I currently manually open HTML files using Brave Browser and print the files to pdf files. I want to automate this process in the command line. Is there a way to do it? Since Brave is based on chromium, solutions based on chromium and google-chrome are also welcome.
This is a common use for calling the executable in headless or kiosk modes.
Your milage may vary compared to running heads up with a robotic puppet to press buttons for you, but more often than not is so much simpler for every day basic use in a batch file for multiple uses it is a second or so for each pdf generation.
Edge is not different to Brave or Chromium's so find the executable and append here using windows user folder
--headless --enable-logging --print-to-pdf="%UserProfile%\Documents\Demofile.pdf" --disable-extensions --print-to-pdf-no-header --disable-popup-blocking --run-all-compositor-stages-before-draw --disable-checker-imaging "HTTPs://url"
So darn quick I did not know it had run until opening the result, however note it needs the target to not pop-up blockers like google does, hence next step up is a button pusher to replace you by eating cookies.
Related
I am working on a local project (read: offline) and I am trying to get Brackets' live preview to work since it comes in handy quite often.
Right now I have opened my project files using Brackets' "open file" option since it supposedly maps the path to the source files. Although I am getting an error saying In order for Live Preview to connect, Chrome needs to be relaunched with remote debugging enabled.
I have read else where that Chrome, by default, does not need to be relaunched for that change and that Brackets force this flag by itself.
I have tried reinstalling Brackets, launching with another project and searched all over Chrome for this flag and did not find any thing.
Any tips?
This page shows you how to instal remote debugging! It's a Chrome dev tool. It's geared towards android apps for whatever reason, but I had that same error, and following the instructions on that page helped me launch the brackets page.
If that doesn't work, here are some troubleshooting tips that have helped me out with live preview:
1) Make sure your filename has a .html at the end
2) Use different browser (I've found chrome to be a bit finicky with brackets)
3) Make a different blank file, launch that, then launch the file
Open the folder, not the file, and then select the file.
I'm trying to debug some JavaScript for a Rails project and its incredibly frustrating to go line by line when the source code is compressed in the Sources developer tab.
I know this compression is done by Chrome through the body variable. What I want to know is if there is any way to stop Chrome from compressing files in source view, i.e:
\application.js?body=1 --> \application.js
Thank you for your time.
Compression is being done by Rails. Disable it in your configuration:
# config/production.rb (or whatever environment you're in)
config.assets.compress = false
You might want to investigate a new feature in Chrome called Source Maps.
Source Maps allows Chrome to map the compressed source code it receives to the uncompressed original, which in turn means that you can debug the code, even though it's been compressed.
This feature should help you get around this kind of problem without having to change the compression settings on your server.
You can read more about it here: http://blog.mascaraengine.com/news/2012/4/16/sourcemap-support-in-chrome-greatly-improves-debugging.html
I believe this feature is still in test and not yet in the final release version of Chrome. I'm sure it will arrive in due course, but for the time being you may need to install the "Canary" version of Chrome, ie the pre-release version that includes all the forthcoming features that they're still working on.
I am currently beginning a project where we want to build an Interactive Whiteboard (educational activities) and deploy via CD-ROM. I want to build the project in HTML5 for it's interactivity and then somehow compile it to both .exe. and .dmg so when the CD-ROM is inserted it autoplays the 'Game'.
How is this possible? Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
I already made a project using pure C (WinAPI) on github that can pack HTML files into single EXE using resources.
http://github.com/dns/WinAPI-Embed-Browser/releases
Use: res://programname.exe/test.html as path to access html files from your EXE file.
From here you also can hide the window border & just showing the content of your HTML app, or even running on fullscreen. This is very useful if you want to make interactive CD-ROM.
On Mac, you can use Delphi/Lazarus TWebBrowser control to load html files. However I don't know if mac program can access files from resource or not.
HTML 5 is a browser technology, so I think as long as the pc you are installing on has the latest browsers, installing your app should work fine.
Can you tell us why you want it as a CD-ROM based installation, where as you can easily host it online?
You may not need any .exe wrapping. Here is an approach.
Important: your autorun will be often disabled, [not so] quietly. Provide some instructions for running your application manually.
So:
Google for running a portable version of Firefox or Chrome from a CD. Have the browser prepared. Put it in a [sub]directory representing your CD.
