[Alpine-info] URLs

[Andrew C Aitchison via Alpine-info]

On Tue, 20 Jan 2026, sasa via Alpine-info wrote:


> Is there any simple way to get links in html document simply to

> display so I can cut and paste them into a browser?

>

> The best I can do is to define a fake URL viewer so that it asks

> "View selected URL "...

>

> Ideally it wouldn't waste screen width with "View selected URL

> "... and it would use the full width of the screen so I can grab

> those insanely long links that seem to be the bane of my email.

>

> In a perfect world it would also automatically offer a shortened

> version to aid copy-paste.

>

> I absolutely do not want to run a browser from alpine (which is

> running on a remote text terminal only server).


What is running at the local end ?

I set url-viewers to (a script which runs)
     tty-copy
(not part of Ubuntu, but available at https://github.com/jirutka/tty-copy).

On terminals which support OSC 52*, this puts the URL into the copy-paste
buffer, so that you go to the local browser URL bar and paste.

*Some terminal programs support OSC 52, some do not, since allowing a 
remote program to set your paste text has security implications, as a rogue
program could leave you one click from running a command of their choice
in a shell window.

-- 
Andrew C. Aitchison                      Kendal, UK
                    andrew at aitchison.me.uk