path: root/README

                               ==========
                                 lariza
                               ==========


A simple web browser using GTK+ 2, GLib and WebKitGTK+.

Features:

    - A WebKit viewport
    - An input box to change the URI or to search the current page
    - Built-in launching of suckless' tabbed
    - Built-in adblock
    - Built-in download manager
    - Optimized hotkeys: Left hand on keyboard, right hand on mouse
    - Keyword based searching: Opening "wi foo" will search wikipedia
    - Global content zoom
    - View source mode
    - Cooperative instances using FIFOs
    - Support for Flash and Java


==============
About the name
==============

"lariza" stems from a german sentence:

    Alle anderen waren mir zu anstrengend.
     l   a         r    i  z  a

That phrase basically means: "It was too tiresome to deal with any other
browser." I couldn't find a simple browser that does just what I need.
Most of them are utterly bloated, others lack essential functions. Thus,
I was forced to write scripts and tools and stuff to deal with these
issues. That is what was tiresome. I don't want to work around bugs or
nonsensical behavior anymore.

So, I wrote my own browser^W WebKit GUI. WebKit does all the dirty work.


================================
What lariza is and what it's not
================================

lariza does what I need. It won't do other things. I'm open for pull
requests but please don't be upset if I turn them down -- which might
happen if it's a feature that I simply don't need.

Especially, it's very likely that lariza will never have a "follow
mode" like dwb, luakit or others have. I've used these browsers for
quite some time and I've also used Firefox extensions that add a "follow
mode". The point is, "follow mode" doesn't work anymore. This was a good
thing ten years ago. Today, a lot of websites make heavy use of
JavaScript or hovering. You NEED some kind of pointing device. I found
using "follow mode" to be very frustrating today, because you still have
to reach for the mouse all the time. So, you might as well just optimize
your mousing workflow.

lariza does not compete with powerful browsers like dwb or luakit, nor
with monstrous applications like Firefox or Chromium. lariza won't have
persistent storage, nor a plugin system, nor cloud sync, nor bookmarks.

lariza tries not to exceed 1000 lines of code.


========================
Using lariza with tabbed
========================

By default, lariza automatically launches an instance of suckless'
tabbed.

You can turn this feature off (see command line arguments) or you can
specify a command line argument to embed lariza in an arbitrary
container (XEMBED). Note that lariza will also automatically embed new
windows in the same container.

When using the automatically launched tabbed instance, you can't use
tabbed's Ctrl + Shift + Return hotkey. This is because tabbed is
launched with "-d", so it knows nothing about lariza. However, lariza
provides its own hotkey to launch a new window which will be embedded in
the same instance of tabbed.


=======
Hotkeys
=======

Main windows

    When the WebKit viewport is focused:

        Mod1 + q
            Close the current window.

        Mod1 + w
            Go to your "homepage". See the environment variable
            $LARIZA_HOME_URI.

        Mod1 + e
            Open a new window.

        Mod1 + s
            Toggles "view source mode". This will display the web pages
            source code. Note that the page will be reloaded (which is
            annoying but WebKit enforces this).

        Mod1 + r
            Reload the current page.

        Mod1 + d
            Open the download manager.

        Mod1 + l
            Focus the location bar.

        Mod1 + k
            Focus the location bar and set its text to "/", allowing you
            to easily initiate a search.

        Mod1 + 2  or  Mod1 + n
            Repeat the last search (forward).

        Mod1 + 3
            Repeat the last search (backward).

        Escape
            Stop loading.

        Middle mouse
            Open the link under the pointer in a new window.

        Backward / forward (mouse keys 8 and 9)
            Does the obvious.

        Mod1 + Wheel up  or  Ctrl + Wheel up
            Increase zoom level of the current page.

        Mod1 + Wheel down  or  Ctrl + Wheel down
            Decrase zoom level of the current page.


    When the location bar is focused:

        Mod1 + q
            Close the current window.

        Mod1 + d
            Open the download manager.

        Mod1 + r
            Reload the current page.