Put your content there.
Create a .cmd file to invoke the browser with a command like,
FirefoxPortable.exe index.html
Create autorun.inf (details googlable) to call the above batch file.
Make a CD image from that directory. There are lots of CD burning applications that can do that.
Test.
We are trying to distribute a basic HTML file with some links to a PDF document in a USB drive for advertising purposes. The idea is that an autorun opens up this HTML in the default browser. However, this might not be a good idea since it would look very amateur-ish and we will have to rely on the default browser's technology (which unfortunately has a good chance on being IE6/7!)
We've explored a few alternatives, but we can't find one that really fits what we are trying to achieve:
Mozilla Prism
Altough it seems like it's designed with offline web apps in mind, the executable creates files in the user's AppData directory and it's hard to configure the default paths. Also, Firefox doesn't have a default PDF viewer, so we will have to depend on the user's default PDF viewer (which might be Adobe Reader)
Mozilla Chromeless
Since Prism is inactive, the idea is still developing with Chromeless, which allows the developer to create the browser interface with basic HTML/JS/CSS. The main issue here is that somehow the build isn't loading HTML, all that's showing is a gray iframe. I'm not sure if it's just me, because there's nothing on the issues page.
Portable App
We could throw in the portable version of Firefox or Chrome and customize the XUL for Firefox or open Chrome in app mode.
Firefox's advantage is that it kind of supports relative paths (resource://), but it doesn't have a built-in PDF viewer. Chrome has a very good and lightweight PDF viewer and the built-in app mode is a very useful feature for us, but I can't find how to open a local path without the usual absolute path (file:///C:/) since we don't know what's the drive's letter.
Has anyone figure out how to handle this kind of issues? Thanks.
This has been asked three years ago, but it's unanswered, listed high in Google, and I stumbled over the exact same problem and can imagine that many others that seek to ship portable web apps that can be run locally and with a minimum of dependencies will encounter this issue, too.
The solution I am now going with is the node-webkit.
You can treat it like a portable version of chrome, however it excepts a relative path to your app's entry point, is about 40 MB smaller, and much more customizable than the --app mode of chrome (which isn't customizable at all if I remember correctly).
Github & Download:
https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit#downloads
An extensive guide:
http://thejackalofjavascript.com/getting-started-with-node-webkit-apps/
My usage suggestion for Windows:
First create an app package as explained in the guide linked above
For the node-wekit to load with your app, you need to start it like this:
nw.exe app.package
Where nw.exe is in the root of the zipped folder you downloaded and app.package is a zip file (can have any name) that contains your app data and package.json.
To do this silently, you can use a BAT file containing the (amended) call above and a VBS file containing something like this:
CreateObject("Wscript.Shell").Run "cmd /c launchNW.bat", 0, true
launchNW.bat being the name of your BAT file. Now run the VBS file; a window containing your web app should pop up without the command window appearing with it.
Finish reading the linked guide to learn more about customization options to do things like hiding the browser UI etc.
I'm trying to automate packaging of the Chrome extension on Windows and according to the documentation, it is this command:
[path]\chrome.exe --pack-extension=c:\myext --pack-extension-key=c:\myext.pem --no-message-box
However this command results in a new browser window and no action is performed. I tried other switches like --version or --help but it seems that Chrome is ignoring all of this. Do others have the same issue? What am I doing wrong? I also tried various quoting and with no other browser window open but I haven't been able to make this work.
Update: I'm happy to learn that the new Chrome 8 has fixed this issue.
The answer is present in one of the comments. I am reposting the answer verbatim here:
You can try one of the scripts to pack
an extension at
https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/crx#scripts
– by Na7coldwater
You'll need to close all chrome windows before the command line pack extension command will work.
I raised this bug with the chrome team some time ago (http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=22901) but it's not quite fixed yet. This can be somewhat frustrating because (as michaelhermannweber pointed out) "Since we're fans of Chrome, obviously Chrome is already open!"
I even tried to use a separate instance of the chrome executable to build the extension, but alas no luck on that front either :(
For now, AFAICT you have to do it manually via the pack extension button on the chrome://extensions page.
You might manage to build a script that closes all open chrome windows, builds the extension, and then re-opens chrome. But I doubt that it would be worth it given the number of tab users like to keep open.