[SOLVED] changing home page url for firefox using script

kushalkoolwal · 03-15-2010, 12:00 PM

My Debian Lenny's Firefox prefs.js file looks like this:

kushalk@debian:~$ cat .mozilla/firefox/htk03tiv.default/prefs.js

Code:

user_pref("app.update.lastUpdateTime.addon-background-update-timer", 1268425047);
user_pref("app.update.lastUpdateTime.background-update-timer", 1268425047);
user_pref("app.update.lastUpdateTime.blocklist-background-update-timer", 1268425047);
user_pref("app.update.lastUpdateTime.microsummary-generator-update-timer", 1268252135);
user_pref("app.update.lastUpdateTime.search-engine-update-timer", 1268425047);
user_pref("browser.migration.version", 1);
user_pref("browser.places.importBookmarksHTML", false);
user_pref("browser.places.importDefaults", false);
user_pref("browser.places.leftPaneFolderId", -1);
user_pref("browser.places.migratePostDataAnnotations", false);
user_pref("browser.places.smartBookmarksVersion", 1);
user_pref("browser.places.updateRecentTagsUri", false);
user_pref("browser.rights.3.shown", true);
user_pref("browser.startup.homepage", "http://www.abc.com");
user_pref("browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone", "rv:1.9.0.18");
user_pref("extensions.enabledItems", "{972ce4c6-7e08-4474-a285-3208198ce6fd}:3.0.6");
user_pref("extensions.lastAppVersion", "3.0.6");
user_pref("intl.charsetmenu.browser.cache", "ISO-8859-1, UTF-8");
user_pref("network.cookie.prefsMigrated", true);
user_pref("spellchecker.dictionary", "en_US");
user_pref("urlclassifier.keyupdatetime.https://sb-ssl.google.com/safebrowsing/newkey", 1270236515);

Now I am trying to set the home page i.e. browser.startup.homepage variable (in red color) with my own URL using a script. Here is what I am trying to do but it is not working:

Code:

sed -r 's/*.browser.startup.homepage.*$/user_pref("browser.startup.homepage", "http://example.com");/' .mozilla/firefox/$profile/prefs.js >
prefs.js.temp

Note that the in the original file (prefs.js), the URL could be set to *anything* and not necessarily www.abc.com. So I need to search for the variable user_pref("browser.startup.homepage" and then set the entire line with my own supplied line (with the desired URL).

Thanks

pixellany · 03-15-2010, 12:25 PM

Not tested:

Code:

sed '/startup\.homepage/s/"http:[^"]/"http:\/\/my\.own\.url"/' oldfile > newfile

Note that:
1. Literal "." needs to be escaped
2. If "/" is the sed s delimiter, then literal "/" needs to be escaped.
3. I **think** literal double-quotes are OK inside single qoutes, but you need to test to be sure.
4. If you want the replacement to be the content of a variable, Then the whole sed command string needs to be in double-quotes. In this event, the other double-qouotes will definitely need to be escaped.

smoker · 03-15-2010, 12:27 PM

Why not create a user.js file in the profile directory with the one line in it.

user_pref("browser.startup.homepage", "http://www.abc.com");

https://developer.mozilla.org/En/A_B...ng_preferences

catkin · 03-15-2010, 12:34 PM

Are you changing prefs.js when FF is running or not? FF dumps its current configuration into prefs.js when it closes.

When you write "it is not working", do you mean your script is not changing the line or that it does change the line (in which case it does not matter whether your script it or edit it manually) but when you next start FF the home page is not changed?

kushalkoolwal · 03-15-2010, 12:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smoker

https://developer.mozilla.org/En/A_B...ng_preferences

Yes that's a good solution too. I didn't know about user.js until now... Thanks smoker...