORTED!!!
  alias  =  'bar'  # baralias

In all cases (delete, rename, overwrite), the following expressions do the job:

(first_case_text, first_case_count) = re.subn(r'\[\[quteromarks\]\].*\n+ *alias *= *[\'"]' + alias + '[\'"].*\n+ *url *\=.*', "", text)
(second_case_text, second_case_count) = re.subn(r'\[\[quteromarks\]\].*\n+ *url *\=.*\n+ *alias *= *[\'"]' + alias + '[\'"].*', "", first_case_text)

Usage of the switch_engine userscript

Call quterofi/switch_engine to open a menu asking for the alias of a new search engine to open the search string present in your current url, if there is a matching engine for your current url. See examples below.

quterofi/switch_engine [--newtab] [--edit] [--main_invert] [--main_autoaccept]

• Call with --newtab to use :open -t instead of :open.
• Call with --edit to edit the search string and engine alias in the main menue.
• Call with --main_invert if you want --edit to call the main menu with --invert.
• Call with --main_autoaccept if you want --edit to call the main menu with --autoaccept.

Example 1 (without --edit)

• Current url: https://www.google.com/search?q=hello world
• New engine selected by calling quterofi/switch_engine: ghi.qr
• Automagically redirects to: https://github.com/cortsf/quterofi/issues?q=hello world

Example 2 (with --edit)

• Current url: https://www.google.com/search?q=hello world
• Calling quterofi/switch_engine with --edit will call quterofi/open with the string gl hello world or hello world gl if you use --main_invert in addition to --edit. This allows you to edit both the search engine and the search string.

Available keys when using the switch_engine menu

1. -kb-accept-entry (Any of Ctrl+j,Ctrl+m,Return,KP_Enter)
2. -kb-cancel' (Any of Escape,Control+g,Control+bracketleft)

Quterofi.toml (Engines & quteromarks)

Declare your search engines and quteromarks in quterofi.toml (See Dir structure) using this format.

This format allows users to create custom "templates" (quite an abstract concept in this context..) instructing quterofi how to generate search engines and quteromarks. Note that you can declare/define any variable to construct urls, except for alias which is reserved to be used exclusively to construct aliases, and it's in fact, mandatory to declare for every engine/quteromark declaration, and it's also the only variable available to construct aliases (This may change in the future allowing any variable name and number to be used both for urls and aliases).

Terminology

• Rules declare templates (Think of templates as the set of column names in an imaginary table, each {variable} used on a given rule declaring a column name, and each rule declaring a new template or imaginary table with a name). Multiple rules/templates can use the same template name.
• Each individual engine/quteromark declaration make use of one or many rule/template to insert a row on each of these imaginary table/s. This is done by providing a [[template_name]] which (as stated before) can be shared by many rules/templates.
• The information on each of these imaginary tables is used by quterofi to generate a list of engines and quteromarks, by replacing variables ({variables} in the toml rules, or column names on this imaginary table) with values (fields on this imaginary table)

Trivial example:

# Declare a single template/table:
[[engine_rules]]
er_template = "github_repos" #  <-- Give this template a (not necessarily unique) name (mandatory)
er_alias = "gh.{alias}"  # <-- Give this template the means to create aliases (mandatory)
er_url = "https://github.com/search?q=repo%3A{user}%2F{repo}+{}&type=issues" # <-- Give this template the means to create urls by later replacing any number of user-provided `{variables}` (mandatory).

# Insert a new row on this imaginary table:
[[github_repos]] # <-- Use the previously declared template name (mandatory)
alias = "lnx" # <-- Mandatory
user = "torvalds" # <-- Mandatory for this particular `[[engine_rules]]`
repo = "linux" # <-- Mandatory for this particular `[[engine_rules]]`

# Insert another row on this imaginary table:
[[github_repos]] # same 
alias = "qr" # same
user = "cortsf" # same
repo = "quterofi" #same

Imaginary table for this example:

{alias}	{user}	{repo}
lnx	torvalds	linux
qr	cortsf	quterofi

Resulting engines after replacing all {variables} with the information on the fields of this imaginary table:

{"gh.lnx":  "https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Atorvalds%2Flinux+{}&type=issues"}
{"gh.qr":   "https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Acortsf%2Fquterofi+{}&type=issues"}

Minimal working example

This rule is needed for quterofi/quteromarks to manage quteromarks using the provided UI

[[quteromark_rules]]
qr_template = "quteromarks"
qr_alias ="{alias}"
qr_url = "{url}"

Using the quterofi/quteromarks menu to create a new quteromark, will simply append the following code block, which depends on the previous [[quteromark_rules]] to work.

