Foxy

A Firefox launcher that opens Firefox on the correct desktop.

This script is used to open Firefox on the correct screen. By default, Firefox will open new tabs in the most recent Firefox instance, even if it exists on a different virtual desktop. This script fixes this by checking if there is an instance of Firefox open on the current desktop, and if not, adds the --new-window argument to Firefox.

Windows will only allow you to set the default browser to an executable, so this script is called by foxy.exe, which is a compiled AutoHotkey script, that calls the Python script. At one point I had it all bundled into an exe using pyinstaller, but this took too long to run, so I stuck with the current setup.

The icon used if the Firefox logo from 2005-2009, I wanted it to be distinguishable from the current Firefox logo, but still be Firefox. I also prefer it to the current logo.

This script only works on Windows because it is used to fix a Windows specific problem.

Dependencies

To run the script, you need Python, which can be downloaded from python.org. The following Python libraries are required:

• pyvda
• psutil

To compile the exe, you need AutoHotkey, which can be downloaded from AutoHotkey.com.

How to use

• Clone or download this repository to a desired location. You should decide on the final location of this repository before you proceed because if you set an app as a default app, then move it, it leaves ghosts.
• To compile the script, right click on foxy.ahkand selectCompile script (GUI). Select the icon you want and press compile.
• Change the value of FIREFOX_DIRECTORY in main.py if Firefox in installed in a location different to C:\\Program Files\\Mozilla Firefox.
• In Windows settings, go to Apps > Default apps, search for Firefox, for each entry select Choose an app on your PC and select foxy.exe.
• after compiling, foxy.exe and main.py are required to be kept in the same directory.
• If you use Wox, the plugins Browser Bookmarks, URL and Web search all work with foxy.exe To set this up, in Wox settings, select each of these plugins, next to Please set your browser path: press Choose and then find foxy.exe. Make sure to set Open bookmark in: to New tab otherwise it will not work properly.

Removing ghosts

If you decide to move foxy.exe, you may need to do some steps to remove the ghosts left in the default apps menu, I used Default Programs Editor, which can be downloaded at defaultprogramseditor.com.