        Mod1 + k
            Reset the content of the location bar to "/".

        Escape
            Reset the content of the location bar to the current URI.

        Return
            "Commit", i.e. begin searching, do a keyword based search or
            open the URI.


Download manager

    Mod1 + d
        Close the download manager (downloads are not aborted).


======================
Command line arguments
======================

Usage:

    lariza [OPTION]... [URI]...

In addition to the standard arguments of GTK+ 2, lariza knows about the
following options:

    -e <wid>
        Embeds the main window and all newly created windows in the
        window specified by <wid>. The download manager is always a
        "popup".

    -r
        Print all navigation requests on STDERR.

    -C
        Disables cooperative instances.

    -T
        Disables automatic launching of suckless' tabbed.

After these options there can be any number of URIs. If no URIs are
given, $LARIZA_HOME_URI will be opened.


=====================
Environment variables
=====================

In addition to the standard variables of GTK+ 2, lariza knows about the
following environment variables:

    LARIZA_ACCEPTED_LANGUAGE
        In HTTP requests, WebKit sets the "Accepted-Language" header to
        this value. Defaults to "en-US".

    LARIZA_DOWNLOAD_DIR
        All downloads are automatically stored in this directory.
        Defaults to "/tmp".

    LARIZA_FIFO_SUFFIX
        Cooperative instances are implemented using a named pipe in the
        file system. The name of this pipe usually is (at least on
        modern systems following XDG "standards"):

            /var/run/user/$UID/lariza.fifo-$LARIZA_FIFO_SUFFIX

        $UID is the id of your user. $LARIZA_FIFO_SUFFIX defaults to
        "main". If you change this variable, you can launch several
        independent cooperative instances of lariza.

    LARIZA_HOME_URI
        This URI will be opened by pressing the appropriate hotkeys
        ("homepage" or "new window") and if no URIs are specified on the
        command line. Defaults to "about:blank".

    LARIZA_USER_AGENT
        Lariza will identify itself with this string. See source code
        for the default value.

    LARIZA_ZOOM
        Zoom level for WebKit viewports. Defaults to 1.0.


=======
Adblock
=======

lariza has built-in adblock functionality. In each line of

    ~/.config/lariza/adblock.black

you can store a regular expression. These expressions match
case-insensitive and partially, i.e. ".*foo.*" is the same as ".*FOO.*"
and you can use anchors like "^https?://...".

Lines starting with "#" are ignored.


=======================
Keyword based searching
=======================

In this file, you can configure keywords and the associated URIs:

    ~/.config/lariza/keywordsearch

Each line has to look like this:

    wi https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&search=%s

"wi" is the keyword, so when opening "wi foo", lariza will search in
Wikipedia. Note the "%s" at the end of the URI: This is where your
search term will be placed.

Lines starting with "#" are ignored.


================
Download manager
================

Open the download manager using the appropriate hotkey. A new window
listing your downloads will appear. Clicking on an item will remove it
from the list and -- if needed -- cancel the download.

There's no file manager integration (I don't use one), nor does lariza
delete, overwrite or resume downloads. If a file already exists, it
won't be touched. Instead, the new file name will have a suffix such as
".1", ".2", ".3" and so on.


====================
WebKit local storage
====================

WebKit does create files in your $XDG_* directories, i.e. ~/.local/share
or ~/.cache. It's up to you what you want to do with this junk. I remove
it regularly when no WebKit browser is running. Another option would be
to change the $XDG_* variables.

I have explicitly not turned off the local storage feature in WebKit
because I don't know if this breaks web applications.


============
Dependencies
============

lariza needs the following Arch Linux packages:

    - gtk2
    - webkitgtk2


==========
Literature
==========

API references:

    - http://webkitgtk.org/reference/webkitgtk/stable/index.html
    - https://developer.gnome.org/gtk2/stable/index.html
    - https://developer.gnome.org/glib/stable/index.html

Regular expressions supported by GRegex, you can use these in your
adblock patterns:

    - https://developer.gnome.org/glib/stable/glib-regex-syntax.html