Handler/Tool for .URL Files Needed

[SubjectEgo]

I have countless .URL files, which I need to have ready access to. However, I cannot open these in any browser I currently use.

I need either a way of opening these files in Firefox (preferred browser), without relying on additional software.
OR, I need a tool to convert .URL files into .WEBLOC files, or a similar file type.

I’d much rather keep the .URL files, so that they may be readily accessible on that other Operating System, if needed.

If anybody has a solution for this dilemma, I send my thanks in advance. I appreciate any help offered.

Thanks,
Jeremy N.

[kai]

You could try digging out the link data from the file, Jeremy.

I don’t use Firefox, and I’ve only tested on files that Safari can handle anyway - but this might get you started:

set l to read (choose file of type {"LINK"})
set d to text item delimiters
set text item delimiters to "URL="
if (count l's text items) is 2 then open location paragraph 1 of l's text item 2
set text item delimiters to d

If the choose file command won’t allow access to your files, then you could try skipping the filter. Just change the first line to:

set l to read (choose file)

If Firefox isn’t actually your default browser, try changing the fourth line to:

if (count l’s text items) is 2 then tell application “Firefox” to open location paragraph 1 of l’s text item 2

[Mikey-San]

I wrote a converter for this. You need to save this shell script and call it with the AppleScript below it:

#!/bin/sh

michael watson wrote this in the early hours of the morning. bug hunters dive in.

ping him at [org dot bungie at mikey-san] if you have improvements.

this script converts a windows .URL file to a Mac OS X .webloc file. the output

is saved as “originalfilename”.webloc, in the same directory as the original file.

usage:

winurl2webloc file1

example:

mikey$ ./winurl2webloc.sh SOMEFILE.URL

ls .

SOMEFILE.URL

SOMEFILE.webloc

basename=/usr/bin/basename
echo=/bin/echo
grep=/usr/bin/grep
sed=/usr/bin/sed

capture the input file name

dosFile=“$1”

construct output file name

weblocFileName=$basename "$1" | $sed -e 's/\.[Uu][Rr][Ll]$//'“.webloc”

convert DOS line endings

unixStreamFromDOSFile=$sed -e 's/.$//g' "$dosFile"

rip out the URL line and remove “URL=” from the beginning

extractedURL=echo "$unixStreamFromDOSFile" | $grep -E '^URL=' | $sed -e 's/^URL=//'

if $extractedURL is a zero-length string, we didn’t get a URL out of the extraction

operation, and we quit instead of writing a new file to disk

if [ -z “$extractedURL” ]
then
$echo “URL not found in input file.”
exit 1
fi

format of webloc files

convertedWeblocString="<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\"?>

<plist version="1.0">

URL
$extractedURL

"

write the new .webloc file

$echo “$convertedWeblocString” > “$weblocFileName”

And now the AppleScript portion of dinner:

on run
set theFile to (choose file with prompt "Choose a Windows .URL file to convert into a Mac OS X .webloc file.")
tell application "System Events" to set parentForFile to (path of (container of theFile))
set {theFileAsPOSIX, parentForTheFileAsPOSIX} to {(POSIX path of theFile), (POSIX path of parentForFile)}
do shell script "cd" & space & quoted form of parentForTheFileAsPOSIX & space & "; /path/to/script/winurl2webloc.sh" & space & quoted form of theFileAsPOSIX
end run

You can easily augment this to be a droplet where it loops through multiple .URL files and creates .webloc files. I do the “get path to parent of file” operation in the AppleScript, because the shell script itself doesn’t need it (and I didn’t want to add it there in case someone wanted to run it inside Terminal).

Droplet example:

on open theFiles
repeat with theFile in theFiles
tell application "System Events" to set parentForFile to (path of (container of theFile))
set {theFileAsPOSIX, parentForTheFileAsPOSIX} to {(POSIX path of theFile), (POSIX path of parentForFile)}
do shell script "cd" & space & quoted form of parentForTheFileAsPOSIX & space & "; /path/to/winurl2webloc.sh" & space & quoted form of theFileAsPOSIX
end repeat
end open

I recommend putting the script in ~/bin/winurl2webloc.sh and calling it from there. Just a handy place to keep it.