[[quteromarks]]
alias="new_quoteromark"
url="https://new_quteromark.com/"

Full example

Brief example skipping many useful rules like ghic, ghpc or ghd, for github closed issues, closed pulls and discussions, respectively. For brevity. See more github rules on this gist

## Engine rules
####################

[[engine_rules]]
er_template = "search_engines"
er_alias = "{alias}"
er_url = "{url}"

[[engine_rules]]
er_template = "wikipedia_languages"
er_alias ="wp.{alias}"
er_url = "https://{lang}.wikipedia.org/wiki/{}"

[[engine_rules]]
er_template = "github_repos"
er_alias = "gh.{alias}"
er_url = "https://github.com/search?q=repo%3A{user}%2F{repo}+{}&type=issues"

[[engine_rules]]
er_template = "github_repos"
er_alias ="ghi.{alias}"
er_url = "https://github.com/{user}/{repo}/issues?q={}"

[[engine_rules]] # Use this one to open individual issues, directly, by number.
er_template = "github_repos"
er_alias ="ghin.{alias}"
er_url = "https://github.com/{user}/{repo}/issues/{}"

[[engine_rules]]
er_template = "github_repos"
er_alias ="ghp.{alias}"
er_url = "https://github.com/{user}/{repo}/pulls?q={}"

[[engine_rules]] # Use this one to open individual pr's, directly, by number.
er_template = "github_repos"
er_alias ="ghpn.{alias}"
er_url = "https://github.com/{user}/{repo}/pull/{}"

## Quteromark rules
####################

[[quteromark_rules]]
qr_template = "quteromarks"
qr_alias ="{alias}"
qr_url = "{url}"

[[quteromark_rules]]
qr_template = "github_repos"
qr_alias ="gh.{alias}"
qr_url = "https://github.com/{user}/{repo}"

[[quteromark_rules]]
qr_template = "github_repos"
qr_alias ="ghi.{alias}"
qr_url = "https://github.com/{user}/{repo}/issues"

[[quteromark_rules]]
qr_template = "github_repos"
qr_alias ="ghp.{alias}"
qr_url = "https://github.com/{user}/{repo}/pulls"

## Search engines
####################

[[search_engines]]
alias = "ddg"
url = "https://duckduckgo.com/?q={}&ia=web"

[[search_engines]]
alias = "gl"
url = "https://www.google.com/search?q={}"

## Github repos
####################

[[quteromarks]]
alias="gh"
url="https://github.com/"

[[github_repos]]
alias = "qr"
user = "cortsf"
repo = "quterofi"

[[github_repos]]
alias = "lnx"
user = "torvalds"
repo = "linux"

## Wikipedia
####################

[[wikipedia_languages]]
alias = "en"
lang = "en"

[[wikipedia_languages]]
alias = "es"
lang = "es"

Resulting engines for the above quterofi.toml

{"ddg": "https://duckduckgo.com/?q={}&ia=web"}
{"gl": "https://www.google.com/search?q={}"}
{"wp.en": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/{}"}
{"wp.es": "https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/{}"}
{"gh.qr": "https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Acortsf%2Fquterofi+{}&type=issues"}
{"gh.lnx": "https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Atorvalds%2Flinux+{}&type=issues"}
{"ghi.qr": "https://github.com/cortsf/quterofi/issues?q={}"}
{"ghi.lnx": "https://github.com/torvalds/linux/issues?q={}"}
{"ghin.qr": "https://github.com/cortsf/quterofi/issues/{}"}
{"ghin.lnx": "https://github.com/torvalds/linux/issues/{}"}
{"ghp.qr": "https://github.com/cortsf/quterofi/pulls?q={}"}
{"ghp.lnx": "https://github.com/torvalds/linux/pulls?q={}"}
{"ghpn.qr": "https://github.com/cortsf/quterofi/pulls/{}"}
{"ghpn.lnx": "https://github.com/torvalds/linux/pulls/{}"}

Resulting quteromarks for the above quterofi.toml

{"gh": "https://github.com/"}
{"gh.qr": "https://github.com/cortsf/quterofi"}
{"ghi.qr": "https://github.com/cortsf/quterofi/issues"}
{"ghp.qr": "https://github.com/cortsf/quterofi/pulls"}
{"gh.lnx": "https://github.com/torvalds/linux"}
{"ghi.lnx": "https://github.com/torvalds/linux/issues"}
{"ghp.lnx": "https://github.com/torvalds/linux/pulls"}

In this particular example, the more [[github_repos]] you declare, the more you benefit since you'll have for free all of those rules using er_template = "github_repos" generating many (uniformly prefixed) engines and quteromarks for you.

Config

In your config.py include code below. Be sure to set <username>.

qbdir = "/home/<username>/.config/qutebrowser"

exec(open(qbdir + '/userscripts/quterofi/common').read())

with open(qbdir + "/quterofi.toml", "rb") as f:
    all_engines = parse_engines(tomllib.load(f))

for alias, url in all_engines.items():
    c.url.searchengines[alias] = url

Quterofi bindings

config.bind('o', 'spawn -u quterofi/open --invert --autoaccept')
config.bind('<Ctrl-o>', 'spawn -u quterofi/open --invert --newtab --autoaccept')
config.bind('<Shift-o>', 'spawn -u quterofi/open --invert --newtab --autoaccept')
config.bind('<Alt-o>', 'spawn -u quterofi/open --invert --string {url:pretty}')
config.bind('<Alt-Shift-o>', 'spawn -u quterofi/open --invert --newtab --string {url:pretty}')
config.bind('<Alt-h>', 'spawn -u quterofi/open --history')
config.bind('<Alt-Shift-h>', 'spawn -u quterofi/open --history --newtab')
config.bind('<Alt-q>', 'spawn -u quterofi/open --quteromarks')
config.bind('<Alt-Shift-q>', 'spawn -u quterofi/open --quteromarks --newtab')
config.bind(',o', 'spawn -u -m quterofi/switch_engine')
config.bind(',O', 'spawn -u -m quterofi/switch_engine --newtab')
config.bind(',e', 'spawn -u -m quterofi/switch_engine --edit --main_autoaccept')
config.bind(',E', 'spawn -u -m quterofi/switch_engine --edit --newtab --main_autoaccept')
config.bind(',y', 'mode-enter caret;;yank selection;;cmd-later 40 spawn -u -m quterofi/open --engines --autoaccept --string {clipboard}') # Use when searching text
config.bind(',y', 'yank selection;;cmd-later 40 spawn -u -m quterofi/open --engines --autoaccept --string {clipboard}', mode="caret")

Extra bindings

These are standard non-quterofi bindings that play well with the above keybindings.

config.bind("e", "cmd-set-text -s :open ")
config.bind("E", "cmd-set-text -s :open -t ")
config.bind("<Alt-e>", "cmd-set-text -s :open {url:pretty}")
config.bind("<Alt-Shift-e>", "cmd-set-text -s :open -t {url:pretty}")

External launcher

#!/usr/bin/env bash

export QUTE_CONFIG_DIR="$HOME/.config/qutebrowser"
export QUTE_FIFO="/tmp/quterofi_launcher_fifo"
> "$QUTE_FIFO"
"$QUTE_CONFIG_DIR"/userscripts/quterofi/open "$@"
[[ -n "$(cat "$QUTE_FIFO")" ]] && qutebrowser "$(cat "$QUTE_FIFO")"
rm "$QUTE_FIFO"

You may want to add some (system-dependent..) code to switch window focus automatically.

Emacs

This function opens the quterofi/open script showing the list of search engines. As soon as you pick one, it will use this engine to search the text inside the emacs region, or the word-at-point, if there is no active region.

This function needs the External launcher.

(defun quterofi () (interactive)
       (shell-command (format "/path/to/quterofi_launcher.sh --newtab --engines --autoaccept --string %s" 
			      (if (use-region-p)
				  (buffer-substring (mark) (point))
				  (word-at-point)
				)
			      )
		      )
       )

Helper scripts

Dequterofi

Use this script to translate quterofi.toml files into python code you can source or paste in your config.py. Needs toml2json and jq available on $PATH to work.

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# USAGE: decuterofi.sh /path/to/quterofi.toml > engines.py
# DEPS: toml2json, jq

json="$(toml2json "$1")"

echo "$json" | jq -r '.engine_rules.[] | .er_template + " " + .er_alias + " " + .er_url' | while IFS=' ' read -r er_template er_alias er_url; do
    url_variables="$(echo "$er_url" | grep -o '{[a-zA-Z0-9]*}' | grep -v "{}" | tr -d "{}")"
    while read -r engine_item; do
	if [ -n "$engine_item" ]; then 
	    new_url="$er_url"
	    new_alias="$(echo "${er_alias}" | sed "s/{alias}/$(echo "$engine_item" | jq -r .alias)/")"
	    while read -r url_var; do
		new_url="$(echo "${new_url}" | sed "s|{${url_var}}|$(echo "$engine_item" | jq -r ."${url_var}" | sed 's/&/\\\&/g')|")"
	    done  <<<"$url_variables"
	    echo "c.url.searchengines[\"$new_alias\"] = \"$new_url\""
	fi
    done <<<"$(echo "$json" | jq -c ".${er_template}[]?")"
done

For the above Example, this program produces the following engines:

c.url.searchengines["ddg"] = "https://duckduckgo.com/?q={}&ia=web"
c.url.searchengines["gl"] = "https://www.google.com/search?q={}"
c.url.searchengines["wp.en"] = "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/{}"
c.url.searchengines["wp.es"] = "https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/{}"
c.url.searchengines["gh.qr"] = "https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Acortsf%2Fquterofi+{}&type=issues"
c.url.searchengines["gh.lnx"] = "https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Atorvalds%2Flinux+{}&type=issues"
c.url.searchengines["ghi.qr"] = "https://github.com/cortsf/quterofi/issues?q={}"
c.url.searchengines["ghi.lnx"] = "https://github.com/torvalds/linux/issues?q={}"
c.url.searchengines["ghin.qr"] = "https://github.com/cortsf/quterofi/issues/{}"
c.url.searchengines["ghin.lnx"] = "https://github.com/torvalds/linux/issues/{}"
c.url.searchengines["ghp.qr"] = "https://github.com/cortsf/quterofi/pulls?q={}"
c.url.searchengines["ghp.lnx"] = "https://github.com/torvalds/linux/pulls?q={}"
c.url.searchengines["ghpn.qr"] = "https://github.com/cortsf/quterofi/pull/{}"
c.url.searchengines["ghpn.lnx"] = "https://github.com/torvalds/linux/pull/{}"

Source from engines.py with:

config.source('./engines.py')

Or just copy the contents inside your config.py

Translate standard qb quickmarks file into quteromarks

#!/usr/bin/env bash

cat "$1" |  while read -r line; do
    echo -e "\n[[quteromarks]]" >> quteromarks.toml
    echo -e "alias=\"$(echo "$line" | sed 's/ [^ ]*//')\"" >> quteromarks.toml
    echo -e "url=\"$(echo "$line" | awk '{print $NF}')\"" >> quteromarks.toml
done

This script will write quteromarks into quteromarks.toml, to prevent user from (potentially..) making accidental mistakes. Once the conversion is done, verify and copy the contents of this file into quterofi.toml, since quterofi (for now) only supports this file. See Dir structure.